Today’s top ten list is ‘Favorite Heroines (or Heroes, If You Prefer)”. I started doing that one and realized it was mostly the same as my “Top Ten Characters I’d Save the World With”, so I’m going to be rebellious and pretend it’s a top-ten freebie day. Since tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, I’m going to do Lent-appropriate books I may reading between now and Easter.
Top Ten Lenten Reads Ordered in the Likelihood of My Actually Reading Them
Most of these are from Mount Doom.
That is, you might count, only eight. The other two possibles are Purgatory, Anthony Esolen’s translation of Dante’s Purgatorio, and a biography of Joy Davidman titled And God Came In. Now, for something completely different: our Tuesday Tease is from The Four: The Hidden DNA of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.
While a tomato couldn’t outrun her, the gatherer woman still needed to develop the skills needed to assess nuances such as ripeness, color, and shape for signs of edibility or disease. The hunter, by comparison, needed to act fast when the opportunity for a kill presented itself. There was no time for nuance, just speed and violence. Once the prey had been killed, the hunters needed to collect the merchandise and get home, pronto, as the fresh kill and even themselves were both attractive targets. Observe how women and men shop and you’ll see that not much has changed. Women feel fabric, try on shoes with a dress, and ask to see things in different colors. Men see something that can sate their appetite, kill (buy) it, and get back to the cave as fast as possible.
I thought it was an interesting observation, but I wonder if the dichotomy between spear-and-seize shopping and browse/study/gather shopping varies depending on what is being hunted for. Most of my shopping as a man is indeed the spear-and-seize variety: I pride myself on my ability to snatch things from the shelf without even even slowing down, freezer units excepting. On certain products, though, like electronics, I’m much more deliberative. The cost and nature of the item is also part of the dynamic, though. For me, the brand of milk doesn’t matter a whit so long as it came from a cow. The motherboard I choose, though, is not only pricier but will determine what CPUs & memory I can use in the future.
Reading Freely 
Ooh, I like this take on TTT… might have to borrow your idea. 😀 I’ve been lacking in my devotional reading and Lent seems like a good time to start again. A trivial thing but seems like they all have nice cover design. Which one are you most looking forward to?
I think you’re right about shopping context…personally I absolutely hate clothes-shopping and try to just order clothes online with easy returns (and in 3 colors, if I find something I like). Books on the other hand…yes, I do take my sweet time. XD Must…find.. the PERFECT edition!
whoops, I forgot the “Ordered in the Likelihood of My Actually Reading Them”. The Joyful Christian sounds like a promising title 🙂
It’s true for the first eight, anyway. I couldn’t think of the title of the Davidman book because a friend lent it to me (no pun intended) after I led a CS Lewis class a few wees back.
I’ve never been one to be picky about editions, unless I’m looking for a re-release of a book that has additional content to bring it more up to date. (One exception: I did buy the first book in the Harry Potter series, first edition-style reprint, just to see what the ‘classic’ look would have been for British kids. The American first editions have far more attractive fonts and headers.) Having seen some beautiful special editions, though (Jayne Eyre with a cloth cover, a silk bookmark ribbon, and gilt-edged pages), I can appreciate why hardcore collectors can be emphatic about finding the right one.