1. WWW Wednesday
2. Long and Short Reviews Asks: Funny Animal Video or Story?
3. Goodreads Wanna-Read Sudden Death

WWW Wednesday

WHAT have you read recently? First into Nagasaki, a memoir of a journalist interviewing Nagasaki survivors and POW survivors. Very dark.

WHAT are you reading now? Just starting The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin, a buddy read with Cyberkitten. Also still reading Family Unfriendly because I keep getting distracted. Also still technically reading two books on volcanos. (See aforementioned note about distractions.)

WHAT are you reading next? as the Beach Boys said, “God only knows”. Here’s what the Kindle shelf looks like:

Long and Short Reviews Asks: Funny Animal Video or Story?

Hmm….I used to have a short-hair chihuahua named Hippie that looked exactly like the Yo Quiero Taco Bell dog, and somewhere there is a photo of 8th grade me wearing an embarrassing “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” t-shirt with the dog ON the shirt, while simultaneously holding the dog. This dog used to get under the coffee table, knock his head on the underside of the table, then go roaring at the door because someone had knocked. He had a long-haired son, Charlie, who I had all the way into college. Charlie was much more mellow than his Napoleon-complex father. During COVID I adopted another dog, Idgie, named for Idgie Threadgoode.

Goodreads Wanna-Read Sudden Death

In the Tales of the Black Widowers series, every month a group of professionals from different fields meet to dine and talk together, and the host is allowed to bring a guest — who, in payment for his free meal, must submit to a grilling that always begins: Mr. _________, how do you justify your existence? Well, earlier in the week Vera over at Dark Shelf of Wonders participated in a Goodreads TBR cleanup with these rules created by MegaBunnyReads:

• Go to your Goodreads want-to-read shelf.
• Ask Siri to pick a number between 1 and however many books are on the list.
• Go to that book and look at it and the 4 after it, for a total of 5.
• Read the synopses of the books.
• Decide: keep it or should it go?
• Discuss here.

So, I called upon the name of the Bard, and lo! It answered….12. However, being a wicked libertarian, I played with the rules a bit and asked Bard for five random numbers instead of just using 12 and the 4 after it.

#12 Games People Play, Eric Berne. Added December 23, 2011.

We play games all the time–sexual games, marital games, power games with our bosses, and competitive games with our friends. Detailing status contests like “Martini” (I know a better way), to lethal couples combat like “If It Weren’t For You” and “Uproar,” to flirtation favorites like “The Stocking Game” and “Let’s You and Him Fight,” Dr. Berne exposes the secret ploys and unconscious maneuvers that rule our intimate lives.

Keep or cast into outermost darkness? I say keep. We have this at my library and I eye it ever so often. The funny thing is that “Let’s Him and You Fight” is a tactic employed in the Civilization series — getting into war with a foreign power, getting another foreign power to join in, then ducking out and letting the two waste their strength on one another.

#87: On the Road with St. Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts

his book shows how Augustine can be a pilgrim guide to a spirituality that meets the complicated world we live in. Augustine, says Smith, is the patron saint of restless hearts–a guide who has been there, asked our questions, and knows our frustrations and failed pursuits. Augustine spent a lifetime searching for his heart’s true home and he can help us find our way. “What makes Augustine a guide worth considering,” says Smith, “is that he knows where home is, where rest can be found, what peace feels like, even if it is sometimes ephemeral and elusive along the way.” Addressing believers and skeptics alike, this book shows how Augustine’s timeless wisdom speaks to the worries and struggles of contemporary life, covering topics such as ambition, sex, friendship, freedom, parenthood, and death. As Smith vividly and colorfully brings Augustine to life for 21st-century readers, he also offers a fresh articulation of Christianity that speaks to our deepest hungers, fears, and hopes.

Ooh! I could pair this with a Confessions re-read.

#154: The Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination

Given that I read a massive history of FB last year (Facebook, Steven Levy), I can see dropping this one, but re-adding it in a few years.

#189: Blood Passion. I think I’d keep this. First heard of Ludlow via Woody Guthrie’s song on it.

#203: Asperger’s Children. Pretty sure I added this during one of my tangent-moods. It’s not something I’d tackle now, but maybe later — a bit like An Ugly Truth.

So, we managed to confirm 3 and…..hem and haw our way on two more. Oh, well.