Tag: books

• I am interested in tiny e-readers suddenly (September 29, 2026)

  While I’ve never owned a dedicated e-reader, Nena Farrell’s Wired preview of the Boox Picco —$100 and apparently no larger than a playing card—piques my interest.

• Button, Button (December 16, 2025)

  I am eating my way through a wonderful Penguin edition of the best Richard Matheson short stories, and just read “Button, Button”, the basis for my very favorite episode of the 1980s Twilight Zone revival. I didn’t know before yesterday that it was a Matheson original, but I’m not surprised; he also wrote the indelible 1960s Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, which I’ve written about elsewhere recently.

• Hidden messages in shiny covers (November 30, 2025)

  Two physical books I purchased while traveling last month, the RPG rulebook Mörk Borg and the Jeff VanderMeer novel Borne, have something in common on their covers, neither of which I discovered until well into my ownership of either: “secret” images or messages, applied in some kind of clear material that is literally invisible in direct light but shines when viewed obliquely.

• Down in the mörk (November 28, 2025)

  I spent last weekend at PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia. It had been a long time since I’d last attended a tabletop gaming conference of any kind with my game-loving partner, and I pushed to have us attend this, both because-of and despite how it slotted perfectly between two other interstate trips that filled out most of November for us. We traded away a chance to catch our breath at home for several days of exhausting overstimulation that reminded me why I love non-digital games at least as much as video games, and caught me up on recent trends and innovations I’d been missing. It was a terrible idea, and I regret nothing.

• Comixology Unlimited is pretty good (July 19, 2020)

  After using and enjoying it for most of the past nine months or so, I’ve let my subscription to Comixology’s “Unlimited” service lapse. My interest in comics comes and goes, and it happens to have faded out for the present. I imagine that Amazon will be pleased to resume accepting my six bucks per month once it returns.