We have tipped over the line into the last month of the year. Kind of hard to believe, but here we are anyway. I sent out my penultimate newsletter of the year yesterday and it was quite fun accounting everything that had happened in the last month, but now we're approaching the time when I take stock of the whole year, including my next By The Numbers post, which I think I'll start drafting in the next week or two.

ON DECK: Over the weekend I returned second page proofs on SOLITARY AGENTS, which...