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Essays
Longer pieces, written slowly
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The cost of a clean desk
Tidying is real work that produces nothing, and it is the most convincing procrastination available to anyone who writes.
Published:
19 July 2026
2 min read
#work
#craft
#attention
On rereading
A book you have read before is a different book, and the difference is a measurement of you rather than of it.
Published:
14 June 2026
3 min read
#reading
#attention
The shape of an afternoon
Attention has a grain to it. Working against that grain is most of what feels like difficulty.
Published:
2 May 2026
3 min read
#attention
#work
Notes on the typography of this site
Why the body is a serif, why the measure is narrow, and what the two typefaces are each allowed to do.
Updated:
9 August 2026
3 min read
#typography
#craft
#meta
Against the reading list
A list of books you intend to read is a promise made by one person and owed by another, and the second one never agreed to it.
Published:
27 January 2026
2 min read
#reading
#attention
What a sentence owes you
Difficulty in prose is sometimes the subject and sometimes the writer, and the reader is entitled to know which.
Published:
6 October 2025
2 min read
#craft
#reading
The long way round
Some routes are shorter and some are better, and the assumption that these are the same question is fairly recent.
Updated:
2 February 2026
3 min read
#attention
#walking