READ ALL ABOUT IT
Since 2012, I’ve been writing about books. And the act of reading. And the importance of story and narrative. But, mostly, the underlying theme of all I write is how taking a moment to stop and digest some longform text — instead of scrolling, instead of watching a video, instead of multitasking — can be one of the most grounding things we can do for ourselves. Here’s the one-stop online home for all this writing.
You can read more about me and my work by moseying over here. Want to peruse periodic “essay drops” — excerpts from my work-in-progress essay collection about Homesickness? Here ya go.
Reading Our Way to Better Taste
From Newsletter Issue No. 19:
In July, the New York Times published a comprehensive roundup of “The Best Books of the First Quarter of the 21st Century.” How were these titles agreed upon? Well, they were “voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
The Alternatives
There’s a fine line between technology & tool — at least when it comes to casual parlance. I mean, yes, people will talk about personal technology as a “tool,” but I don’t think many of us think about, say, a hammer as “technology.” In grad school, I had to read Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford. I remember it being mind-expanding because although it was published in 1934, Technics and Civilization had a lot to say about “technology” — meaning everything from a clock (sundial, really) to electricity — and how humans use them…and for what outcome. For reference, this was in a Communications and Media Studies discipline so the lesson here is that all these tools were actually technologies that helped shaped our world. (In other words, “technology” doesn’t have to involve the internet.)
