
Things I’m doing right now. Updated 17th February, 2023.
The latest post is here.
For more posts scroll down here.
Living
- Living in Kasugai, central Japan, just outside Nagoya.
Doing
- Rucking (walking around the neighbourhood for 7kms or so with a backpack weighing 20% of my body weight).
- Walking/hiking/cycling. There’s a hiking/walking route map here.
- Looking after my daughter full time. She needs attention, attention, attention.
- Making contact sheets of photos taken since 1995. I don’t trust digital/the cloud to keep my memories safe.
- Walking the old Nakasendō and Kiso-ji routes in central Japan. Finished walking the Kiso-ji for the first time in late November 2021.
- Running a summer and spring homestay program to the Gold Coast, Australia for Japanese children.
- Staying as fit as possible. My fitness has declined as my responsibility towards my daughter has increased. But I still run, cycle, hike, or walk most days.
- Running our private English school with my wife.
Books Currently Reading (2022)
For Japanese photography books go here.
- Cloudstreet – Tim Winton (reread).
Books Read in 2022
- On Being a Photographer – David Hurn & Bill Jay
- The Magic & Mystery of Birds – Noah Stryker
- A Death in the Family – Karl Ove Knausgaard
- Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North – Rachel JoyceConscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind – Annaka Harris
- A Walk in the Woods – Bill Bryson
- A Walk in Japan: The 1910 Travelogue of Bernhard Kellermann – Bernhard Kellermann
- The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike – A.L Sadler
- Night Boat to Tangier – Kevin Barry
- The Playground of the Far East – Walter Westin (reread)
- Down Under – Bill Bryson
- Heaven – Mieko Kawakami
- People From My Neighborhood- Hiromi Kawakami
- Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
- The Secret World of Weather – Tristan Gooley
- The Comfort Crisis – Michael Easter
- The Courage to be Happy – Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
- Nightwalk: A Journey to the Heart of Nature – Chris Yates
- How to Connect with Nature – Tristan Gooley and The School of Life (reread)
- The Courage to be Disliked – Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
- Quicksand – Junichiro Tanizaki
- On Assignment – James R. Larison
- Modern Instances: The Craft of Photography – Stephen Shore
- Summer – Karl Ove Knausgaard
- A Pound of Pictures – Alec Soth
- When We Cease to Understand the World – Benjamin Labutut
- A Simpler Life – The School of Life
- Photographs That Make You Think: Humans – Henry Carroll
- The Ministry of the Future – Kim Stanley Robinson
- Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs Of People – Henry Carroll
- Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs Of Places – Henry Carroll
- Spring – Karl Ove Knausgaard
- A Notebook for Everyday Adventures – Alastair Humphreys
- Contented Dementia – Oliver James
- The Way of Zen – Alan Watts
Books Read in 2021
- Winter – Karl Ove Knausgaard
- The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – Rachel Joyce
- The View From Breast Pocket Mountain – Karen Anton Hill
- This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free – Martin Hägglund
- Something Strange Across the River – Kafu Nagai
- Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are – J Matthews
- Teach Yourself to Live: The classic guide to finding happiness – C G L Du Cann
- Four Thousand Weeks: Embrace your limits. Change your life – Oliver Burkeman
- The Backyard Adventurer – Beau Miles
- Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion – Jia Tolentino
- Wanderlust: A History of Walking – Rebecca Solnit
- Cloudstreet – Tim Winton
- The Turning – Tim Winton
- The Snow Leopard – Peter Matthiessen
- The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland (The Grampian Quartet Book 3) – Nan Shepherd
- 日本人の心がわかる日本語 (アスク出版) (Japanese Edition) – 森田 六郎
- The Unmapped Country: Stories and Fragments – Ann Quin
- Summer: Winner of the Orwell Prize for Fiction 2021 (Seasonal Quartet Book 4) – Ali Smith
- Two Meals a Day: The Simple, Sustainable Strategy to Lose Fat, Reverse Aging, and Break Free from Diet Frustration Forever – Mark Sisson
- The Tales of Ise (Penguin Classics) – Peter MacMillan
- History of Japan: Revised Edition – Richard Mason
- Lanny: LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019 – Max Porter
- Zen: The Art of Simple Living – Shunmyo Masuno
- Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (Canons Book 57) – Annie Dillard
- Rashomon and Other Stories – Ryunosuke Akutagawa