THIS ON THURSDAY
06.04.26 | #56
Hi Reader,
We were somewhere in the middle of a family trip when I noticed it.
My son, twenty-something, phone-native, fully fluent in the language of screens, was sitting quietly with a paperback in his hands. Not scrolling between chapters. Not half-listening to an audio version while doing something else. Just reading. Unreachable in the best possible way.
Something about the way he looked stopped me cold. Calm. Regulated. Like his nervous system had finally found a gear it recognized.
That moment sent me down a rabbit hole I haven’t quite climbed out of. Specifically, what reading actually does to us, why the physical format matters more than we think, and why midlife might be exactly the right time to treat it as the serious hobby it is.
📖 Read the full post here →
A Few Books Worth Having on Your Nightstand
If the post resonates, these are worth picking up:
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The novel the Congo book on my son’s lap kept making me think of. Colonial Africa, a family slowly unraveling, and Kingsolver at her very best.
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
A bracingly honest book about time, finitude, and what actually deserves our attention. The anti-productivity productivity book. Beloved for good reason.
From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks
The book I’d hand to anyone in midlife who’s quietly wondering what comes next. Honest, research-backed, and oddly comforting.
Stoner by John Williams
A quiet, devastating novel about a man who finds meaning in literature when so much else disappoints. It’s been having a long cultural revival. Once you read it, you’ll understand why.
📖 Happy reading!
🩷 Create a life you love.
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