The Recliner: Ideas caught napping
(This was originally published on Big List Energy at Medium.com ) I recently served on a jury for a murder trial. Though I learned a lot of stuff during the trial about DNA evidence, tracing cell phones, and determining time of death (don’t believe anything a TV medical
Started 7/21/26, Finished 7/24/26 If I really enjoy a book, I’m likely to want to read it again, and Mick Herron’s espionage story Slow Horses has surfaced from the murky depths of my To Be Read pile for a fresh look, five
Started 7/13/26, Finished 7/18/26 I have a lot of respect for Christopher Tolkien. The son of ridiculously famous author J.R.R. Tolkien, he spent most of his adult life going through his father’s works and trying to make sense of the embryonic notes
This is my memoir of serving on a jury in King County, Washington, in June and July 2026. I'm not attempting to make any particular points; I wrote it mostly as a record of an interesting experience. The Crime This was a murder case. The victim, a Black
Read 7/4/26 - 7/9/26 As I’ve mentioned before, my family has been watching the excellent Poirot series on PBS over the last few months, and now and then I enjoy an episode so much I’m inspired to go read the original.
I’m a restless writer. I move back and forth between writing tools like a child changes crayons. I recently spent part of a weekend reviving an old interest in the Vim text editor, rebuilding my configuration file and installing plugins that made it friendlier for writing prose.
Read June 20 - July 1, 2026 I’d been looking forward to this, a history of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary (affectionally known as the OED), and was a little disappointed because I thought there should be more to it, but in the end figured author Simon
Read June 23-29, 2026 This is an old book, published in 1980, which I picked up for some historical research. It’s subtitled “The Essential Guide To Home Computers,” though it’s probably not what people expected when they read it. The microcomputer revolution really
Read 5/31/26 - 6/14/26 I haven't had much interest in short stories, but I'm trying to change that as I work to increase the number of stories I read at one time. The latest part of that effort was Mary Ladd Gavell'
Read May 22 - June 7, 2026 I've been cogitating for a couple of weeks on what to say about Alix Harrow's The Once and Future Witches. Put simply, I found it a really good book, and like most books I get caught up in, it was
Cleaning Up My Mac (None of the links in this article are affiliate links (though the Medium links below are member-only articles), and nothing here was created with AI.) I opened my Medium newsletter the other day and was confronted with three or four links to articles about what
Read from March 25 to May 19, 2026 This book was part of my experiment in reading multiple books at a time. It’s a big book, and I needed a break from it at times. But I think its role in the experiment was a success. Inventing The
Read May 14 to 16, 2026 It’s always fun returning to Murderbot’s universe, at least as long as I don’t have to live there. The latest book starts out more in medea res than almost anything I’ve ever read. I was more
Read May 12 - 14, 2026 When I finished the Agatha Christie biography I thought I would devote all my reading time to Inventing The Renaissance . The publishing industry had other plans, however, releasing two entries in two of my favorite series, one close on the other’s heels. Medusa
Read May 5 - 11, 2026 I rarely read biographies, but I’ve become a huge fan of Lucy Worsley over the last couple of years and enjoyed her TV series associated with this book. Thanks to her, I’ve started reading Christie. Lucy is an engaging author, even