Just about a year ago I wrote what Notes in the Margin would be up to during 2024. Now, I’m happy with the way last year’s reading turned out, particularly how I ended the year with a sense of accomplishment rather than anxiety and disappointment. Therefore, I’m going to use the same approach to reading […]
2025: Another Year of Unplanned Reading Read More »
Our starting book this month is the 2024 Booker winner, Orbital by Samantha Harvey. I’ve just started reading it. first degree The characters in Orbital are astronauts in a spacecraft circling the earth. Their perspective on the world is different than usual, as if they had zoomed out on a photograph. For Count Alexander Rostov,
6 Degrees of Separation Read More »
Here in the U.S. today is national science fiction day, observed annually in honor of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who was born on January 2, 1920. I didn’t read science fiction as a teenager or young adult. To the best of my recollection, I discovered science fiction through television rather than books. My introduction
Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned from “Star Trek” Read More »
Goodreads has spoken. Here are my reading statistics for 2024. Pages read: 14,887 Books read: 41 Average book length: 363 pages Average book rating: 3.5 Shortest book: Lord of the Flies, 189 pages Longest book: The Covenant of Water, 724 pages What the Statistics Don’t Cover Irrespective of numbers, I had what I consider a
2024: My Year in Reading and Blogging Read More »
The U.S. has recorded over 32,000 whooping cough cases this year, compared with around 5,100 as of mid-December last year. Infants are most vulnerable to the bacterial infection. Source: Whooping cough cases reach highest level in a decade I had whooping cough as a 10-year-old back in the late 1950s. I almost died every time
Whooping cough cases reach highest level in a decade Read More »
Full disclosure: I signed up for the 2024 Discussion Challenge and did a miserable job at it. In evaluating my year of blogging in 2024, I realized that I actually did more discussion than I thought, but I didn’t specifically frame and label much of it as discussion. However, lately I’ve been thinking, more than
I’m Signing Up for the 2025 Discussion Challenge Read More »
(Feature image: Photo by Mira Kemppainen on Unsplash ) Holiday wishes to those celebrating triumph over the encroaching darkness by the return of the light. Read more about how winter solstice is celebrated around the world in the article linked above. And special wishes as well to those in the southern hemisphere celebrating summer solstice.
Winter Solstice & Happy Holidays Read More »
For your Halloween enjoyment, I offer this fascinating article: Witches around the world “The belief in witches is an almost universal feature of human societies. What does it reveal about our deepest fears?” Gregory Forthis, retired professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, has spent
Because I have a personal penchant for alliteration, I’ve been reading nonfiction in November for the past few years. Only a couple of months ago did I discover that Nonfiction November is An Actual Thing, an established book-blogging meme: Announcing Nonfiction November I apologize to the hosts for not acknowledging them in past years, and
Nonfiction November Week 1: My Year in Nonfiction Read More »
Learn about the extraordinary career and life of the celebrated stage, film, and television actress and beloved Downton Abbey star. Source: Remembering Actress Dame Maggie Smith | Masterpiece | PBS
Remembering Actress Dame Maggie Smith | Masterpiece | PBS Read More »
