The Pickled Cucumber

Hi, I’m Joshua Rigsby

I’m a writer and a bookstore owner. I enjoy tautologies.

ABOUT THIS WEBSITE

Y Pickles, Tho?

A fair question. I write about writing and books and life and 19th century tea clippers. None of that is particularly related to briny vegetables. I just like the idea that a pickled cucumber is a pickle. I enjoy the backhanded humor of it. I like to fuck with people. I’m not sure what to tell you.

Things I’ve Written

Pretty Good Books

LEARN MORE

Why Pickles, and also, Why Blog at All?

Joshua Rigsby

January 6, 2025

I can hear you asking. I can hear the incredulity whirring behind your crinkled eyebrows. Why, exactly, would someone restart a blog? A blog? A web-log? You say. Seems a […] Continue Reading →
Book Review: In the Heart of the Sea [Part 1]

Joshua Rigsby

December 27, 2015

This review comes some fifteen years after the book was originally published. I picked it up recently both because of my interest in the nautical goings on of the early […] Continue Reading →
Learn to Sail LA’s Official Tall Ships (For Free!)

Joshua Rigsby

October 5, 2015

My love of tall ships goes back a ways, but given my recent research dive into the great tea races, it’s taken on an outsized portion of my attention lately. […] Continue Reading →
Early American Dominance in the Great Tea Races

Joshua Rigsby

September 7, 2015

There are many factors that lead up to the world famous tea clipper races in the mid 19th century, where merchant companies raced each other three quarters of the way […] Continue Reading →
Roughly 5,280 Reasons America Should Have Gone Metric A Long Time Ago

Joshua Rigsby

August 22, 2015

Defining Our Terms: Metric vs. Ye Olde English If you’ve been to elementary school in the United States, you’ve encountered the metric system. As you’ll remember, it’s a system based […] Continue Reading →