Finished Michael Dirda's "Browsings"

I just finished Michael Dirda's Browsings. While I enjoyed his previous books on books, the reading of books, and the life of books - this one didn't quite hit me with the same enthusiasm. I am trying to put my finger on why this is so - although it is unfair to expect to love every single book written by an author. There will always be some books that we prefer over others.

My preliminary guess would be that I find it hard to relate to some of the things he wrote about. It's not so much his themes, but more of the authors and books he mentioned. He reads a lot, and he reads a lot of unknown, out-of-print, obscure authors - which you wouldn't quite find them so readily in a modern library. Which is a real shame this time.

Looking forward to Patti Smith's 'The M Train'

The New York Times featured some books about places. Among them, Patti Smith's The M Train was featured.

In “M Train,” to be published next month, Ms. Smith writes about her life in New York, her love of cafes, her favorite books and television shows, her cats, her memories, joyful and melancholy, of her husband, the guitarist Fred Smith. But it is her travels — idiosyncratic, ritualistic, vividly recalled — that provide a unifying theme. “I believe in movement,” she writes. “I believe in that lighthearted balloon, the world.”

Oliver Sacks Reading List

From Gizmodo.