Picked up a secondhand CD recently, Roland From Poland(aka Tim Taylor)’s Baltic Beats. Turned out to be a great album! I tried to track the guy down but I haven’t yet found an email address - though I did find his blog where he’s posted his photography skills.

I appreciate the sentiment of Walden but, man, was it a slog to get through. Finally finished it after a good few months. Feels like a book that’s more often quoted than read.

The Collector was a vile, disgusting book to read. It made me sick to my stomach and I’ve spent the afternoon finishing it - 10/10 book that I can’t recommend to anyone. I’ll probably move on to The Artistos by Fowles before I tackle The Magus.

My ‘currently reading’ list keeps growing and growing… I’ve gotta get back on the grind. I’ve been looking at more advanced sci-fi recently (Cryptonomicon is staring at me from the shelf) so I’ll have to clear some older reads that I’ve dropped.

I’ve tried before to create a ’library’ page for this site including all of the books in my collection but I’ve always ran into a few roadblocks. First is the time sink that cataloging would be and second is which cataloging system to use. The Dewey Decimal isn’t universal so different libraries can sometimes have books in completely different areas. The Library of Congress system would probably work best but the categories feel so broad that it has the same effect that books can have multiple classifications.

Got back from watching The Phonecian Scheme, good movie overall - I think I prefer it to Asteroid City but they’re both great if you’re in the mood for a Wes Anderson movie. My favourite still has to be The Royal Tenenbaums.

With my recent post on Latin, check out the History of Rome podcast - it makes for great bite-sized learning with each episode ranging from 10-20 mins.

Take a look at my latest playlist. It’s a mix of ambient and twee electronica that I use for when I want to focus.

Hit my reading goal for 2025!!

All of Amy Jeffs’ books feel important in a very intimate way - a look into a lost collective history in a way that emphasizes how removed Britain is from its past, a nation forever looking outwards. This isn’t to say that these traditions should be revived (in a synthesized neo-paganist way that would remove us further from their lived history) but that they should be remembered because they ‘[bring the marvelous closer’ and remind us that the past belongs to everyone.