I’ve had a few books rotating on my desk this month. Nothing systematic—just whatever catches my eye.

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

Rilke’s only novel, though it barely qualifies as one. It’s more like a series of observations, memories, and meditations loosely strung together. The kind of book you read slowly, a few pages at a time.

There’s a passage early on about learning to see:

“I am learning to see. I don’t know why it is, but everything enters me more deeply and doesn’t stop where it once used to.”

That line has been stuck in my head for weeks.

How to Do Nothing

Jenny Odell’s book about attention and resistance. I expected it to be about productivity (or the rejection of it), but it’s really about ecology, place, and what it means to pay attention to where you actually are.

Good companion reading for anyone who spends too much time online.