It’s not August yet but summer is in the air, and I don’t mean just the weather or the forest fires that are ravaging many locations in France.

I went to Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” at the Grand Rex (70mm film!), the final stage of the Tour de France in Montmartre, and an open-air showing of Princess Mononoke at Parc de la Villette. You see these long queues and worry about overflow but somehow it works out. It’s like the city just absorbs them.

With certain friends we’ve replaced restaurants for long walks as much as possible. It makes for a great combination of meandering conversations, people watching and environment watching. Last week I went to Bois de Boulogne, where the sun has turned the lower shrubbery into crisp, and this week I walked up and down Canal Saint Martin, where people were swimming even though we were between heat waves.

I went through a wide range of books, choosing reading instead of exercise every day—a dilemma that I haven’t been able to sort out yet. I would never regret reading but there is some chagrin, because there’s another heat wave coming next week.

But what wonderfully eclectic reading! It’s starting to dawn on me that the more I read, the more there is to read. Books points me towards other books. Conversations about books and Booktube spark fresh recommendations. And whenever I enjoy an author, I gleefully pick up another of their books.

I made two updates to this website:

• Finally published the trip report for hiking in Picos de Europa last fall. It’s hard to believe I’ve diligently published these reports for more than a decade. Pretty cool to imagine what the collection might look like over several decades.
• Added a “soundtrack” section to these Weeknotes. It happens to be a literal soundtrack this week but the idea is to capture a memorable song from the week, as a bit of texture. Will see how often I’m able to use it.