Every essay, by year, with a note on each. Topics are listed at the end.
Journal
8 essays
Pencil in a borrowed book
A friend’s paperback came back with my pencil in its margins, and a question about whose book it is now.
A chair for reading, and nothing else
Why one chair in the flat is kept for books, and what happened the month it stopped being.
Notes that never became essays
A notebook of half-thoughts, and the case for keeping the ones that go nowhere.
Reading outside in the last warm week
Four evenings on a balcony with a stack of books, and how little of it got read.
On rereading Montaigne out of order
Opening the Essays at random for a month taught me more than reading them straight through.
The quiet hour before the house wakes
What an unscheduled hour at six in the morning is for, and what it is not for.
Where the good light falls in a small flat
Moving a lamp, a chair and a shelf until the evening light and the reading light agree.