Hello Blog Readers, As you know, I have been mostly in absentia for the past few months. I wrote a book during that time. It is a memoir, and it chronicles unusual thoughts and experiences that I have had from the age of 5 to the present. Upon completing the book, I pitched it to literary agents. I have received...
Hi Blog Readers, I’m writing to give you an update. My memoir writing is going well. I’m about 5/8 of the way through. I have stopped writing for a bit because I need to reread some books that I read and learned from at crucial points in my life. In the meantime, I may have time to write a few...
Dear Blog Readers, I’ve been doing some soul searching over the past couple of weeks. What do I want this blog to look like in the new year? I knew I wanted to switch things up, but I wasn’t sure what that meant. So I asked you for feedback—and a big thank you to those who replied. Your replies were...
The following is a guest post by Lisa Tulfer, a writer and blogger based in England. As a child, I didn’t have much access to books. I was home educated, living in a foreign country with little interaction with that country’s language or culture, and English-language books were simply not available to buy. This was in the 1970s and early...
I read a short book, long ago, by a man in or nearing retirement. The man had made a life out of studying literature. This is my recollection, anyway. It was so long ago that I no longer remember the title or author of the book. I think the author was affiliated with the University of Michigan, but this could...
How are modern widows handling the multifaceted challenges of reentering the dating scene and finding love anew? Two co-authors recently researched this question. They discovered that modern widows are approaching the process of finding love in uniquely modern ways. Their book, Finding Love After Loss: A Relationship Roadmap for Widows, by Marti Benedetti and Mary A. Dempsey, will be released...
I maintain a curated list on Bookshop called Books Previewed on the Blog About Seeking Wisdom. This is the ever-growing list of all the books I have previewed on this blog. Visiting this list and purchasing a book (even a book not on this list!) supports both this blog and independent booksellers. I’m excited to announce that, today, Bookshop is...
After a particularly harrowing sequence of events in small-town America, the narrator makes a profound decision: “I was going to stop pretending that I felt like an American.” Wow. What a statement, . . . coming from an American! This quote is from the novel Homeland Elegies, by Ayad Akhtar. The narrator, like the author, is a second-generation Pakistani-American. The...
Some books are easy to read but lack depth. Other books are difficult to read but contain great wisdoms. Every once in a while, however, someone writes a book that is simultaneously simple and sophisticated. That’s always something to celebrate! Books like this have something for everyone. They can be read on multiple levels. There’s the simple, fun story; and...
My friend (and fellow Silent Book Club organizer) Vicki Ziegler (of Toronto) and I set each other a challenge. We decided to individually write on the topic of how to keep reading during a pandemic. We did not share our ideas with each other before writing. Only after finishing our respective pieces did we reveal them to each other. Two...
The following is a guest post by Vicki Ziegler, a book lover, blogger, web designer, social media manager, information architect, and organizer of Silent Book Club events in east end Toronto. The two of us set ourselves the challenge of writing about the same topic: how to keep reading during a pandemic. Below is her response. I’ll share mine with...
What’s it like to have your world confined to a small space? I think most of us know, having lived through the past year. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I read the book Solitary, by Albert Woodfox, out of curiosity as to whether there were any lessons to be learned in looking at the pandemic experience through...
Killing It on Twitter Some time ago, I noticed someone on Twitter who was killing it. He had multiple tens of thousands of followers. He posted original content ten to fifteen times a day. People were commenting on and interacting with his posts. Like me, he had written books and was trying to get them published. I was curious what...
Remember Mandy Shunnarah, who wrote a guest post for this blog last week? (In case you missed it, here’s her post about how one line in a novel changed her life: This Novel Got Me My Dream Job.) Well, I also wrote a guest post for her blog. And it’s posted today. (We’re awesome mutually sharing friends like that!) The...
The following is a guest post by Mandy Shunnarah, a writer, editor, and blogger who, like me, organizes and hosts Silent Book Club events and writes for the Silent Book Club blog. Oftentimes the quotes I end up underlining in books are the ones the author might least expect. Not throwaway lines exactly, but quotes that in the grand scheme...
Dear Blog Readers, Lovers of the Written Word, and Everyone Who Has Something to Say: As of January 2021, I am offering writing, editing, and coaching services! Do you have a book in you? Do you have a story, article, essay, report, or website in you? Is there another piece of writing that you’d like to bring into the world?...
Hi, Blog Readers! As always, thanks for reading my little blog posts. Thanks, also, for reading those of my blog posts that aren’t so little. Much appreciated. I’m feeling the need for a break, so I’ll be in absentia next week. (Patrons will continue to hear from me as usual.) It will be a little holiday break for me. And...
Like many people this year, I am having to cut back on spending. This means buying fewer books and relying more on my public library. But my library isn’t the same comfortable place it used to be. . . . So begins my most recent article on the Silent Book Club blog. Read the rest of the article! Is your...
Booklovers everywhere: we have a serious problem. Fortunately, we also have a serious solution. Let’s delve into the complex process of getting excellent books into the hands of the eager readers of your local community, including you. We booklovers have multiple options for buying books. The choice between Amazon, Barnes & Noble, independent bookstores, and other options is fraught with...
If you’re a book lover like me, you’re probably constantly on the hunt for new books to read. But you don’t want to read just any book. You’re wondering which books out there—and there are a lot of them to choose from!—are getting a lot of buzz, or are highly acclaimed, or are pertinent to your interests. You may also...
Load more posts
Search this blog
Posts by category
- Book Previews (230)
- Guest Posts (3)
- Incidental Musings (98)
- News & Events (48)
- Tales (62)
Books previewed
Dead Souls Sam Riviere
The Pale King David Foster Wallace
Lightning Flowers Katherine E. Standefer
Beautiful World, Where Are You / Normal People / Conversations With Friends Sally Rooney
Swan Dive Georgina Pazcoguin
A Passage North Anuk Arudpragasam
Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
Projections Karl Deisseroth
The Indian Lawyer James Welch
Atomic Habits James Clear
The History of Philosophy A. C. Grayling
Dusk, Night, Dawn Anne Lamott
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
Nothing to See Here Kevin Wilson
Change Damon Centola
Homeland Elegies Ayad Akhtar
Becoming Attached Robert Karen
Piranesi Susanna Clarke
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
Solitary Albert Woodfox
Girl, Woman, Other Bernardine Evaristo
Enlightenment by Trial and Error Jay Michaelson
Death in Her Hands Ottessa Moshfegh
The Cooking Gene Michael W. Twitty
The First Bad Man Miranda July
Upheaval Jared Diamond
A Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe
Creatures Crissy Van Meter
Indelicacy Amina Cain
Say What You Mean Oren Jay Sofer
Habits of a Happy Brain Loretta Graziano Breuning
Bad Behavior, This Is Pleasure Mary Gaitskill
The Brother Gardeners Andrea Wulf
Severance Ling Ma
How to Be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi
The Museum of Modern Love Heather Rose
Why I Write George Orwell
The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir
Educated Tara Westover
The Gift Hafiz
The Collected Schizophrenias Esmé Weijun Wang
Your Duck Is My Duck Deborah Eisenberg
Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari
Milkman Anna Burns
Under the Banner of Heaven Jon Krakauer
Waiting for Bojangles Olivier Bourdeaut
A Mind Unraveled Kurt Eichenwald
Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
The Bookshop Penelope Fitzgerald
Digital Minimalism Cal Newport
The Sisters Brothers Patrick deWitt
Dare to Lead Brené Brown
My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Almost Everything Anne Lamott
Born to Run Christopher McDougall, Bruce Springsteen
The Ladies’ Paradise Émile Zola
The World Beyond Your Head Matthew B. Crawford
All the Birds, Singing Evie Wyld
Barracoon Zora Neale Hurston
Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury
JavaScript & jQuery Jon Duckett
Home Fire Kamila Shamsie
The Weather Detective Peter Wohlleben
Play It As It Lays Joan Didion
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson
Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata
Perfect Me Heather Widdows
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace Patty Yumi Cottrell
Why Buddhism Is True Robert Wright
What Is Real? Adam Becker
Kudos Rachel Cusk
The Days of Abandonment Elena Ferrante
F*cked Corinne Fisher & Krystyna Hutchinson
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine Alan Lightman
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf
The Pale King David Foster Wallace
Lightning Flowers Katherine E. Standefer
Beautiful World, Where Are You / Normal People / Conversations With Friends Sally Rooney
Swan Dive Georgina Pazcoguin
A Passage North Anuk Arudpragasam
Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
Projections Karl Deisseroth
The Indian Lawyer James Welch
Atomic Habits James Clear
The History of Philosophy A. C. Grayling
Dusk, Night, Dawn Anne Lamott
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
Nothing to See Here Kevin Wilson
Change Damon Centola
Homeland Elegies Ayad Akhtar
Becoming Attached Robert Karen
Piranesi Susanna Clarke
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
Solitary Albert Woodfox
Girl, Woman, Other Bernardine Evaristo
Enlightenment by Trial and Error Jay Michaelson
Death in Her Hands Ottessa Moshfegh
The Cooking Gene Michael W. Twitty
The First Bad Man Miranda July
Upheaval Jared Diamond
A Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe
Creatures Crissy Van Meter
Indelicacy Amina Cain
Say What You Mean Oren Jay Sofer
Habits of a Happy Brain Loretta Graziano Breuning
Bad Behavior, This Is Pleasure Mary Gaitskill
The Brother Gardeners Andrea Wulf
Severance Ling Ma
How to Be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi
The Museum of Modern Love Heather Rose
Why I Write George Orwell
The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir
Educated Tara Westover
The Gift Hafiz
The Collected Schizophrenias Esmé Weijun Wang
Your Duck Is My Duck Deborah Eisenberg
Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari
Milkman Anna Burns
Under the Banner of Heaven Jon Krakauer
Waiting for Bojangles Olivier Bourdeaut
A Mind Unraveled Kurt Eichenwald
Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
The Bookshop Penelope Fitzgerald
Digital Minimalism Cal Newport
The Sisters Brothers Patrick deWitt
Dare to Lead Brené Brown
My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Almost Everything Anne Lamott
Born to Run Christopher McDougall, Bruce Springsteen
The Ladies’ Paradise Émile Zola
The World Beyond Your Head Matthew B. Crawford
All the Birds, Singing Evie Wyld
Barracoon Zora Neale Hurston
Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury
JavaScript & jQuery Jon Duckett
Home Fire Kamila Shamsie
The Weather Detective Peter Wohlleben
Play It As It Lays Joan Didion
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson
Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata
Perfect Me Heather Widdows
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace Patty Yumi Cottrell
Why Buddhism Is True Robert Wright
What Is Real? Adam Becker
Kudos Rachel Cusk
The Days of Abandonment Elena Ferrante
F*cked Corinne Fisher & Krystyna Hutchinson
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine Alan Lightman
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf
Get the newsletter
This blog is about seeking wisdom through books and elsewhere. Subscribe to engage with some of the greatest books and ideas of the present and past.
Most frequent tags
anxiety
art
blogs
books
bookstores
brains
children
comedy
communication
concussions
coronavirus
dating
doctors
drugs
family
fear
food
friends
health
history
Internet
love
mental health
music
novels
philosophy
phones
poetry
politics
psychology
publishing
reading
running
science
self
sociality
society
the inquisitive one
time
truth
wisdom
women
work
writers
writing
Posts by month
- July 2022
- June 2022
- March 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
