Recent posts tagged reading
2023
Shelf Lives (September 2023 Edition)
Another year, another round of book purging from my collection. What stays and what goes, and why?
The Lessons Of Contempt
On recognizing and curtailing contempt culture.
2022
Input/Output
When is "Write the story you want to read" not good advice? When you're not much of a reader.
Toss It In Your Satchel
One of the many things the proliferation of the smartphone seems to have killed is the Beloved Weatherbeaten Paperback.
Looking Onto Other Pages
"When everyone in the community reads the same books, you can an inward-looking, intellectually impoverished community that can only contemplate its own navel."
2021
Too Cultivated For My Own Good
One thing I've long hated about myself is how picky I've become when it comes to my tastes in fiction.
2020
Minimal Headwordspace
2020 just about killed my enthusiasm for reading, which was finicky to begin with.
Another Life Touched
Depth of connection with an audience, even an audience of six, always wins out over sheer numbers.
Recommended Reading In Difficult Times, Pt. 1 / ?
Since many of you are stuck indoors right now and going a little stir crazy, I have some nonfiction reading suggestions that shed light on our moment from different directions.
The Burden Of Being Enthusiastic
I'm way behind on everything these days, and the biggest reason for that is there's just so much more of everything. But it's no crime to miss out, is it?
2019
Book Your Own Life!
How the Open Library, digital resources, and my own reading habits have changed my bookbuying.
The Best Of The Best Of The Best
The more I try to parse it, the more this business of best-of, of ranking things, seems a consumerist attitude.
Smother Me In Fun
So much media, so little time. Again.
Feeding Your Head (Pt. Three Thousand & Six)
I'd rather have people sincerely interested in things, whatever cultural level they live at, than be wannabe tastemakers forever jonesing to expand their reach.
Back To Zero, Again And Again
The thrill of breaking the 120-minute barrier | Roger Ebert's Journal | Roger Ebert
Bibliophile's Lament
The joys and tribulations of the Open Library.
The Case For Preferring Older Books
You miss out on less than you think.
The Pile That Never Shrinks
How the Open Library is keeping me from drowning in books.
The Reading Prescription
On recommending books as a way for authors to get perspective on a current or future work of their own.
2018
Unknown Treasures
One of the things I always hated about myself was how I was, in theory, supposed to be this gigantic SF nerd, and as it turns out I really wasn't.
Don't Write What You Know, Write How You Know It
Looking at two bits of reading and writing advice from Saul Bellow.
That Pile On The Nightstand
The overwhelming majority of what I'm genuinely curious about reading has been nonfiction. I hate that.
Bailout Protocol
When is it OK to quit reading a "boring" book?
It's A Living
If written fiction's becoming nothing but a prelude to adaptation, what's that mean for written fiction itself?
2017
Endtable Pile, Continued
More notes on getting caught up with the state of SF&F.
