Despite something approximating my best efforts, many venues for book information continue to propagate the silly notion that there is such a thing as summer reading. This is such a widespread contagion—most in evidence by the locust-like droning of lists purporting to contain summer books—that if there was no literary nod to the season before, there is now. Such is the powerful influence of 40,000 monkeys typing. As far as I can tell, the only rationale for the summer reading thing is the ease by which purported literary journals or the literary paragraph of the shopping glossies can create a list that seems to be the benchmark of journalism in the new millennium.

I am not against lists—trips to the grocery or navigating one’s workaday life are made more manageable by a little organizational shorthand. But be forewarned: It’s unlikely you will find a list in this space or at least any that parrot the jibber-jabber that is passing for book talk. What you will find here is an unfettered foraging through packages that Tarik (my UPS guy) and other delivery services bring me during the business week, and musings on stories of all shapes, sizes, and emotional coloration that are found in many likely and some unlikely places.

Everything else aside, my interests still involve reading and stories and listening and looking and, not in the least, feeling. Pretty simple I’d say.

Feel free to let me know if it isn’t. Or about anything, anything at all.