Living in the Bible Belt, sometimes the only association people have with my name is the book in the Bible. Which is fine. I mean who would honestly recognize… Ezra Klein Ezra Koenig Ezra Miller Ezra Cornell Ezra Pound Ezra Taft Benson before the book? Recently I did get a rather weird question. Ezra is…
I went to buy a book. There were a chaos of options in the used list at the same price. Because these were used, there were descriptions of quality headlined with: Acceptable Good Very Good Like New All but new were represented at the cheapest price level. So naturally I looked through the very goods for the…
I try to set achievable, measurable resolutions. Read 75 books. In 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014, I set the goal for 52 even though I kept reading far more. Hit 25,000 pages. Last year dropped below 20K, so I really need to get the average back up to something respectable. Finish series already started. 24 of the 75…
OK, the year is completely done, so here is where I am with each resolution. Read 52 books. The goal was 52. I read 70. My Goodreads user challenge. Looking at pages, I managed to read 19,669 compared to an average of 21,815 for the prior four years. So while the number of books is good, they were lighter. (I think my…
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon My rating: 5 of 5 stars In this near future, science has figured out how to intervene with children to prevent autism. Lou and his friends, have to navigate the difficult choices when a cure becomes potentially available. It explores experimentation, work policies, social pressures, and what it…
Marty and Jennifer have arrived from 1985. Where’s my flying car and hoverboard? (The joke here is today is the only day Today is the Day Marty McFly Went to the Future actually shows what was in the movie. And, nothing predicted in that future came to pass.)
The Goodreads Reading Challenge needs a leaderboard. For example, Fitbit displays your rank amongst your friends based on how many steps each has taken that week. This encourages competitiveness amongst friends to take more steps. (Or cheat with Unfitbits style hacks.) Knowing that I am a thousand steps behind a friend is motivation to find ways to…
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak My rating: 5 of 5 stars This was a book I noticed was on a banned book list and ended up being one of two I started during ALA’s Banned Books Week. The author, Elif Åžafak, was sued by a Turkey prosecutor for “insulting Turkishness” by writing about…
OK, the year is about three quarters done, so here is where I am with each resolution. Read 52 books. Three-quarters of 52 is 39. I am close to done at 49. My Goodreads user challenge. With 5 in progress now, and 3 more than half read, this should be complete soon. Read at least 50% by female authors. Of the…