Well, my desk is a mess and maybe I’ll put it into some order today. I have far too many books I want to read, all of them RIGHT NOW and on a wide variety of subjects. I want to re-learn science, not how it was taught in school, but with a historical backbone to…
It recently occurred to me that I have been using and collecting Field Notes notebooks for more than a decade now. My first notebook dates from June 2015, which means I’ve been using these notebooks longer than our youngest daughter has been alive. In that time, I’ve collected a few hundred notebooks, thanks in part to the…
The September / October issue of Smithsonian Magazine has a fantastic article by Richard Grant 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…
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…
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…
Note: I’m cleaning up the blog for its 20th anniversary. This episode of my Vacation in the Golden Age only appeared on Medium, at a time when I was experimenting with that platform. I am moving here where it belongs. I wrote Episode 40 of this Vacation in the Golden Age in October 2012. Four years later,…
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…
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…