I. The Nine Planets The first time I experienced a sense of wonder was upon arriving home from the Franklin Township Public Library and tearing into the book I’d just checked out: a nonfiction astr…

This is just a quick note to recognize that today, October 26, 2025 is the official 20th anniversary of this blog. My first post (a list of driving music) appeared on October 26, 2005. Back then, t…

I have been reading Robert D. Richardson’s 1995 biography Emerson: The Mind On Fire. I find myself more fascinated by Emerson’s use of notebooks than by his actual writing or transcendentalism. Halfway through the biography, it seems to me that Emerson thought through his notebooks. By the end of his life, he’d filled hundreds of them. It was Emerson who asked a young Henry David Thoreau, “Do you keep a journal?” setting Thoreau down a path that would lead to…

I am currently in the process of taking inventory of the books in my library. I’ve started with the physical books and so far I’d put the estimate somewhere between 1,200-1,400. I know that I have more than 1,700 audiobooks on top of that. And another 500 or so e-books. Call it 3,600 books all told. The physical books are dearest to me.

The September / October issue of Smithsonian Magazine has a fantastic article by Richard Grant1 on Cormac McCarthy's library. Over the years, I've read just three of McCarthy's books: No Country for Old Men in 2018, and more recently the dual novel / novella The Passenger and Stella Maris, both of which were among my best reads of 2023…

Sometimes, I need a breath of fresh air. Back in February, I discovered that one of my favorite writers, the late David McCullough, was coming out with a new book, edited by his daughter, Dorie McCullough Lawson. The book, History Matters, came out today and I began listening to it with delight on my morning walk. The book is a collection of unpublished essays, speeches, and miscellany from McCullough's paper.

There are, from time to time, books I attempt to read that I am simply not ready for. They seem interesting, I start them, but I don’t make it very far. Years later I might come back to them, and find that I am ready, and I read the book with joy and delight that wasn’t evident on that early attempt.

At a recent back-to-school night, I was astonished to learn that science education takes a back seat to Virginia Studies in 4th grade. Part of the reason seems to be that 4th grade students take a standardized test on Virginia Studies, and there is much to pack in to prepare students for the test. I can't understand why this is a priority over science…

There is something both exciting and comforting about having a large stack of books you are eager to read. Here is the "stack" in no particular order: The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini by Joe Posnanski This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality…

Just a quick note to say I have made a few minor updates to the new minimalist theme here. When I introduced the theme last week, I knew it wasn't 100% complete, and I also knew I would be making tweaks along the way as I road-tested it, so to speak. The comment section was one area I neglected. That has now been fixed.

Among my favorite types of books in my collection are ex-lib books—or as I like to think of them, retired library books. I received one in the mail recently, Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling by Thomas Hager, and handling it reminded me of why I love this form of book. For one thing, they are generally hefty…

I'm terrible when it comes to book ratings. I used to use them, but these days I've given up on them completely. I think of a 0-to-5 star rating as a bell curve where 3 stars fall right in the middle of the curve. If you get 3 stars, you are meeting expectations. Zero- and 5-star ratings are outliers, several standard deviations from the mean, and thus should be more rare than a 3-star rating.

On a recent walk, I saw in the distance a Commodore Vic-20, perched on a rock at the side of the bike path. I was first introduced to the VIC-20 in my 5th grade math class (ca. 1982). Our math teacher rolled it into the classroom along with a television set and we used it to play Hangman1…

Sometimes, when I am close to finishing an old notebook, I get eager to start scribbling in a new one. There is something so encouraging about a blank notebook, so many possibilities. It is a fresh start. So it is for blog themes. I've been using the same theme on my blog now for over a decade. I felt it was time for a change.

Just a heads-up for folks--I'm working on a new custom theme for the blog. I've been using the same theme for years now and I've gotten a little tired of it. I'm aiming for something more simple, minimalist, that emphasizes the text--pretty much the opposite of what many sites these days are doing, but it makes me happy. One side-effect of this change: if you run a search on the blog…

I spent a lot of time in 5th grade drawing pictures of Ozzy Osbourne concerts: two dimensional pencil sketches looking at the stage with stick-figure band members. The most careful, detailed part is the sketches was the big OZZY that hung over the stage with connected Z’s. Blizzard of Ozz was my entry into a genre of music that I have enjoyed ever since and which has served has the background to AP physics homework in high school and marathon coding sessions ever since R.I.P. Ozzy

When I used to come to Santa Monica for work, I’d stop in at a local AM/PM to pick up a copy of the Los Angeles Times. I read that paper growing up and particularly enjoyed Al Martinez columns. It was always nice to come back and read the paper early in the morning. This morning, while the family still slept, I walked over to the same AM/PM to pick up a copy of the…

Though I dutifully filled out all of the forms online ahead of time, when I arrived for a recent medical visit, the receptionist handed me a dreaded clipboard and asked me to "fill out the highlighted parts." This caught me in a Puckish moment. I proceeded to fill out all of the parts so indicated in a quick and mostly illegible (except to me) …

To escape the heat, I dragged a reluctant Montainge downstairs, where it was cooler, and collapsed into a comfortable chair beneath the breath of an air conditioner vent. Montainge was going on about sadness, but I muted him beneath the book cover and sat listening to my youngest daughter sing in the shower in the nearby bathroom. I couldn't quite make out what she sang, but she sounded happy, and that added a nice balance to Montaigne's melancholy.