A few weeks ago my work schedule changed a bit. I now work an early second-shift type schedule, much like my sister the nurse does, actually, but Tuesday through Saturday as always. The change came about because one position was cut from the newsroom. Now, there’s just the managing editor and me as editors for the six-day-a-week paper, so we’ve split the duties formerly assumed by the associate editor. As a consequence, I’m the one coming in late and staying late to edit copy (stories and stuff) and “put the paper to bed,” as we say. (That just means I read through everything that goes in the paper, tell the designers what to put on which pages, then read through it all again once they design the pages and make more corrections.) I still do reporting as much as I can, which feels like very little. It’s a rather solitary job, far more than reporting has been, anyway. Most of the newspaper staff leaves at 5 p.m. sharp and the reporters, who start a bit later because of the news cycle,

A while ago I got the writing bug and had all sorts of grand plans for reinventing this blog. One of them was to write more about the books I read. The writing bug has since been funneled into my work, but I’m still reading – and I still like the idea. Late last week, I finished the book Quiet Strength by Susan Cain, a self-identified introvert who began her career as a lawyer and has since switched to leadership consulting. The book’s subtitled “The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking,” a fitting summary of the book’s contents. I appreciated Cain’s recognition of how introversion’s unique characteristics are intrinsically worth exercising – such as introverted people’s tendency to resist getting caught up in positive emotion and hesitancy to go forward with a project without having gathered and processed all the relevant information. One chapter, “Why did Wall Street crash and Warren Buffet prosper?,” goes into that aspect in detail. Overall the book’s written wi