Tracy Durnell:

Some ideas warrant 300 pages. A very few justify 600. But many 100-page ideas are bloated into the 300-page form factor — from my understanding (which may well be wrong), because Americans want to feel like we’ve gotten our money’s worth? Perhaps this desire for brevity makes me sound unfocused, but the seeming depth of a 300-pager is often illusory. I suspect I’m not the only one who’d like more 100-page ideas without the padding.

‘Idea’ and self-help type books could certainly really benefit from being shorter. I read plenty of them, and after about 150 pages I get the rough idea and don’t finish the second half. There’s often a keen sense that the idea has been dragged out to hit a page limit.

I do understand the money thing. I’ll be honest, I’ve seen many short 100 page books and not purchased them when they were £12. Would I have bought the same book if it was 300-400 pages? Maybe.

So it’s a tough one. But I do certainly wish more books were shorter.

I also liked Tracy Durnell’s My Reading Philosophy in 17 Guidelines.

My favourite recorded concert of all time is The Last Waltz (video / album) by The Band. Recorded in 1976, it was their farewell concert.

It may have been their farewell concert, but the Band were still looking young. Well, aside from Garth Hudson. He looked a decade or two older than the rest.

So if you would have told me when I was younger that the elderly-looking Hudson would outlive the rest of the band I never would have believed you. But he did. He died last week, aged 87.

A multi-talented musician, he worked with Bob Dylan, Elton John, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Leonard Cohen, Norah Jones, Ringo Starrr, John Hiatt, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, Roger Water, Ronnie Hawkins, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, James Taylor, Traffic, Paul Butterfield and others.

As a fan of the Band it’s a sad day, for they are all now gone.

With his death I checked out an old Band Tumblr blog I followed. I was happy to see they’re still posting. They’ve posted about Hudson’s death.

The Left app shows you how long you have left to live.

At 33-years-old I still feel like I have plenty of time left.

But visually seeing how much time I have left makes me feel quite the opposite. Life is short.

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