Books

Mark Rushton’s Abundant Spare Time is a compilation of his weekly Substack Posts from 2025, which mostly discuss his work as a musical composer, visual artist, tech observer, and societal critic.

The paperback edition (272 pages) can be purchased on Amazon.  It's also available as an eBook and on Kindle Unlimited (207 pages).

Each week, Rushton writes about music that enters his world through identification in the Shazam app, recommendations from Qobuz, or past favorites. It’s not just one genre, but most: rock, classical, indie, electronic, country, pop, jazz, metal, avant-garde, and rap + hip hop.

Other topics discussed: buying clearance clothes vs thrifting, using and abusing the word robots, dishing out a heap of tech skepticism, championing “older” tech like old Sony Digital Walkman devices, the Elmo document camera, a 20 year old NEC visual projector, buying a Tashiogoto instrument from Japan, making zines, burning CDs, explaining how libraries pay royalties to musicians, stories about working in radio in high school and college, and championing a physical media store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

It’s the kind of book you can pick up, turn to any page, and start reading.

This is Mark Rushton’s first book.