Ken Ilgunas

Around 825 AD, at a monastery in modern-day Germany, one or two monks (thought to be Reginbert, the librarian, and Walafrid, his pupil ) drew up a plan for a 40-building monastery on five stitched-together sheets of sheep skin. It's the only surviving "blueprint" from the early Middle Ages, and, ever since it was discovered, it's been a precious artifact to historians. The monastery, though, was never built. The plan was folded up and the backside was used for a biography of

Listening Joe Rogan Podcast with Jonathan Haidt - Here's a good talk on giving kids the freedom to roam in their neighborhoods, make mistakes, skin knees, and grow into more hardy adults. Haidt's worries about giving preteens phones and access to social media seem spot-on, and his suggestions are reasonable and helpful (no social media before high school, no phones in the kids' bedrooms, get together with parents and suggest sensible rules for the school principal to implemen

I took two road trips across the Northeastern states this year, in which I binge-listened to a whole bunch of stuff. Podcasts have become my primary source of news and edification. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I suggest that I listened to over 500 hours in 2018. *** Making Obama – This series — about Obama’s meteoric rise — is riveting. If I have any criticism, it’s that the show should have followed Obama all the way to 2008, when he gets elected. Instead, it ends som

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel (2017) The book is a comedy, tragedy, and mystery, but also a paean to solitude, to the contentment that comes from being alone, and to the simple joy of melting into the natural world. One of the underlying messages of the book, which I'm on board with, is that there's nothing crazy or wrong or even weird about wanting to be alone. For many, it's a luxury. For some, a necessity. “‘Th