In the end, it’s hard to say what this book is about.

Nothing makes me feel better — calmer, clearer and happier — than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, a piece of music. It’s actually something deeper than mere happiness: it’s joy, which the monk David Steindl-Rast describes as “that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.”

Let’s start with the fundamental paradox: Our personal technology in the 21st century—our laptops and smartphones, our browsers and apps—does everything it can to keep us out of crowds.

I’ve compiled a list of some of my favorite apps from 2011. I wrote a TextMate command to link all of these (60 links in four minutes!).

«That was excellent. We should do that once a week!»