Today’s blogging prompt from Long and Short Reviews is “A Job I’d Be Good At”, which is…pretty easy.

I’ve been told on multiple occasions in the past twenty years that I’d make a good monk, which is….not surprising given my longstanding practice of simple living, my fascination with intentional communities, and my obsessive interest in religion, philosophy, and meaning. I also love liturgy — both the liturgy of a given religious service, and the way the day, seasons, and year are ordered, like a dance, with both rhythms and variety. I’ve read a few books on practicing Benedictine spirituality and have even attempted to schedule a retreat at St. Bernard’s, but they’re apparently a very popular monastery to retreat to.

From virtue to vice, now a survey appropriated from Seeking a Little Truth, “Sing a Song of Sixes” — or rather, the idea. I saw few other bloggers doing it, and they all have different questions, so I think I can just do what I want.

Six authors I am looking forward to reading more of
Blake Crouch. Terrific SF.
Daniel Suarez. Ditto.
Will Storr. …interesting journalist who explores weirdness. I have a book of his on ghost-hunters but it’s disappeared somewhere. Blasted poltergeists!
Jon Ronson. Ditto.
Rhett Bruno & Jaime Castle. I’ve enjoyed their dark-western fantasy collabs and see that they have a SF book, as well.

Six Books I Recently Previewed on Kindle:
When Computing Got Personal, Matthew Nicholson
How to Forget: A Daughter’s Memoir, Kate Mulgrew
The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham
Sins of the Father: Joseph Kennedy and the Dynasty he Founded, Ron Kessler
Diary of an Apprentice Astronaut, Samatha Cristoforetti. A possibility for next year’s space camp, which would be my first non-Russian European astronaut memoir.
Radical Suburbs: Experimental Living on the Fringes of the American City, Amanda Kolson Hurley

Six Books Currently Checked Out on Kindle Unlimited:
A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, Tony Horwitz
On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books, Karen Swallow Prior
Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, Ethan Watters
The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, Sam Harris
Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States, Bradley Hart
Philokalia: The Bible of Orthodox Spirituality, Anthony Coniaris & Stanley Harakas

Six Books I Most Recently Added to my Goodreads Wannaread Shelf
Asperger’s Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna
The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures, Louis Theroux
The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with Happiness, Emily Esfahani Smith
City of Sedition: The History of New York City During the Civil War, John Strasbaugh
Ballpark: Baseball in the American City, Paul Goldberger
Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West, Scott Martelle

Six Unread Star Trek Books
Star Trek Discovery: Die Standing, John Jackson Miller. A story about Mirror Georgiou.
From Sawdust to Stardust, Terry Lee Rioux. A biography of DeForrest Kelly
Star Trek: Living Memory, Christopher Bennett. There’s some space drama going on and Uhura has lost her memory.
Star Trek: Agents of Influence, Dayton Ward. Riker & co try to make first contact but some randos from the past show up to create drama.
Star Trek Titan: Fortune of War. Riker and co attempt to prevent mysterious alien technology from falling int othe wrong hands.
Star Trek Titan: Sight Unseen, James Swallow. Titan responds to a powerful enemy that can alter the perception of reality itself.

These were all $0.99 deals from last year.

The Six Most Recent Books I Bought in Direct Disobedience To My Own Order Against Buying New Books, Which I Have Not Yet Read and Which are Therefore Contributing to the Problem that is Mount Doom
Live, From New York! An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live
Astounding: John Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Bob Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction
Plato, not Prozac! Applying Eternal Wisdom to Everyday Problems
Sons of the Waves: The Common Seaman in the Heroic Age of Sail (Read of England acquisition)
The Stonemason: A History of Building Britain (ditto, and I blame Cyberkitten for it entirely, not my own lack of willpwer)
The Royal Society and the Invention of Modern Science. Another RoE book, but not CK’s fault