“And our own safety — our own security — depends upon our willingness to do what it takes to defend this nation, and uphold the values that we stand for — timeless ideals that will endure long after those who…
Category: Read it and Weep
Obliviate
“Had four brothers once upon a time He said they toured the country far away from the Rio Grande But the road just wore them down So they bought a house beside a lake Outside of New Orleans And stared…
33 at 33: The 33 Best Books I’ve Read in the Last 11 Years
I know a decent number of these numbers are going to appear random, or somewhat so. At first you might think that this is the list of the 33 best books I’ve read of all-time. This is not so. That…
The Need for Boredom
I just finished reading Every Love Story is a Ghost Story, the biography of David Foster Wallace that came out last year. I read it faster than most any book in recent memory, even though I’m not in love with…
May is the Worst
I just spent a fair bit of time re-reading my posts from past Mays on this blog. There are five years’ worth of them and they ain’t pretty. Actually, some of them are kind of pretty; I think a lot…
Derivatives
Perhaps you saw “Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter” in theaters this summer. Or you’ve read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the best-selling novel. Maybe you’ve seen or read one of the millions of derivations or mash-ups or sequels or post-scripts or…
1,276
Well, for all my talk yesterday about 1,277 books, I found an inadvertent duplicate in the list that had to be edited out. So it’s actually 1,276 books on the newly updated Book List. You should still check it out,…
The Day Before Tomorrow
Today, I feel like I finally hit my stride for productivity and balance this vacation. I return to work on Wednesday. I’d imagine this is a lot like what retirees feel in their waning weeks of work at a particular…
Object Lesson
I have learned a lot about myself in the past week. This is good. Learning is fun! One of the things I have learned, or relearned perhaps, is how little I am surprised by things. Most people like surprises. I…
Mortality Day Strikes Again: Remembering Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)
I didn’t have to look up Ray Bradbury’s birth year for the title of this post. I have read his biography at the back of countless books, visited the park named for him in Waukegan, Illinois, his birthplace and rearing…