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Month: January 2020

My 2020 Reading Challenge

My 2020 Reading Challenge

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I have read a lot of books. I have been especially interested in reading history, and one thing I’ve learned over the years is how much there is that I don’t know. Of course, this drives me to read more, so now I have a fairly long reading list of books that I just haven’t gotten to quite yet.

This is not an uncommon thing; there is even a term for collecting unread books – tsundoku. A collection of unread books is called an antilibrary, and supposedly it’s good to have one, to remind oneself of the limits of one’s knowledge. My antilibrary, honestly, is actually not that large. But it’s large enough, possibly, to last me the rest of my life.

Between work, family, and other hobbies, I have not found much time to read lately. So, for 2020, I have decided to read more, and to track what I read on the social website Goodreads. My goal is simple – 20 books completed in 2020. And I plan to post reviews, some of which I may share on this blog.

Let’s see…20 books a year. If I live for 30 more years, which is plausible, that means 600 more books to read before I die. That’s it!?? There’s more than that many books in one aisle at the Barnes & Noble!

When will I have time enough? It almost makes me wish for the fate of Burgess Meredith’s character in the famous Twilight Zone episode. But of course, we know how that turns out. And even if I found time to read 6000 books, I would only scratch the surface of all that humanity has recorded.

Ah well. It’s still a joy to read a good book, despite the limitations of our mere mortal lives. I end with a quote from a great poet.

Knowledge is precious to us, because we shall never have time to
complete it.
All is done and finished in the eternal Heaven.

Rabindranath Tagore
A small sample of my library. There’s even more on my Kindle.
Best Streaming of the Decade

Best Streaming of the Decade

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I can’t believe it’s 2020 already. Happy New Year one and all.

2019 ended with a flurry of social media postings of decade retrospectives. Here is mine – my favorite streaming TV series of the 2010s.

The 2010s stand out to me as the dawn of the age of streaming video, when the TV/Internet convergence that had been touted before finally came to pass.

Some of the shows on my list actually began in the late 2000s. Some of them were originally released on cable TV rather than a streaming service, but I mostly watched them on Netflix or Amazon.

For example, The Walking Dead premiered in 2010, and I first watched it on cable. Then I cut the cord a few years later, and picked it up on Netflix (watching each season delayed by a year).

Here is my list of favorite TV series of the past 10 years, all binge-watched over the Internet.

Aggretsuko
Better Call Saul
Black Mirror
Breaking Bad
The Crown
The Expanse
Fleabag
The Man in the High Castle
Marianne
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Mr. Robot
Stranger Things
The Walking Dead