(This article was originally published on Medium on May 17, 2022, a few weeks before that year's Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). The previous year Apple had started rolling out M-series Apple Silicon chips into high-end iPads, and speculation was rife that Apple was finally going to
I’ve been researching vampire fiction in a desultory way, and what better place to go than the original vampire novel. I know many of us tend to think that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was the first, but that’s about twenty years too late. (The question mark in the
Started March 21, 2026 Finished March 24, 2026 Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend spawned the Will Smith movie of the same name, the 1971 Charlton Heston flick The Omega Man and the 1964 Vincent Price film The Last Man On Earth. The Omega Man was memorable, if only
Started March 12, 2026 Finished March 20, 2026 I got this book as soon as I learned it was available, and devoured it. Devouring took me a few days. It’s big. I’ve been an Apple user, on and off, for over 25 years. I’ve gone back and
I’ve been retired now for three months. What is life like? It’s slower, more spread out, quieter. Few things have to be done by the clock. Though I spend two hours a day up in the bedroom working on my writing, that’s not a job, and I
I made a big boo-boo on my Fourth Wing post...making it sound like I finished ALL BUT ONE of the books I started, when it was just the opposite. Re-read the new opening paragraph on the site and you'll see what REALLY happened!
Started sometime in the second week of February, 2026 Finished 2/22/26 The book blurbs have been silent this month because I failed to finish all but one of the books I’ve been reading. I decided to try a new reading strategy of pursuing multiple books instead of
Started 1/26/26, Finished 1/30/26 I tend to avoid writing earlier than mid-20th century. The changes wrought upon the world by the Second World War changed literature, and for me at least, made it more readable. So here I am, at 70, reading Edgar Rice Burroughs for
Started 1/19/26 Ended 1/26/26 I eat this kind of book up. I call the category "popular history;" written for a general reader, concentrating on a single event of concept. I'd never come across Simon Winchester before, but now I'm certainly
Started 1/13/26, finished 1/18/26 I started reading The Expanse series last year, after several years knowing about it but ignoring it (because, you know, I have to prioritize somewhere). I’m not sorry that I waited, but I’m glad I gave in. It’s been
Finished reading 1/12/26 This was a hard mini-review to write, because I'm reluctant to say how much I disliked this book...while also giving it the same attention I've devoted to any Tom Clancy or Mick Herron novel. Maybe I wanted to like it.
Finished reading January 9, 2026 Please excuse the huge size of the book cover on the web version of this page. I can't figure out how to make the feature illustration smaller. Maybe next time... There are two cheats here: first of all, I started reading this in