books

In 2024, I “read” – mostly listened to – far fewer books than in 2023. (Here’s last year’s list) Reasons include: Youtube addiction Listened to more podcasts Watched more TV (It’s Apple TV+’s fault for producing too many great shows… “Silo,” “Slow Horses,” “Lessons in Chemistry,” “Mythic Quest,” “Shrinking,” “Severance,” “The Morning Show,” “Masters of the Air,” “Dark Matter,” For All Mankind," “Ted Lasso,” “Prehistoric Planet,” “Foundation,” etc.!) Fewer long, solo outdoor walks Listened to even more jazz I took fewer long, solo walks outdoors because:...

I read quite a few books in 2023, mostly as audiobooks while making coffee, taking long walks, doing laundry, raking leaves, watering the lawn, showering, washing dishes, preparing lunch, brushing my teeth, shoveling snow (ominously little of that these past several winters!), etc. I sometimes even enjoy watching sports – mostly condensed soccer match highlights from around Europe – with the sound off while listening to an audiobook. You can find a lot of time to “read” if you put audiobooks (or podcasts) on your phone (which you can likely borrow for free from your local library!...

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. …The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn… A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.” – T.S. Eliot, 1920 Most ideas you’ve ever thought, someone else thought them before you. And – as I learned to my dismay as a graduate student searching for prior literature on countless exciting “new” theories I thought up – most of the best ideas you’ll ever have, someone will have already beaten you to them....