Tag: reccomendations

Big Celebratory Birthday Update Part 2

A smorgasbord of stuff for your delectation. You can read part 1 here.

13. Big bold announcement: next month is Bloomsday, and after much hemming and hawing i’ve decided to reread James Joyce’s Ulysses and blog about it as I go along.
I’ve read Ulysses three or four times between 2009-2013 but I haven’t touched it since. While I still have some of my notes on this book, my goal isn’t to reconstruct them or to lecture on the topic, but to enjoy a very good book, and see how my memory of it fairs post-chemotherapy (which has affected my memory).
Why should you join along? Because Ulysses is a phenomenally good book that is enjoyable to re-read (but very challenging to read for the first time). It’s funny and touching, profound and full of adventure. It’s just built on very well crafted layers of language, meaning and context, and it’s paradoxically a book that is meant to be re-read, not read. Hopefully I will make it a bit easier and less scary to read for the first time for those brave enough to join me.

14. I have been switching my podcast listening queue around lately, which means that I got to listen to this wonderful two part episode of Alie Ward’s “Ologies”: Salugenology (Why humans require hobbies). Guest Julia Hotz talks about the things that we need to be happy as humans, and the conversation is fun to listen to and enlightening. I highly recommend it, and the “Ologies” podcast in general.

15. I’ve stopped buying eBooks from Amazon after they stopped allowing customers to download the books that they purchased (so you basically don’t own the book that you paid for if you buy in from Amazon now). I still use my Kindle Paperwhite, but I’m buying books from Kobo. I buy them DRM free where possible, and if not I use Calibre to strip them of DRM and then this site to transfer them to my Kindle (if they are DRM free you just use the sendtokindle site to upload them to your Kindle). It took me 30 minutes to get the setup working the first time, and it now adds 1-2 minutes tops to every book purchase, which is plus for me. It means that I don’t mindlessly purchase books that I don’t intend to read, and I actually think through each book purchase. I also noticed that the books I’m interested in are priced slightly cheaper on Kobo, which is a nice little bonus.

16. Using yellow ink (Rohrer and Klingner Helianthus) has been a challenge but also an education. Helianthus is readable enough to be used for my daily todo list, but thanks to this ink I’ve been learning to enjoy using a fountain pen for highlighting purposes. It’s more subtle and better behaved than traditional highlighters, and the colour pops on the page without resorting to neon shades.

17.I am thinking about the next inks to put into rotation, which is a bit unusual for me as I normally start with the pens that I want to fill, and then go find inks that go well with them. I want a blue-black for practical reasons, a cheerful green, a pink or orange, and a turquoise or teal. How do you select which pens and inks you use?

18. A bit of behind the scenes: I draft these posts longhand in a Dingbats notebook and a fountain pen. I think better on paper and it’s a way to use the pens and inks that I have. There are no AI/LLM agents/bots involved in this blog, and that’s the way it will remain. I enjoy writing, I created this blog as a hobby because I enjoy writing, and while I use AI agents as part of my job, I have no intention of letting them take away any part of the creation of this site.

Draft of this post
Well worn Dingbats blogging notebook

19. Journaling tip #1: If you’ve been feeling down lately, take the time at the end of each day to review your day and score it. It doesn’t matter what scoring system you choose, but I recommend that you keep it simple and not too granular: -1, 0, +1 or 1, 2, 3, or “great”, “OK”, “meh”, “terrible”. You just want a quick way to know if the day was a good day, an average day, or a bad day.
At the end of every day for a week or two think back on what happened throughout the entire day, give it a score, and explain the score in no more than a sentence or two. So for me today was: “OK – was super tired at the start, but I managed to get two naps in and recovered enough to get most of what I planned done”.
At the end of the week, when you do your weekly review and plan ahead what you want to stop doing, start doing and keep doing, use these scores as an input for your decisions.
Repeat this whenever you feel the need to recalibrate.

20. Journaling tip #2: if you’ve stopped journaling and want to restart, don’t attempt to backlog the days that you missed. Forgive yourself the journaling “debt” and start fresh. This is easier to do if you switch something up in your journaling routine – use a new pen, pencil or ink, a new notebook, or write in a new location.

21. A dear friend and colleague has moved to a new job in a different company. While I’m happy for him and I wish him the best of luck, I already miss working alongside him. This brings me to the following journaling tip:

22. Journaling tip #3: Take a journal, either your usual one or a new one for a special journaling “events” and write down a list of names of people that have inspired or taught you something that you are grateful for, and write down what it is they taught you. Start with those that affected you by their positive actions (kindness, encouragement, setting good examples), and then challenge yourself to journal about those that taught you by being negative presences in your life. Did an office bully teach you to be kind? Did the talentless brown-nose teach you about how much you value your integrity?
You can write about both people you personally know and those in the public sphere, and you can return and edit or add on to this list whenever you want. It’s a good reference in troubled times to remind you of who you are, what you stand for, and where you want to be.

Manufactus notebook that I plan on using for journaling tip #3

On Reading Difficult Books

Is there a book that you want to read but scares you? It’s too long, or too technically demanding, or its subject matter is challenging — is there such a book on your virtual or physical bookshelf?

I have several such books waiting to be read. I also make a point to read several such books each year. They’re nearly always worth the effort.

Goodreads and its annual reading challenge make readers favour short, quick reads, skim reading and light reading. This is not by chance, but this isn’t a post about the failures of Goodreads as a platform. This is a post about reading difficult books, and the point is that if you want to challenge yourself you’re going to have to make a concerted effort on your own.

You will have to motivate yourself because reading platforms and book clubs skew towards books that can be read quickly and relatively easily, and we’re being trained daily to shorten our attention span and ruin our capacity to concentrate and think by platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. To read difficult books is to go against the grain, to retrain your mind to deep, meaningful thought, to long stretches of concentration, to a higher level of empathy. It’s the difference between a fast food burger and an evening with a 3 star Michelin chef showing off his best work. It’s worth it, but it costs more.

If you chose to go on that challenging but worthwhile journey, here are some tips to help you along the way:

  • Build up to it – don’t start with the toughest, longest, scariest book on your list and try to white knuckle your way through. Build up to it by stretching and building up your reading and concentration “muscles” first. If you’re building up to length, for example, fantasy and space opera sci-fi novels are a great way to get there, as they’re usually well paced, relatively easy reads. Historical fiction and family sagas can train you to follow multiple timelines and characters, and short stories utilizing modernist and post-modernist techniques can offer an easier way to encounter them for the first time.
  • Have a light read going simultaneously – this is particularly effective if the book you’re tackling has a difficult subject matter. Have a light, fun read going on at the same time and switch between the two, allowing yourself a break from the difficult topic and time to process it every once in a while.
  • Find a partner for the journey – find a friend, online or in real life, who’s interested in reading the same book as you are, and help each other through it.
  • Find a community – it’s difficult to find a friend interested and able to dedicate time to take the reading journey with you, but it may be possible to find a community of readers going through the book at the same time as you are. It can be through a local bookclub, a virtual bookclub, a reddit community, a Goodreads group, a discord channel – whatever group you can find and suits you. Just make sure you’re comfortable with the group rules in terms of code of conduct and spoilers, and feel free to leave if you encounter toxic behaviour.
  • Create a framework to help you through – ideas for this can include various trackers, reminders, applications like Forest or other Pomodoro like counters that help you focus, little treats or incentives after reaching certain milestones. If I’m reading a particularly long book, I set up a dedicated tracker and a page count I want to hit every day, to make sure that I don’t feel overwhelmed and can visually see my progress. It somehow helps me deal with the goblin in my mind that is screaming that this book is too much for me and I don’t have time for it. Field notes are great for this, especially the squared and reticle grid ones.
  • Start by reading a good chunk – on your first read at least the first chapter or several chapters, so that you get into the flow and tone of the book as soon as possible. I tend to aim for 30-50 pages on the first sitting.
  • Get a physical copy of the book, not a digital one. Paper books are easier and more enjoyable to read than digital ones, as our mind finds them easier to process because of the way we read (oftentimes returning a page or two back to check on something, or flipping to a previous chapter to remind ourselves who that character is or what happened last time). Whenever I’ve tried to read a difficult book on my Kindle, I’ve regretted it (The Alexandria Quartet is the latest example).
  • Feel free to give up, tomorrow – if the book is too much for you, it’s OK to decide that you’re not going to finish it, or you’re going to get back to it at a later date. But before you do that, take one more day to make an effort and read another chunk anyway. Why? Because you may have just reached a particular tough spot, and in a few pages things clear up, or become easier to digest. Also, you may just be having a bad day, or you’re particularly distracted or tired and so the writing becomes more opaque or more of a slog. Give it another day and if it doesn’t improve, move on.
Tracker for Paul Auster’s 4321 on a Field Notes Snowy Evening with a Spoke Design pen.

I’m currently reading Paul Auster’s 4321, which is a challenging read due to its length and its structure. Later on this year I plan to reread James Joyce’s Ulysses (I read it twice cover to cover already, and studied it while taking my degree). I’m considering tracking my rereading here, in case someone wants to follow along. Let me know in the comments if that’s something that may interest you.

Journaling Series: On Finishing a Journal

As I’m writing this I’m two or three pages away from finishing another journal. It’s not the first journal that I’ve finished, but somehow it’s always a tiny, little momentous occasion. After all from the moment we crack open a new notebook and dare to write on its pristine pages we envision this outcome: a notebook chock full of words, sketches and mementos.

Slightly frayed and ink stained but this Stalogy 365Days B6 notebook has served me well for about 6 months

For me the end of a journal offers a change to review and reflect on its contents. The last few pages aren’t used for normal journaling, but rather are reserved for me to write notes in as I leaf through the completed journal’s pages. What key moments does it hold? What revelations? How can I look back with kindness at moments of weakness or failure, and how can I learn and grow from them? This is not always a pleasant or easy experience, but I have always found it worthwhile.

Sample page with a sketch.

This is also a time when I consider whether I need to switch a journal format or not. I’ve been using the Stalogy Editor’s Series 365Days B6 notebook for the past two journals and I’ve been happy with it, so that’s what I’ll continue using for now.

What about you? Do you have any “end of journal” or “end of notebook” habits and rituals?