The Idea Blog

When I unwrap my increasingly creaky body out of the cocoon-like ball it sleeps in each early morning, one of the first things I do is power up the laptop and tell it to go out there and grab the emails and podcasts I will read and listen to during the day.

This morning, here’s what it found to interest me:

• “My Year of Vegetables,” a review of Barbara Kingsolver’s new book about finding and eating only locally grown and harvested vegetables. Looks interesting.
• Another book review from The Times, this one of Roy Blount, Jr.’s, new collection of essays, Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South.
• Finally from among the book reviews, this one of Don DeLillo’s new novel about 9/11, Falling Up.
• Rob Bodle sent along this delightful piece from Salon by Garrison Keilor on being a writer, gently, with humility.
• Only rarely do I visit YouTube on my own. I’ll follow links other send me, but I don’t just surf there. Nevertheless, this on “The Many Tribes of YouTube” appears to be fascinating study of the medium and some of its messages.
• And on the podcast front, my iPod will be filled this morning with a new “Meet the Press,” Friday’s reports from PBS’s “News Hour,” Saturday’s and Sunday’s “Writer’s Almanac,” and the spoof The Onion does of the “President’s Weekly Radio Address.”

Looks like a content rich Sunday. Hope yours is enjoyable too.