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DULY NOTED

EXTEND YOUR MIND THROUGH CONNECTED NOTES

An informative guide to organizing and managing thoughts, with a digital focus.

Arango presents a guide to better thinking through note-taking and the benefits of digital note-taking tools.

Notes are often seen as merely a tool for reference, for remembering, for “capture and recall,” but the author, an educator and “information architect,” aims to illustrate that good notes are also “a medium for thinking.” He begins by detailing what notes are and their extensive uses, from sticky note reminders to meeting minutes, transcriptions, research, and memory aids. The difference between evergreen notes, or notes meant to be kept, and transient notes, which can be discarded after a short while, is emphasized. Different ways to take notes, beyond (but including) scribbles on a sticky pad, are also discussed, such as photographs, audio and video recordings, and, especially, digital tools. The book illustrates the benefits of digital boards and programs capable of incorporating hypertext and metadata, allowing ideas to be interlinked (though the book largely focuses on introducing readers to the digital note-taking program Obsidian, there’s also information here about similar products like Apple Notes, Freeform, and Tinderbox). Throughout, the importance of organization to optimized note-taking is stressed repeatedly. Arango’s guide is short and approachable; managing one’s notes is presented as analogous to tidying up a kitchen after a big meal or maintaining a “knowledge garden” in need of regular pruning. The inclusion of “notable note-takers” band their note-taking practices offers excellent and sometimes surprising real-world examples, from software engineering to table-top role playing (the author also shares, somewhat tediously, how this book was itself developed from his own notes). Tips on mindfulness and using physical engagement to stimulate ideas are unexpected but welcome, further examples of how this resource is dedicated to moving notes beyond mere pen and paper.

An informative guide to organizing and managing thoughts, with a digital focus.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 218

Publisher: Two Waves Books

Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2024

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THE BACKYARD BIRD CHRONICLES

An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.

A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.

In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”

An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.

Pub Date: April 23, 2024

ISBN: 9780593536131

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024

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A WEALTH OF PIGEONS

A CARTOON COLLECTION

A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.

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The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.

Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.

A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.

Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Celadon Books

Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020

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