On Rereading
The first time through a book you read to find out what happens. Every time after that, you read to find out who you were.
Read the essay →Ada Marlow’s notebook
Reading slowly, and writing about it.
Essays on the books that take me a month to finish, the notes I leave in their margins, and the few habits of print I refuse to give up. A new one turns up every few weeks.
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Notes, August
Four things from a month of not writing much: a misprint, a cheap notebook, a quiet chapter, and a letter that took nine days.
1 min read
A Due Date from 1987
A secondhand copy of Middlemarch still has its library card in the back. Someone renewed it four times.
3 min read
The Unhurried Newsletter
A note on writing to a schedule you set yourself, and why the best newsletters read like letters, not broadcasts.
3 min read
Footnotes Are a Form of Honesty
The footnote lets a writer admit doubt, digress, and cite a source without breaking the sentence that needed to stay clean.
3 min read
The Commonplace Book, Revisited
Before there were note-taking apps there were commonplace books, and the old method still beats most of the new ones.
The Sunday letter
The week’s essay, three things worth reading, and a closing line. Every letter has an unsubscribe link at the bottom.
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