"Crooked cops, judges, and county employees accepted poached meat as gifts and arranged cover-ups. People in the valley who opposed poaching mostly stayed silent."

A look inside the new Atavist story, by Nick Davidson: https://longreads.com/2026/05/07/undercover-agent-wildlife-poaching/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Nonfiction #Reading #Journalism #Poaching #Wildlife #Colorado #Undercover #TrueCrime

One of my biggest regrets from the past few years was losing the habit of reading books. All the usual excuses: child to look after, too tired, not enough time…

I didn’t read a ton, but I had an average of 30 books a year. Last year I must have read 6. This year in early April I was at 0… and the realization shook me to my core.

Something had to be done.

I found out about KOreader and SimpleUI - having on an e-reader homepage a bar with reading stats would be an incredible motivator… I thought.

Jailbroke my #Kindle, installed #KOreader and #SimpleUI. And 18 days later I have… an 18 day reading streak and I’m averaging 43 minutes of reading time per day. I’m just so happy! 😊

(Unrelated but #Technofeudalism is REALLY GOOD - off to go resume reading it for another 20 minutes or so).

#books #reading #habits #KindleJailbreak

Alt...

A photo of a hand holding a Kindle e-reader. The screen displays the SimpleUI interface with the hour on top (9:31), date, battery stats… and below a widget about the book I’m currently reading (Technofeudalism, I’m 58% in) and below another widget with reading stats: 18 days streak (with a flame symbol), 21 minutes of reading time today and 43 minute daily average over the past 7 days

I replaced the stock OS with CrossPoint Reader which makes it a lot faster and easier to use (it was easy to switch over). One of the nice things is that there is a mode that turns the reader into an access point, I connect to it and there is a tiny web server on the reader itself that allows me to upload books, manage books and manage the reader's settings.

Here's a picture of it next to my iPhone 16 Pro and a Hot Wheels car.

#reading #read #books #book #ereader #xteink #iPhone #hotwheels #lovecraft #cthulhu

Alt...

A Xteink X4 ereader next to an iPhone 16 Pro and Hot Wheels for scale.

"I was certain secret doors existed in real life, and spent a lot of time looking for them." Today, Longreads has an excerpt from "Make Believe" by Mac Barnett, the US National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Don't miss it! https://longreads.com/2026/05/05/mac-barnett-childrens-books-make-believe/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social #literature #books #reading #libraries #essays #picturebooks #kids #adults #longreads

Piece in the Scotsman about drystone before my appearance at Boswell Book Festival on 9th May.

‘At the most fundamental level, drystone has made me feel that change is possible. We so rarely get to shape the environments we live in. We so rarely get to be part of an embodied, physical legacy. Drystone has changed my relationship to the past, present and future. To how I experience time and consequence, but also action.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/why-building-drystone-walls-in-perthshire-means-so-much-to-me-8492157#disqus-comment-section

#Scotland #UK #Art #Books #Reading #Writing

Alt...

A woman with short dark hair and silver streaks sits on a drystone wall in an open Highland valley. She wears a black long-sleeved top, blue jeans, and lace-up hiking boots, with a dark jacket tied around her waist. She looks down and to the left, her expression quiet and inward. Behind her, rough moorland grass stretches toward a hillside of bracken and scattered trees under an autumn sky. Photo by Christie Hemm Klok

Let me hand you a newsletter.
This month's edition has big news!

https://eot.paulkater.com/f/a/P0HHnNfeIt3kobm9mXjMAQ~~/AAAHURA~/kXj2nd-lMpdq9dBZXb9U4IsJ8lAQ_ThOkz3KZN2GZn32N54qYvMNh0qpd2pyQIRPk5Y8LpSuFXVoSXbhbMpR579ZPB_DypY-FHNw3L5fHEFNdvC7C2tTnPOh-jy1fzUIA9IN8LUXU79--88rub8tJKtUXcDDIYrwkKoaNfpNl8gEJmYNI4ReV60_DGhowgAr6cgWjXj2mg5mWVoCEXLL2Nj441XQZARbTch2j4fO70uFFZgmkjt_G_Fh6wvfaKQXxPi-9p5JGwa7wV9dsqRwuM4IfrA8z07_bZLkEcgDCiA6X88cmOq-CraZTb1bCFUhtGArinUGS7berisHKL3O7hAVLnCZRBbXpb1Z0cbqhtY~

Hilda's 29th story is live in many places, and adding.

#Reading #WickedWitch #Fantasy #humor #Indie

"Leave the bees mostly alone, and let them learn to solve the challenges of their volatile world. And they have." —Hannah Nordhaus for National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/secrets-of-bees-adaptation-pollinators/?src=longreads

#longreads #bees #insectes #reading #writing

I hired Claude to articulate my thoughts on the self-improvement industry…

https://philosophics.blog/2026/05/01/the-grammar-of-bettering-yourself/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

…and, frankly, LinkedIn and pop psychology. I leverage my notion of ontological grammar.

#philosophy #psychology #blog #podcast #selfhelp #language #power #reason #rhetoric #personadevelopment #bollocks #vulnerability #writing #reading #cognitivebias #llms #claudeai

This week's Top 5:

- Bottles ashore, The New Yorker
- Benches awaiting, Places Journal
- Boundlessness disputed, Quanta Magazine
- Books aplenty, Cabinet
- Batons bought, The Baffler

https://longreads.com/2026/05/01/top-5-608/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Reading #Essay #Writing #Nonfiction #Journalism

A novella about time and memory.

https://philosophics.blog/2026/04/30/new-release-the-box/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

I hear that people no longer read, don't read novellas, and have short attention spans. I figure that if they've got short attention spans, why not a novella? Of course, if they don't read anyway, I should have published a picture book instead. Live and learn.

#philosophy #book #time #history #memory #writing #reading #publishing #author #fiction #novella #london #blog #podcast #nostalgia

In the latest edition of our Top 5:

—Death traps (The Believer)
—Derring-do detectives (The New York Review of Books)
—Drivel inspection (The Drift))
—Deforestation? Not in my back yard! (In These Times)
—Dissonance appreciation (The New Yorker)

https://longreads.com/2026/04/24/the-top-5-longreads-of-the-week-607/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#longreads #top5 #reading #writing #essays

In this Substack, I reveal the sleight of hand psychologists use to domesticate ideas from philosophy and other disciplines by critiquing an essay on nihilism and Anhedonia.

https://open.substack.com/pub/brywillis634737/p/nihilism-is-not-a-symptom?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

#Nihilism #ExistentialNihilism #PsychologyCritique #Anhedonia #Metaethics #LanguageInsufficiency #Philosophy #MeaningOfLife #SemanticDrift #LanguageInsufficiency #PsychologyCritique #blog #podcast #essay #reading #writing #pathology

An interaction in Chapter 2 of Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day inspired me to write a Substack article on metaphors we may not consider to be metaphors. I focus on #professionalism and #honour.

https://open.substack.com/pub/brywillis634737/p/the-metaphors-we-argue-with?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer

Check it out, and pick up a copy of the book. I hear the movie isn't half bad. In fact, I borrowed the image asset from Amazon.

#philosophy #metaphor #language #britain #france #germany #americans #versailles #books #reading #writing #substack #blog #podcast

We asked Ibram X. Kendi: Sound or silence?

"I love the loudness of silence, as an introvert."

The CHAIN OF IDEAS author answers this week's Longreads Questionnaire: https://longreads.com/2026/04/15/questionnaire-ibram-x-kendi/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Writing #Reading #Authors #Writers #Race Racism #Antiracism #Interview

I read the opening chapter of Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day through the lens of A Language Insufficiency Hypothesis and the notion of ontological grammar.

https://philosophics.blog/2026/04/14/the-butler-did-it-to-himself/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

In a manner of speaking, this chapter is about the construction of the self and personal identity through grammar

#philosophy #literature #language #grammar #aesthetics #beauty #butler #ishiguro #reading #writing #critique #ontology #blog #podcast #wittgenstein #institutions #analysis

A colleague shared a post today that inspired this, let's say, 'response'. Do #LLMs ruin everything?

https://philosophics.blog/2026/04/12/the-environment-always-wins-the-myth-of-pure-voice/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

This is always in the back of my head anyway, so it wasn't particularly difficult to write a #blog post and ask #NotebookLM to summarise it for a #podcast.

#philosophy #language #artificialintelligence #virtuesignalling #culture #gatekeeping art #creativity #innovation #psychology #society ##games #books #reading #writing #absorbtion #influence #literature #homeschool

Grandpa Simpson raising a fist and yelling at clouds. I attended an online close-reading™ of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, and let's just say, I came away disappointed, and so I wrote about it.

https://philosophics.blog/2026/04/11/nietzsches-beyond-good-and-evil-a-close-reading/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

#philosophy #community #reading #writing #reviewing #scholarship #integrity #interpretation #blog #podcast #meaing #critique #books #nietzsche #livestream #streaming

"Ideas and turns of phrase shake loose on a long run. It’s thrilling."

In this week's Longreads Questionnaire, New Yorker staff writer and LONDON FALLING author Patrick Radden Keefe shares what he's reading, where he does his best thinking, and more.

https://longreads.com/2026/04/08/questionnaire-patrick-radden-keefe/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Authors #Writers #Books #Nonfiction #Reading

I've been putting off posting about my 5,000+ essay downloads in deference to more 'important' pieces, but since my weekend was occupied plotting a new story idea, I have space for a short celebratory piece. Hooray for me. 🥳

https://philosophics.blog/2026/04/06/celebration/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

The two favourites were 'Objectivity Is an Illusion' and 'Rational Ghosts: Why Enlightenment Democracy Was Built to Fail'. Follow the link.

#philosophy #essays #writing #reading #democracy #fiction #nonfiction #objectivity #rationality #celebrate

In this week's Top 5:

· Chasing manhood (The New Yorker)
· Naming the dead (WIRED)
· Searching the stacks (Alta Journal)
· Leaving music (Hazlitt)
· Opting out (The New York Times Magazine)

https://longreads.com/2026/04/03/top-5-604/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Reading #Nonfiction #Journalism

"No matter how much time he spent on r/dumbphones, no matter how many social media apps he deleted, his phone always ended up back in his hands." —Matthew Shaer for The New York Times Magazine

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/03/31/magazine/quit-smartphone-addiction-social-media.html/?src=longreads

#longreads #smartphones #iphones #technology #addiction #reading #writing

In this week's Longreads Questionnaire, best-selling author R. O. Kwon shares what she's reading these days, the word she overused in her first novel, and more.

https://longreads.com/2026/04/01/questionnaire-r-o-kwon/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Writers #Authors #Books #Writing #Reading

"I come home that night empty-handed. No Yellow Bird. Not in the national libraries or in the cracked bookstores on Donceles or in the vaults of Morton Subastas."

Geoffrey Gray for Alta Journal: https://www.altaonline.com/books/a70453082/joaquin-murieta-yellow-bird-zamorano-80/

#Longreads #California #Books #RareBooks #Collecting #History #Libraries #Mexico #Reading

Time travel is impossible science fiction, but not for the reasons pop physics thinks.
https://substack.com/@brywillis634737/note/c-236459523?r=pvxh5&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
#scifi #sciencefiction #reading #blog #posting #writing #time #travel #history #philosophy #perspective #timetravel #substack #wordpress #physics

Duration and the Intervalic Imposition: Thinking about TIME and DURATION. Looking for #feedback
https://philosophics.blog/2026/04/01/duration-and-the-intervalic-imposition/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social
#philosophy #physics #time #duration #memory #bergson #kant #Heidegger #husserl #phenomenology #metaphysics #math #maps #blog #podcast #history #reading #writing #essay #comments

An outline of my approach to critique Parfit's moral maths
https://open.substack.com/pub/brywillis634737/p/beyond-parfit-moral-maths-and-the?r=pvxh5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

#philosophy #morality #mathematics #parfit #ontologicalgrammar #writing #essay #academic #reading #books

Shifting from Parcifal to Parfit, I'm debating the value of moral maths that seem to be an outgrowth of the attempt to couch everything as utility and economics.
https://philosophics.blog/2026/03/30/the-blind-spot-of-moral-maths/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social
#philosophy #morality #psychology #economics #utility #math #mathematics #blog #essay #writing #podcast #reading #parfit #reason #academia #enlightenment #medical #intervention #hospital

I discuss the phenomenological roots of precedences of The Architecture of Encounter in a new podcast series.
https://philosophics.blog/2026/03/28/architecture-of-encounter-podcast-episode-0-phenomenologists/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

#philosophy #phenomenology #blog #podcast #video #mediation #ontology #books #writing #promotion #reading #AoE #encounter #summary #history

"If there is a feminist spin on alpine divorce, it’s what comes after the women are left behind." —Alaina Demopoulos for The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2026/mar/17/alpine-divorce-abandoned-hiking-trail/?src=longreads

#longreads #hiking #alpinedivorce #wilderness #writing #reading #survival

The deeper I get into thinking about this essay, the more I realise my perspective as an outsider drew me to it and shapes it.

https://philosophics.blog/2026/03/23/whom-do-you-serve-wip/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

As a management consultant, I was often cautioned not to ask 'that' question, or at least not to 'that' executive. Stop telling them they have no strategy when they say they have one.

#philosophy #management #power #silence #language #permission #blog #podcast #writing #essay #reading #classics #psychology #culture #society #filters #anecdotes

I'm still considering the outline for my 'Grail' essay. I've decided to begin with Substack.

https://open.substack.com/pub/brywillis634737/p/whom-does-the-grail-serve-institutional?r=pvxh5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

I have spawned a separate, perhaps more academic, idea on non-knowledge, but one idea at a time, said I – never. Follow along…

#philosophy #spychology #writing #reading #grail #blog #wip #silence #performance #normativity #society #institutions #diagnosis #process #outlines #essay

"My sister called: our father was about to die. Our parents, long divorced, were both in hospice, on opposite coasts." —Amanda Peet for The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/my-season-of-ativan?src=longreads

#longreads #family #hospice #cancer #writing #reading

Reading similar posts by @scribblanitea and @daj brought my unusual relationship with these punctuation marks to the surface.

🌐 https://blog.gridranger.dev/how-i-dash/

#reading #writing #emdash #blog #post #indieweb #szerbantal

My fingers have been gliding over the keys, and I've got a new #blogpost for you.

All about My Favourite Reading Genre.

https://forkingmad.blog/this-is-my-genre-golden-age-detectives/

Thanks @alexandra for the prompt.

#reading #crimeFiction #goldenAgeCrime  #GenreFiction

In "Good Writing," Neal Allen shares 36 tips to improve your sentences—and Anne Lamott weighs in on each one.

They bring that same dynamic to this week’s Longreads Questionnaire: https://longreads.com/2026/03/18/questionnaire-neal-allen-anne-lamott/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Writing #Writers #Authors #Interview #Reading #Books

"'You should write about my life,' the bike thief said, as we rode under the freeway, trucks roaring above us. Maybe I will, I said."—Iain Treloar for Escape Collective

https://escapecollective.com/?src=longreads

#longreads #bikes #cycling #reading #writing

Spoilers: yes

Might be helpful to think of LLM/"AI" use as mass colonization and subversion of our minds.

Ideas: With a decline in reading is our capacity to think eroding?

Episode webpage: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16198762-reading-thinking-digital-age

Media file: https://mgln.ai/e/12/cbc.mc.tritondigital.com/CBC_IDEAS_P/media/ideas/ideas-sDXd8fyC-20260219.mp3

#Philosophy #Epistemology #AI #LLM #Reading

I found another use for AI in my workflow.

Meantime, my next manuscript is almost a book. The genesis of new life.

In this blog, I connect the dots. legacy systems and human interactions persist as bottlenecks. Some bottlenecks are necessary – or at least acceptable (or accepted) – but many (if not most) aren't.

https://philosophics.blog/2026/03/12/architecture-of-encounter-indexing-with-claude-ai/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

#claudeai #chatgpt #aiautomation #processautomation #workflows #writing #publishing #management #books #philosophy #reading #teaser #author

"Pixar isn’t just dithering about diversity; it has become visibly scared of children themselves." —Eli Cugini for The Baffler

https://thebaffler.com/latest/problem-child-cugini/?src=longreads

#longreads #pixar #amination #diversity #films #reading

In this week's Longreads Questionnaire, Julian Brave NoiseCat shares the writers who inspire him, what's shaped him most, and where he does his best thinking.

https://longreads.com/2026/03/11/questionnaire-julian-brave-noisecat/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Writing #Creativity #Reading #Storytelling #Writers #Authors #Indigenous #Native

I asked 10 LLMs to explain the chapters of my dense philosophical manuscript like a 10-year-old.

https://philosophics.blog/2026/03/11/ai-revision/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

I was pleasantly surprised by some (Gemini 3 and Z.AI GLM-4.7). Others offered some interesting perspectives. Either the AI or I don't really understand 10-year-olds. Likely all of the above. See images. Are they aimed at 10-year-olds or 4-year-olds?

#philosophy #writing #books #childrensbooks #editions #editing #children #accessibility #reading #blog #ontology

Carlo Rovelli and I are in sync regarding my upcoming book on the architecture of encounter.
https://philosophics.blog/2026/03/07/encounter-with-carlo-rovelli/?utm_source=masto
#philosophy #reading #writing #author #physics #reality #language #perception #reality #books

#schools #children #AI #reading

'Adobe’s artificial intelligence generated sexualized images in response to prompts for a 4th grade book project. The incident coincided with the release of new state guidelines to prevent harmful AI in schools.'

https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2026/02/ai-images-scandalized-a-california-elementary-school-now-the-state-is-pushing-new-safeguards/

The Legibility of Time: What Physics, Governance, and Poetry Have in Common

https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/the-legibility-of-time?r=pvxh5

#philosophy #physics #reading #books #time #rovelli #bergson #einstein #legibility #method #thoreau #weeds #flowers #blog

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JIZalHmLvR8

announcing When Language Fails, my latest book.

#book #philosophy #announcement #language #promotion #writing #reading #psychology #communication #short #youtube #author #ontology #difference #society #culture