Hi, I’m Lou Blaser.

I spend an unreasonable amount of time reading, asking questions, then writing about the head-scratchers.

A LITTLE ABOUT ME

I used to be a corporate-ladder climber, and during that time, most of my attention was focused on one thing only: building a career.

I left that career in 2014 and oh my goodness! A whole new world opened up for me — after quite a bit of fumbling around, that is. I’ve spent much of the time since then reading, writing, asking questions, following ideas. For better or worse, I self-identify as a writer these days, and could not be any happier.

“I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular and real. I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened or full of argument. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”
— Mary Oliver, poet

WHAT I DO NOW

On my weekly publication, Read & Rewind, I write about the rabbit holes I fall into while reading books and watching films.

It usually starts with something a character says in a novel or a scene in a film. Sometimes, it’s the way an author ended a story. Very often it’s one thing that makes me stop and wonder about something I hadn’t considered before.

I often find that thinking about fictional people and fictional stories turns into thinking about us and our very real lives — our choices, our relationships, the things we expect from life.

Maybe something that catches my attention will catch yours too. And perhaps it’ll spark a curiosity of your own!

A FEW PLACES TO START

“My reading life”
If there is one activity that I have always engaged in, from the time I was a kid, it is reading. It has taught me, shaped my thinking, and shaped who I became.



“Why Jean never left the hotel”
Inspired by the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel — about first impressions, premature certainty, and leaving room for surprises


“They’ll have our words. Will they get us right?”
Inspired by Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know — about the words we leave behind, what they reveal, and what they can never fully capture.

If Rick Blaine had a website instead of a bar in Casablanca, he might have said, “Of all the websites on the internet in all the world, you landed on mine.” I'm thrilled that you found your way here. I hope we can extend this momentary connection.