It started when I came across Karin Hendrikse’s article on building a static RSS reader (oh how I love static files), and then Terry Godier’s post on RSS and phantom obligations nudged me away from the idea that a feed reader has to be something like Feedly or Google Reader. At some point Feedly started adding more AI features (ugh) and I decided it was time to part ways and do my own thing.

Digest is a little command-line tool I built in Go that reads a list of feed URLs from a text file, fetches all of them in parallel, caches the responses, parses the feeds, and then compiles a list of all the posts from the day before into a static HTML file. That’s basically it. I run it manually on my laptop and rsync the HTML up to my server so I can get to it on my phone.

It’s been great so far. A few other thoughts and observations:

• Boundaries and edges feel good. It’s like a personal daily newspaper, where it’s very clear when I’ve finished for the day. Infinite rivers carry more stress, I think. Or maybe I just like checking things off lists.
• The slight time distancing also feels good — quiet and calm. Because it’s a daily digest from the day before, it feels like less of a dopamine slot machine. No more checking Feedly dozens of times a day.
• I originally had Digest run on my server via a cron job, but I moved back to running it manually on my laptop and I’ve found that I much prefer it this way. Fewer moving parts. (If I’m unable to generate the digest on any given day, by the way, I can pass the date as a command-line argument to the tool and it’ll compile posts for that date instead of yesterday’s.) A bit more resilient, too — I can just open the HTML file locally on my laptop if I want, no server needed.
• At first I included the contents of each post in the file, but I’ve since trimmed it down so each entry just has the post title and link plus the blog title and the author, and I open each link in a new tab. After decades of reading RSS feeds in homogenized typographic settings (all posts in the same font, etc.), I thought I wouldn’t care to read posts on their original sites, but I was wrong. I love it. Especially since most of what I read is on the small web.

As of now I have no plans to release Digest as open source, but maybe this description will inspire someone to build their own tool that meets their personal needs.

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The Merchant of Prato: Francesco di Marco Datini, 1335–1410, by Iris Origo, published 1957, biography, 526 pages. Enjoyed this deep dive into the life of a medieval Tuscan merchant. Very detailed, thanks to Datini’s voluminous correspondence. Recommended if you’re into 1300s Tuscany, as I am. The preface includes this gem about the author:

The illegibility of her handwriting was also notorious. Her publisher and friend Jock Murray tells of tackling a passage at the bottom of a letter, which had defeated everyone else, and eventually deciphering the words: “Dearest Jock, I can’t read what I have written. Please type it out and send a copy to me.”

And this, from Petrarch, on doctors back then (glad things have changed!):

No one heeded their prescriptions, for I have always besought my friends and bidden my servants that nothing should ever be carried out on my person of what physicians had ordered, but that, if indeed something must be done, it should be just the opposite.

Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy, by Joyce Vance, published 2025, nonfiction, 168 pages. I’ve occasionally dipped into Vance’s newsletter for legal analysis on the criminal embarrassment that is Trump and his incompetent administration and all their unconstitutional mayhem, and her newsletter is solid. This book is likewise good, though it doesn’t have much legal analysis; it does, however, review Trump’s current attempts to destroy our democracy and turn himself into a vainglorious dictator, and it has recommendations for how to preserve our freedom. It’s about how rule of law and democracy are our best defense against the capricious, arbitrary whims of a tyrant, things we in America once again have firsthand knowledge of (re: Iran, tariffs, etc.). The book also points out (or maybe it’s just something I thought while reading it; I can’t remember) that anyone who is actively trying to make it harder for Americans to vote (cough SAVE Act cough) is fundamentally anti-American and an enemy of democracy.

The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio, published 1353 (translation by John Payne published 1886), fiction, 1,075 pages. What a bawdy, bawdy book. I found it repugnant, though near the end there were a couple very refreshing stories where someone chooses not to be immoral. (Shocking!) While I was in the middle of this, we came to Genesis 39 in our family scripture study and that too was a glorious breath of fresh air. I did enjoy the conclusion, where Boccaccio tries to defend his work against the objections he was sure were coming. All in all, I’m glad I read this for the sake of becoming better versed in medieval lit, but whew, never going to read it again. Also, incessant vice is boring.

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You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

I’ve long interpreted that last sentence as a command to stop sinning, but today (and acknowledging that this is probably news to nobody else), seeing it as part of a paragraph and in the context of the immediately preceding verses, I believe I now actually understand it. (I was about to say that I finally understand it, but how final my interpretation is remains to be seen. And who knows — my reading may turn out to be balderdash.)

The epiphany: in these verses, Christ commands us to love our enemies, those who are hard to love, and by extension it’s a command to love everyone, inclusive, just as Heavenly Father loves everyone — a love encompassing, a love complete, and (in the sense of not missing anything or anyone) a love that is perfect. So “be perfect” here maybe doesn’t mean “don’t mess up in any way” (impossible in this life, and that impossibility is precisely why we need a Savior) but rather is a reiteration or summation of the preceding verses: a much more doable “love everyone.”

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Anyway, here we are, twenty years after. (Which, to digress yet again, I read as a kid and quite liked. Maybe it’s time to reread that series.) If you, dear reader, were reading this blog or one of its sundry predecessors (mostly Blank Slate and Top of the Mountains) twenty years ago and are somehow still here, I salute your fortitude and perseverance, and I think you should poke your hand out of the fog of darkness (commentless blogs being one-way glass) and tap out a short email saying hi. [The author would like to note that — mildly disturbing metaphors aside — this friendly suggestion also applies to anyone who started reading the blog later on, anyone starting now (hi!), and anyone who can’t take it any longer and stops reading after this paragraph mercifully concludes.]

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I generally read between four and ten books at a time, though at times it’s gone as low as two and as high as, uh, thirty. (Those were wild days.) For me it’s a balance between finishing books — where fewer at a time helps — and reading across more of my areas of interest in parallel.

Each day I try to read at least 100 pages. My loose goal is at least ten pages per book per day, though I’m not strict about that. I also try to read at least fifty pages per day from the main books I’m reading (usually either book club books or the ones I’m closest to finishing). Even long books like War & Peace melt away fairly quickly at fifty pages per day.

When I get near the end of a book (fewer than 150 pages left), I tend to switch to burndown mode where I focus only on that book and largely ignore the others (reading only a page or two from them per day, if that).

As of today, this is my list of reading tracks, which is how I divvy up my reading across genres. I usually try to read one book per track, but that’s not a hard and fast rule.

• Nonfiction, authors I’ve already read. Working through the bibliographies of authors I like, basically.
• Nonfiction, authors new to me. Which in practice means any nonfiction that isn’t already covered by one of the other nonfiction tracks.
• Old nonfiction. “Old” is defined loosely here but mostly means books one can find on Project Gutenberg.
• Biography/memoir. On these I try to alternate between modern and old (same meaning of “old” as above).
• Diaries and letters. I’ve split these up into their own tracks before and may do so again, but for now I flip between them.
• Classics. I try to switch between more serious classics (the Brontës, Tolstoy, Gaskell, Hardy, that kind of thing) and more “fun” classics — a designation I’m not totally happy with — like Anne of Green Gables, Dracula, The Secret Garden, and Phantom of the Opera.
• Modern lit. I tend to rotate through sf&f, lit fic, and historical fiction, though the genre lines are messy and I don’t worry much about which track a book ends up in since it’s the reading that matters. Sometimes I split sf&f out into its own track, but lately I’ve been less interested in it so I’ve consolidated.

The list is alive and changes frequently. It will no doubt change tomorrow, or even later today. I don’t know what that says about me.

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Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President, by Candice Millard, published 2011, history, 368 pages. Loved it! The history — the assassination, the undiagnosed mental illness, the medical malpractice — is tragic and awful, of course, but the book itself is so good. Highly recommended. I also enjoyed the parts about Alexander Graham Bell and now want to read Reluctant Genius. And Garfield’s diary.

Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis, published 1952, nonfiction, 239 pages. A reread after twenty years away. Overall, it held up. Lots of good stuff.

Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery, published 1908, fiction, 377 pages. I grew up on the Canadian miniseries but had never read the original book till now, which I’m glad I finally did because it’s delightful and wholesome and human and I loved it. And the ending! Poignant. (From what I can remember, by the way, the miniseries — which is on my list of “things to show to my kids as I irrationally try to recreate my childhood for them” — seems to be a fairly faithful adaptation.)

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Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America, by Adam Cohen, published 2020, history, 498 pages. Good book, though frustrating throughout because of the court’s frequent decisions in favor of the rich and powerful instead of normal people, and also because of slimy, underhanded tactics by Nixon and McConnell and others. I shouldn’t have been surprised by any of this, but still it stung. More and more, conservativism seems these days to me to be a blight that rots whate’er it touches and in many ways is fundamentally incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ. (Saying this as someone who grew up fairly conservative.)

The White Album, by Joan Didion, published 1979, essays, 223 pages. Still loving Didion’s writing, about any topic. Liked this: a “place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image.”

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, published 1597, play, 96 pages. Rather liked it — lots of great lines. Fun (if “fun” is the right word for a tragedy) (it’s not) to read it after reading Ovid on Pyramus and Thisbe. Also, it hits quite a bit differently now that I have teenagers around the age of Romeo and Juliet.

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Brad East on how AI changes us. “The relevant questions to ask about AI and any and all usage of the variety of tools that go under its name are moral, theological, and formational. What kind of person is it likely to make me to be? What virtues or vices will it develop or diminish? In what ways is it likely to expand and enrich my (our) humanity—the good life—and in what ways is it unlikely to do so?” An angle I haven’t seen mentioned nearly enough.

John Scalzi’s thoughts on AI. Liked this.

Juha-Matti Santala on having different notebook sizes for different ideas. I like this. Lately I’ve been all-in on Field Notes, but I still have other sizes of notebooks (including other sizes of Field Notes) and have been trying to figure out how I want to use them.

Maxime Heckel on halftone shaders. Fun.

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Bob Nystrom on knitting. “Let’s say that, like me, you are a person who stares at a computer and writes code for a living. As a straight male who grew up in a time where knitting was very strongly female coded, it for the most part never occurred to me that knitting was a thing I could do and might enjoy. Regardless of your demographic categories and background, it’s possible that you have also not really considered knitting. This article exists to get you to do so. Specifically, I’ll try to convince you, one software person to another, why it might be a good fit for your life and brain. This is a pitch for knitting, but—for better or worse—an extremely nerdily argued one.” I read this, promptly bought a needle and yarn, and spent an hour learning how to knit. (Have I done anything with it since then? Um, no. But someday soon I hope to get back into it.)

Henrik Karlsson on political power and Robert A. Caro’s books. “But Caro’s subjects are willing to do anything to win, so they will, so to speak, pump fracking fluid into the ground. They will press it into every little crevice, forcing drops of power mixed with sand to the surface. And as it turns out, if you extract all the small things and pool them together, it can be a massive reserve of power, indeed.”

Marcin Wichary on Flickr’s URL scheme, which had a strong influence on me back in the day.

Wm Morris on the current opportunity for Latter-day Saint writers. “There are pockets of interesting Mormon culture happening everywhere. And the lack of a true center for it limits material resources and access to audience, but also liberates artists from the slim hope of wide acclaim and the imprimatur of respectability.” I found this inspiring.

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