Archive (Page 2) • Reading, Reconsidered • Buttondown

Dear Reader, While I’ve written quite a bit about background knowledge’s role in reading comprehension, those pieces were about the general stretching of...

Lost in Thought, Part 5

Dear Reader, I must admit that Chapter 2 of Lost in Thought doesn’t have as much material for reading specifically. It has a metric ton for the intellectual...

Congruous Incongruities

Dear Reader, I am paraphrasing here, but philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has noted that most dilemmas emerge because of some error in the past. Well, I’m...

Lost in Thought, Part 4

Dear Reader, Chapter 1 of Lost in Thought has a most excellent paragraph reflecting on reading. It’s about the reading of one book, but the description has...

Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Four

Dear Reader, Today’s contribution to this series will be a single author and a single quote. That author is widely respected as wise. And the work from which...

Lost in Thought, Part 3

Dear Reader, The Introduction to Lost in Thought possesses a number of engaging threads. I want to select two moments from it, from the same section, as they...

Reading As a Writer – Part Two

Dear Reader, I recently participated in a seminar with editor Steve Padilla, and while I shouldn’t have been surprised by the session’s ending point, I was....

Lost in Thought, Part 2

Dear Reader, One of the things I’d originally meant to comment on in my first essay on Lost in Thought is something strange that I did at the outset. Before...

Chocolate Taste Tests

Dear Reader, I’d hoped to avoid an excess of personal stories, as I prefer the substance of these pieces to be outside my idiosyncrasies, but then I receive...

Lost in Thought, Part 1

Dear Reader, I’ll be going through Lost in Thought these next several weeks as my second post for each week. This is for a few reasons. One of them is that...

Differing Responses

Dear Reader, I’ve long thought that intellectual problems are best found by reflection upon every day life. Not in an armchair philosophy sense—though that’s...

Reading to Interview

Dear Reader, There are books to read in preparation for an interview, but those fall into the general self-help genre, perhaps narrowed to “business” if you...

Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Three

Dear Reader, I started the draft of yet another piece just yesterday—there are twenty-one in draft stage, presently—but I wanted to return to these. I’m in...

The Clunk Clunk Clunk Read

Dear Reader, All writers write clunkers at some point. A line that just doesn’t quite land—the intended idea not quite captured; the sonority turned to an...

Dear Reader, An acquaintance of mine recently posted a piece that had a most interesting theme. And this acquaintance is someone with whom I’m in general...

Reading for Socializing

Dear Reader, I’m about to paraphrase someone here, so apologies for its lack of precision. It was one of those things you read that doesn’t quite leave your...

Setting the Scene

Dear Reader, Something that is often half-considered at most is the setting in which you read. We’ve briefly explored one component of this in “Setting the...

Dear Reader, It seemed prudent to place this piece in near proximity to “The Retry,” as there is a deep affinity between the two. For a second-chance read,...

Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part Two

Dear Reader, I decided on round two of these for today, not least because I stumbled upon this Ambrose Bierce quote that always makes me chuckle: By the way,...

Dear Reader, Sometimes, the time and season of a read just don’t align with you. You “don’t get” the work, and you frankly aren’t too bothered by this fact....

Dear Reader, Oh yes, as you probably anticipated, it’s time for the re-read. (But what will we have on Friday…?) I must admit that I am more excited about...

Dear Reader, There’s something about that first read. Even if the read has been recommended by a friend whose taste most nearly mirrors your own, it’s rare...

The Comfort Read

Dear Reader, Well, we all knew this one was coming, right? I was toggling between doing seasonal reads and comfort reads for today, as they are similar in...

Reading As a Writer, Part One

Dear Reader, I’ll have a few of these, as I find good pieces and as I decide to play with the theme more. But as they say, there’s no time like the present....

Words from the Wise and Otherwise, Part One

Dear Reader, One of the odd things about having made a reading comprehension app, particularly one focused on quotes, is that you find yourself with quite...

Reading for Others, Part Two

Dear Reader, Reading for others is, in fact, an essential part of my job. While Part One of this topic explored something of reading for younger readers,...

Reading for Others, Part One

Dear Reader, This will not be about recommending reads to others. Well, it will kind of be that, but not really. I couldn’t say whether it’s a subset or...

Suggested Reads

Dear Reader, I am taking a break until Wednesday. This is partly because this newsletter's hosting site crashed earlier today. It's also because I need a few...

Reading in Memoriam

Reading in memoriam is a different kind of reading. You might note that I’ve already started this piece in italics. I’ve structured it that way because my...

Setting the Soundtrack

Dear Reader, Yes, I have seen the research that suggests that music distracts you from your specific task, whether reading or writing or what have you. To...

Dear Reader, One of the best ways to approach the “read, just read” imperative, however much its innate value is overstated, is to plan in advance for...

My favorite sort of read might be the bonus read. It’s unexpected. And it’s a bonus in the full sense of that word, going back to its Latin root. The bonus...

Dear Reader, Paired reads are those in which no order is specified, but the works are still selected to be read together. Indeed, not only is no order...

Reading in Parallel

Dear Reader, Another form of reading, quite different from reading in series, is reading in parallel. In this form of reading, the reader balances several...

Reading Serially

Dear Reader, No, that isn’t a typo. I didn’t intend to write “Reading Seriously,” however lovely that might sound. I mean reading in series. There are, in...

This is not a reading for pandemic. I don’t know what that is. And if I ever do, I don’t know whether I’d write about it. I spent days trying to title this...

The Ambivalent Read: A Case Study

Dear Reader, Sometimes, you just can’t make up your mind about a read. There are aspects you like; there are aspects that maybe you don’t necessarily dislike...

Timely Reading: A Case Study

Dear Reader, In a season of panic, and I think enough people are panicking that we might consider ourselves in one, it’s easy to avoid thinking beyond...

Reading Ratio, Reconsidered

Dear Reader, This is essentially part three, exploring how we structure our reads. The first two postings can be found here and here. A few readers HAD SOME...

What Could Be Worse?

I’m sure most of us have heard by now that the timeline for physical distancing—I agree with Al Roker that “social distancing” is an infelicitous...

Read, Just Read

Greetings, fellow readers, “Read, just read”—that’s the mantra. One can find it repeated by parents, self-styled experts, teachers, and professors alike. And...

Stretching Your Boundaries

Dear Reader, If you’ve found yourself in any sort of reading rhythm, you might simultaneously find yourself stuck. That is, you read only one genre or you...