4 Books for Bloggers

How to Do Nothing, by Jenny Odell

You’ve probably already heard about Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing, a book that counters the constant buzz of online life with a exploration of how to return to true focus and connection. It’s a book that’s relevant to bloggers for how it underlines that a lack of context is what makes social media so difficult to navigate, the equivalent to screaming into a noisy crowded room. And what are blogs if not context? You have an idea of who you’re talking to. Your readers know who they’re reading. A return to context and real connection is inspiring and refreshing.

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Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning, by Tom Vanderbilt

The thing about blogging is that you have to begin again every time you do it, and I think a successful blogger requires a willingness to remain engaged with and curious about the world in order for the blog to be enjoyable and sustainable. (The blogger who only writes about everything she knows already very fast runs out of material.) Vanderbilt’s exploration of lifelong learning is a fun and engaging read, and might inspire you to take a trip outside your comfort zone, which is always a great way to find something to write about.

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Phosphorescence: A Memoir of Finding Joy When Your World Goes Dark, by Julia Baird

Not a straightforward memoir, but not just reportage either, instead a fascinating hybrid, a nice companion to Katherine May’s Wintering, but it drew me in so much more, and is uncannily about many of my own fascinations, among them, swimming, teapots, uncertainty, and why it matters to have fascinations at all.

Phosphorescence is a light from within, and Baird writes about how to seek such light, how to even find it, from the perspective of a woman who’s survived cancer, its return twice more, brutal and painful surgeries and recoveries, on top of a life spent as a patriarchy-fighting Anglican, reporter, historian, biographer of Queen Victoria, cold water swimmer, and avid collector of friends.

And OH, how she writes about friendship. “The cornerstone of my resilience.” Her prose is that gorgeous, and I loved this book at the sentence level, as the ideas and connections blew my mind.

And the disconnections too—this book is strange and meandering, curious in its progression, and in the most wonderful way, it reminded me of blogging, albeit with impeccable polish: “After all this exploring, we should be gazing steadily outward, beginning to find others again, and the brilliance of the world outside our doors.”

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Good Burdens: How to Live Joyfully in the Digital Age, by Christina Crook

If my blogging course came with a text book, Good Burdens would be it. It was so exciting for me to see so much of my own ideas about living well online (and about how the internet can make your life richer!) in this book, but it also made me think some more about these ideas and I learned a lot from Crook, whose first book was The Joy of Missing Out: Finding Balance in a Wired World. Where to focus our attention, how to foster real connection, why the “good burdens” of our lives give us meaning, why does nature matter, how can we make sure our online choices are deliberate ones? Lots of great questions to ponder and work through, an ongoing project that (like our blogs!) would be nice to continue forever.