FROM THE TBR PILE TO THE NTBR PILE

For the last six months or so, I’ve been more strategic than I was before not only about deciding which books I want to read but also about reading them.

Read more

FINDING A WRITING TOPIC

I expect to receive a book in the mail tomorrow. It’s a used copy of After Montaigne, a collection of essays by contemporary writers, each of whom takes as inspiration one of Montaigne’s essays and writes something on the theme of that essay.

Read more

READING PLAN: DECEMBER 2023 THROUGH FEBRUARY 2024

Another quarter; another reading plan. (Cf. 2023 Books of Summer and Reading Plan: September through November 2023.

Read more

SEPTEMBER TO NOVEMBER READING

I’ve been a bit slow to write about my reading for the three month period ending in November (Reading Plan: September through November 2023); I’m finally getting to that now.

Read more

TO DIE IS TO PASS INTO FICTION

Hilary Mantel:
As soon as we die, we enter into fiction. Just ask two different family members to tell you about someone recently gone and you will see what I mean.

Read more

EMERGING MYSTERIES WITH AGING

Aldous Huxley:
… do you feel, as I do, that the older one gets, the more unutterably mysterious, unlikely and totally implausible one’s own life and the universe at large steadily become?

Read more