For this website, and for Brandt Firecraft more generally, we’re going to keep telling stories about life around the fire. There will be other contributors, but mostly it will be me. Hi — Katie Bradish here.
Which means I have to keep finding honest ways to talk about fire. Just the things I, or my people, actually do around it or because of it.
One of the things I keep coming back to is how analog a wood fire is. You strike a match, then figure out how to turn that tiny flame into something bigger: fire starter, kindling, wood, heat. It asks you to participate.
I think that is part of what makes certain things feel particularly right around a fire.
Books are one of them.
I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I love the medium. They let me imbibe in a book while still doing everything else. I can drive, clean, fold laundry, walk the dog, and make my way through a book at the same time.
A paper book is much less accommodating.
You have to sit down. Hold it. Turn the pages. Go word after word, page after page. If you get up to accomplish something, you have stopped reading.
There is no way to make it happen in the background. You have to give it your attention, which can feel wildly inefficient and, increasingly, like part of the appeal.
A wood fire asks for something similar. There are easier ways to make heat. Push a button. Flick a switch. There are easier ways to get through a book, too.
But both a paper book and a wood fire ask you to participate. You have to stay with them. And I suspect that is part of what makes the experience richer.
The fire burns. The light changes. You keep turning pages. Eventually the book starts attaching itself to the particular place and season in which you read it.
That feels at least interesting to explore.
It also feels more compelling to me than filling this site with rando AI slop or over-engineered SEO traps simply because a website is supposed to have “content.” Sure, we’ll make it findable and link a few things, but if I’m going to spend my time writing about fire, I may as well entertain myself.
So Around the Fire is a loose series about the things we actually do around fire, the people who end up there, how the fire gets made, and what it changes about the experience.
And one part of that will be books. Not exactly book reviews, but close: what we’re reading around the fire, what stays with us, and the way a book can color the little patch of life in which you happen to read it.
Reading is, if not the very best thing to do around a fire, certainly in the top tier.
First installment: The Secret Garden, a Solo Stove, and my slightly feral October garden.
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