August is the month of the sealey challenge, an annual challenge to read a book of poetry every day in August. You can modify the challenge to suit your life. The goal is just to read more poetry. I’m going to try to read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Iliad. 📚

Read How Bots Took Over Our Lives by T. M. Brown (The New Yorker).

Perhaps that’s what the A.I. apocalypse is really shaping up to be—not the elimination of humanity by an omniscient machine mind but an internet overrun by unthinking, error-prone automatons that make the web unusable and destroy it from the inside. After the bots take over, we can all get back to the real world.

Finished reading: Too Fast to Fall by Victoria Dahl 📚

US friends, here are more opportunities to stand up for libraries! Support the Books Save Lives Act by signing a petition and e-mailing your representatives. 📚

Finished reading: Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds by Gwenda Bond 📚

Finished reading: Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down by Gina McIntyre 📚

This book is a triumph of the design of a physical object. It’s so cool. The making-of details are fascinating but the design elevates it.

Finished reading: Perfect by Judith McNaught 📚

Finished reading: The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan 📚

Finished up this series with the kiddo. On to the next!

Finished reading: Mythos by Stephen Fry 📚🎧

It’s just delightful to hear Stephen Fry read this aloud.

Thanks for the kind birthday wishes, everybody!