A heart-breaking memoir from Yiyun Li about losing two sons to suicide. There's often little you can say to parent who's lost a child. But sometimes the words from a fellow sufferer get through. This book was one of those.​ ★★★★★ 💙📚 @appletwigli.bsky.social books.robertbreen.com/2025/11/29/t...

"If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can publish, but because you long to learn how to write well, because there is something that you alone can say." — Ann Patchett, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

"We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence is a great part of it. Treat your friend as a spectacle." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is the way.

"There is nothing so often condemned, and so deeply loved, as the past." — Will Durant

Finished reading: The Best American Essays 2024 💙📚 I’m on an essay kick, and the latest “Best American” series provided a wide range of thought-provoking takes and introduced me to some new voices. I share my five favorite essays in the full review. ★★★☆☆ Full review.

Rats are invading strollers in and around Central Park: "They’re bold. You can stomp your foot all you want, but they’re New York City rats. They are not afraid." Those many years on an island in Washington state taught me all about rats. But here in NYC? They really are something else.

"What absurd victims of contrary desires we are! If a man is settled in one place he yearns to wander; when he wanders he yearns to have a home. And yet how bestial is content — all the great things in life are done by discontented people." Christopher Morley

The 15” M4 MacBook Air: https://robertbreen.micro.blog/2025/09/02/the-m-macbook-air.html

Nancy Pearl’s Revised ‘Rule of 50’: "When you are 51 years of age or older, subtract your age from 100, and the resulting number is the pages you should read before you can guiltlessly give up on a book … When you turn 100, you are authorized (by the Rule of 50) to judge a book by its cover." 💙📚

I’m late to the discovery of @annahavron’s wonderful Analog Office blog. Her Lumpers vs Splitters post on whether to keep one notebook for everything or many specialized notebooks is pure gold. Anna could write about staplers, and I would read it. Full disclosure: I am and forever will be a lumper.

The Kobo-Instapaper integration has officially launched, replacing the now defunct Pocket app for reading articles on the ereader. I’m curious to know if highlights made on Kobo sync back to Instapaper (and thus to Readwise). If so, this could be the tipping point for this long-time Kindle owner.

The mental health benefits of not knowing any history right now must be massive. Moving through your day with total equanimity. What happens next? Who knows? Maybe something good

"To see a thousand objects for the first and for the last time, what can be deeper and more melancholy? To travel is to be born and to die at every instant." — Victor Hugo from Les Misérables

Finished reading: On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) by Solvej Balle 💙📚 It’s Groundhog’s Day but with an existential slant on the meaning of self, time, mortality, sustainability, and the inevitable progression of love and marriage. ★★★★☆ Full Review.

You would think after three months, I would be tired of all the crowds, noise, and concrete. But I couldn’t shake the feeling during a walk through the East Village last night that I was on an elaborate movie set or maybe the holodeck on a starship. NYC might really be the center of the universe.

"If you only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are." — Montesquieu

Mornings in New York: https://robertbreen.micro.blog/2025/08/12/mornings-in-new-york.html

I look forward to these Sunday morning walks in Manhattan. The city empties out over summer weekends. Fewer people out walking, even fewer cars. An hour’s walk along these streets and avenues is therapeutic for the body and soul.

Finished reading: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder 💙📚 A concise summary of the tactics used by totalitarian governments to suppress freedom and democracy. Clear examples from twentieth-century despots support each of the twenty lessons. ★★★★☆ Full review.

Finished reading: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William L. Shirer 💙📚 I’m glad I read this hefty tome. I can put current events and government decisions into the context of what happened in Nazi Germany. I know better what to look for. ★★★★☆ Full review.

Finished reading: Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard 💙📚 A recent New Yorker article by Anthony Lane prompted me to read this one, my first Elmore Leonard book. I enjoyed the pacing and dialogue and colorful cast of characters, all set in languid south Florida. ★★★★☆

"America has been a terrific country for investors. All they have needed to do is sit quietly, listening to no one." — Warren Buffett, 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

"Take gratefully any pleasures the world provides, but don’t curse God when they fail. Nobody in the universe ever promised you anything. Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of a life amount not to wisdom but to scar tissue and callus." Wallace Stegner, The Spectator Bird 💙📚

Good news for Kobo readers or those looking to escape the Amazon ecosystem: Instapaper Read-It-Later comes to Kobo e-Readers later this summer.

David Barber returns to Evernote after a dalliance with Bear: "When I’m using Evernote, it becomes my central repository for receipts, travel plans, info that came to me via email, desk scraps, web-clips, and quick t... https://robertbreen.micro.blog/2025/07/16/david-barber-returns-to-evernote.html

Amy Crouch (@amylouise) on Madame Bovary: "I hope that when you pay attention to the world, see every flower on every oat-stalk and every bumbling country doctor, you find that you can look them into loveliness. I hope... https://robertbreen.micro.blog/2025/07/07/amy-crouch-amylouise-on-madame.html

Finished reading: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 💙📚 See my review for notes and favorite highlights. Still and always ★★★★★.

Irreverent take on why the internet hates ‘performative reading’: "We’re told by college professors that students can’t read entire books any more, that gen Z parents don’t like reading to their kids, that smartphones ruin... https://robertbreen.micro.blog/2025/07/03/irreverent-take-on-why-the.html

The Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library. It’s just a few subway stops from our apartment, so I’m able to spend time here often. What an inspiring place for a reader or writer!

City Dogs: https://robertbreen.micro.blog/2025/06/30/city-dogs.html

Finished reading: Brightness Falls by Jay McInerney 💙📚 McInerney’s great American novel: flawed characters grappling with timeless themes, set in what is arguably the greatest city on earth. I loved it. ★★★★★ See my full review for notes and favorite highlights.

Finished: Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen King 💙📚 Not King’s best short story collection. I think that award goes to You Like It Darker from last year. But any collection of stories by this generation’s master storyteller is still pretty great. blog.robertbreen.com/2025/06/06/n...

I passed the four-year mark of quitting alcohol today. Where I once struggled with days or weeks, now the years are piling up. The key for me was ruling out any thoughts of future moderation. It took many failed attempts before I accepted this simple truth. #sober

📚 Track your reading in a way that’s personal, private, and beautifully designed. @robertbreen.bsky.social built a Shortcut for Day One that logs title, author, notes, rating, and cover art as a private alternative to Goodreads. robertbreen.com/2025/04/23/k...

New Post: Where We Were Meant to Be robertbreen.com/2025/05/30/w...

Another brilliant volume in the wonderful Slow Horses saga. Jackson Lamb is as disgusting and brilliant as ever, with his Slow Horses saving the day yet again from ineptitude of the intelligence service bosses. These are comfort books to savor. 💙📚 blog.robertbreen.com/2025/05/17/l...

Blog Post: The Greatest We’re in the middle of a cross-country car trip from Phoenix to New York City. We’re traveling with two dogs, which has put a serious crimp in our sightseeing options. We are living on truck stop coffee, fast food, and DoorDash ... blog.robertbreen.com/2025/05/13/t...

Blog Post: Not Exactly Traveling Light robertbreen.com/2025/05/10/n...

Blog Post: The Cost of Adventure #vanlife #rvlife #nextchapter blog.robertbreen.com/2025/05/09/t...

Bear is a fantastic notes app if you're on Mac and iOS. I use it for all my reading notes, commonplace book and linked backup for my Day One journal. This video does a great job of showcasing its features if you're curious. #PKM

Blog Post: Savor the Moments. One of the things I love about keeping a journal is how a past entry can transport me so completely back in time to that moment ... #journaling #timetravel blog.robertbreen.com/2025/05/07/s...

Systems, Not Goals: https://blog.robertbreen.com/2025/05/06/systems-not-goals/

It's been a long while since I walked out of a used bookstore carting an entire box of books, but I could not pass these up. I love the essay form ("a loose sally of the mind"), but my supply was dwindling. No more! 💙📚

New Post: Shelf-Life, Ep. 10: Our Oriental Heritage #booksky https://jamierubin.net/2025/04/27/shelf-life-10-our-oriental-heritage/

Finished A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck. 💙📚 blog.robertbreen.com/2025/04/24/a...

Finished Gerald's Game by Stephen King. 💙📚 blog.robertbreen.com/2025/04/24/g...

Want to remember more from your reading? Use Day One as a private book journal with an Apple Shortcut that logs notes, ratings, quotes & covers—automatically. New post: why it works + how to set it up. 💙📚https://robertbreen.com/2025/04/23/keep-a-book-journal-with-day-one-and-apple-shortcuts/

Finished reading: Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell 💙📚 Another great Malcolm Gladwell read. I think I’ve read all his books now and even took his Masterclass on writing. I listened to this one, which was ... https://blog.robertbreen.com/2025/04/20/finished-reading-revenge-of-the.html

Finished reading: A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway 💙📚 Rereading a book you haven’t read in 40 years is an interesting experience. I remembered only the bleakness but little of the story itself. I enjoyed most of t... https://blog.robertbreen.com/2025/04/10/finished-reading-a-farewell-to.html