Imagining what would happen if we all introduced ourselves by posting a picture or two of a place we love. Here’s a pair from me: John Sandoe Books in London.

A better view of the wild solar prominences during Monday's eclipse.

(Quick hand-held shot with Nikon Z9 + Nikkor 800mm f/6.3 PF)

I'm delighted to share the cover of my new book A Natural History of Empty Lots, now available for preorder—"a genre-bending blend of naturalism, memoir, and social manifesto for rewilding the city, the self, and society." www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/chris...

Quote post with a picture of street graffiti on your phone.

Hanbury Street off Brick Lane, London, 2018

Get to know your mutuals… list 10 things you’re into:
Long novels
1980s music videos
Subway systems
Strong coffee
Airplanes
Magpies & other corvids (but esp. magpies)
Bookstores
The feel of cotton sheets upon first waking up and snoozing an alarm
Brand new Dove soap bars
Balancing half-moon pose

Two barred owls, calling to each other through the night, back and forth: a conversation from a tree just outside my house, off to some tree in the distance.

If you can get to Stop Making Sense on a big screen during the restoration’s rerelease, do it do it do it. It’s so great that I strongly considered staying and watching it a second time.

Stop Making Sense in a theater? After dinner and a bookstore trip with my beloved? I call that a good end to September.

Do you all use the Cornell Lab's Merlin app? It's now got Sound ID, what I think of as a "Shazam for birds": it can identify birds it hears through your phone. Last night I used it to ID the two barred owls hooting at each other near my house. www.allaboutbirds.org (Click Bird ID to get the app!)

This is it, this is the definitive essay on WVU's current situation. It's written by the brilliant, furious, and clear-sighted Myya Helm, recent WVU graduate, first-gen student, Black West Virginian, and now Marshall Scholar.

From my yard this morning. Every August I love these lilies.

Ohio folks: Today's the day! Don't forget to disappoint the conservative politicians who want to take away your rights and scheduled a vote on a traditionally low-participation date to sneak it by you! In other words:

In some years, I'm able to read almost all of the Booker Prize longlist; last year, I'd read a lot of it before the announcement even came down. But in others, like this one, the list is mostly work new to me: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/2023. I'm excited!

I spent this morning marking my summer students’ essay drafts and the afternoon conferencing with them one by one. All over again, I remember and celebrate the slow, patient work of sitting together while someone learns how to think with more complexity. It’s a privilege to get to be present for it.

I teach students, talk about books, read every single thing I can, arm wrestle myself back toward writing my own book. Usually, I'm in central Ohio.

I've missed reading the people I used to follow on Twitter before I couldn't stomach being there anymore, so I'm absurdly happy to be here.