John Miedema

You’re free to read, right? On the web, in Canada? Maybe China has a great firewall, but Canada? How many of you work behind a firewall that does not let you access web mail and other web content? We let that slide because, well, we are employees who should follow company policies. Would you feel the same if your employer did not let you read personal letters or certain books during your lunch hour?
What can you do about it? One idea. The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based …

Tim Miedema snapped this photo of a nine-inch thick book he came across in a country garage. It is an encyclopaedia and dictionary. The owner found it in a barn. Tim is one of my several siblings. You can click the photo or this link to view his online art gallery.

When the Dalai Lama visited Canada in 2007 a Catholic asked if he should convert to Buddhism. The Dalai Lama replied that the man should use Buddhism to become a better Catholic. A humble answer, it seemed, but it was also a clever one. Buddhists do not wish to compete with other religions. How rare, I thought. It took some time to sink in, but the Dalai Lama’s reply also positioned Buddhism as a meta-religion, a perspective from which to understand and enhance other religions. Clever. Each new insight I …

Amazon designed the Kindle to be bookish, with the dimensions of a paperback and a tapering of width to emulate a book’s binding. Does this design work for Kindle newspaper and magazine subscriptions? I was given a Kindle for Christmas, and in this fifth post in my shakedown series, I give my take on reading subscriptions.
Every Saturday I pick up a print copy of Canada’s The Globe and Mail newspaper. Unfortunately, the Globe does not deliver its print edition to my rural address nor is it available internationally. When the …

I have read about 2500 books. Print books. I have only read 2.5 ebooks on my new Kindle. In this fourth post in my Kindle shakedown series, I consider the Kindle book reading experience. Given my history with print it is not surprising that I maintain a preference for it, but I enjoy reading on the Kindle more than I expected.
A primary reason for getting an ereader was my interest in reading the work of indie writers publishing via ebooks. Like many others, writer Cliff Burns was frustrated with the …

Aristotle Build 03 by Republic Bike was recently added to the Reading Gallery. Books and bicycles share core design principles: elegance, durability, flight. Fixies are my growing obsession.

Walt Crawford has written a thoughtful piece on slow reading in the March 2010 issue of Cites & Insights. I am honoured that Walt highlighted some of the important themes that I have discussed at this blog and in my book. He also refers to a number of other related writings by T. Scott Plutchak, Will Richardson, and Steve Lawson. Well worth reading.
Walt is not new to the subject of slow reading. In my research, I ran across an article called “Contemplation and Content: Getting Under Their Skins” in …

What I’m Reading

The Brief History Of The Dead; Kevin Brockmeier

Also Reading

Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction; Tom Raabe