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Anticipation

I'm 46, and I've always tended to read a lot, yet I don't think I've ever eagerly awaited a new book. Sure, I mostly read dead guys--Chesterton, Belloc, Guardini, Voegelin, Nock--so it's not surprising, but still: you'd think that, at some point in my life, I would've been geeked about a forthcoming book. My current anticipation of Nassim Taleb's new book, Antifragile, is a new sensation for me. I've been waiting for it since last spring and now I'm just a day away. It's pre-ordered and will be downloaded as soon as it comes off the digital press.

It will come at a good time. I'll have a lot more reading time now that my garden is completely put to bed for the winter. I finished it yesterday. Just as I was adding the last scraps of compost and cleaning the last of the containers, I was finishing the last episode of The History of Rome podcast: 74 hours and 600,000+ words. The end of the podcast and end of the gardening season gave me a good, poetic, feeling, even if my fingers were numb from washing dirt from the containers. I'm not sure what podcast I'll listen to next. Duncan says he's going to launch a new one, and he also recommends 12 Byzantine Rulers. I've downloaded a handful of episodes of the Byzantine podcast. We'll see how I like it.

I've long considered putting together my own podcast series. It wouldn't be anything nearly as ambitious as Duncan's History of Rome, but rather a series of 20-minute podcasts (the perfect length, in my opinion) about episodes in Catholic Church history. I've searched for good Church history podcasts, and I simply can't find any. I think I'd find such a project edifying, but at this point, I don't even own the podcast hardware. I was asked to do podcasts with Mark Shea about five years ago (not together, but as part of a team), but I choked on the $300 hardware price tag. Maybe the prices have come down. If anyone knows anything about podcasting, I'd love to hear from you.

Remember: It's the shopping season. If you're accessing Amazon, please do so through this site. The revenue generated isn't a big deal, but it's kind of like winning at fantasy football: pretty cool, even if, in the grand scheme of things, it amounts to not much more than a small dopamine rush. Thanks!

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