New Blog and Some Recommendations

I’ve been reading Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work, following a recommendation from Ali Abdaal’s YouTube channel. It reminded me how much I missed having a channel to share my thoughts. I realise that the web’s full of channels where I can share my thoughts, but I’ve fallen out of love with a lot of them. I’m not going to dissect that right now because no-one needs another “why social media is bad” post, but I’m sure you can imagine.

What I will say is that I miss the time when people wrote reasonably considered blog posts, and other people answered them with other reasonably considered blog posts. I realise that time has probably passed, and now we’re much more focussed on writing 240 outraged characters about an ill-considered tweet, but it seemed to me there’s still some space for blogging.

I’ve started a handful of blogs over the years with the view that I needed to write something specialised, be it about music, or film, or some other specific area. The world didn’t need another vanity blog, I thought. And yet, the more I considered it, the more I realised that a blog under my own name was exactly the place that could give me the freedom to write how I wanted to. Primarily, I miss writing, and I don’t want to straightjacket myself within a particular genre.

So, thank you for reading this “why I’m starting my new blog” post, which itself feels retro. My plans for this space, such as they are, is to use it as a place to share and learn. To stop thinking of a blog as a potential business where I need to meet the needs of the largest possible number of readers, and instead write things that I’d be interested in reading. If others enjoy it too, then fantastic. I believe there’s still room for a personal blog, not least because I still enjoy reading hundreds of them myself.

So to start, here’s some of the blogs that I still find fascinating to remind you what’s out there.

Brain Pickings - A splendid, intelligent blog by Maria Popova with insights into the seemingly endless variety of books she reads

Inessential - Brent Simmons is a developer at the Omni group, and has a lengthy blogging history. There’s some interesting developer-talk but also a lot about his priorities and life view which I find inspirational

Kottke - Jason Kottke is a blogging god, and if you haven’t read his blog recently, it’s still just as good as ever. Read for posts on typography, culture, history and design

Mary Beard has been blogging at the TLS on ancient history (and many, many other topics) for some years now. It’s fascinating.

Slate Star Codex - If you want a blog that will expand your mind and challenge your worldview, I can’t think of any more adept than Scott Alexander’s Slate Star Codex. He’s a psychiatrist, so many posts are in that field, but his book reviews are from many genres and are always smart and fascinating

Ed Whitfield’s The Ooh Tray is a regular visit for me for charmingly opinionated film reviews

Roo Reynolds’s blog hasn’t been updated in a while, but Roo’s newsletter is full of titbits that bring me joy.

More recommendations will, I’m sure, follow but for now check all of those out and I hope to see you again soon (yes, I can see you right now and dare I say you’re looking splendid).