Five Favorite Reads
Picked this up elsewhere, but the idea was Five Favorite Reads — blogs style. Daily reads or — at least — material I will scan daily, usually via RSS, but the dailies?
-
The old astrowhore.org suitably retitled, daphuk.com — currently runs about every other day. It is profanity laced, with a personal backstory about the old URL, I bought it, set up a blog, and then abandoned it weeks later. Couldn’t afford therapy for the guy, so — dear friend, love him like a brother, but I also really enjoy about half of the material he writes. Maybe more. Quality, topic, bad words to actual content ratio, none of that is even. Occasionally bleak and bitter, sometimes whiskey–soaked, sometimes brilliant observations about humanity, life in Austin, and BBQ. As Bubba frequently says, “True story.”
-
The Brooks Review, TBR grabbed my interest with frank mac tech chatter. There are two standout components that make this a great daily read — for me. In part, it is a true weblog, rambling from travel gear and knife reviews, to infrequent pictures of his kids, to tech issues. In the past, I’ve made — usually software — purchases based soley upon his recommendations. He’s about 50/50 with wins and losses on that, for me. Still, excellent writing, well-crafted, opinionated, and usually very enjoyable — whether I agree or not. Extra bonus: perfect paid subscription arrangement. Seamless. Works right, works well.
-
A Blog About History — This one has been through a few iterations, and I’m unsure of its heritage. However, as a daily read, more like just five days a week, it will have one or two items every day, some new, some news, some topical, and some just rehashed data points. Still, the site’s purpose seems to be to scour the web for interesting historical information and stories, recent archeology finds, and other bits of trivia.
-
Music. The closest I’ve found so far, and that just scratches the surface, is a Tumbler blog, Heres to the Halcyon — but that mostly just covers whatever, with a decent nod towards my Texana roots Americana. What that misses is my love of classical, classic rock, opera, rock opera, and variations of EDM, like trance, dance, ambient, dark ambient, then others, too. Metal! No, I haven’t found s decent daily read for my musical tastes.
-
Books. By extension, Shakespeare scholarship — a subset of books — riffs, and rails. I haven’t found a decent source for book reviews other than the New Yorker magazine, and even then, those reviews are not always what I’m looking for. Best guess, I buy — or just check out of the library — maybe a half dozen of their suggestions in a year. BookBub has a concatenated set of digested reviews, but it’s not quite what I was looking for, either. As a singular subset, Shakespeare and Shakespeare scholarship, I just haven’t found a single, daily read that works for that. Realistically, I don’t think Shakespeare would be enough for a daily read, but something that covers all the various fiction — and non–fiction — I read? Still looking. As much as I owe my current mindet to certain Golden Age Science Fiction authors, there’s not been much in the current crop of that has engaged me.
Five Favorite Reads
Supposed to be Five Favorite Reads, but there are only four listed, “Times being what they are.” Still, as a glimpse, it’s a great round–up of what I’m reading — this week.
