The Queue
I requested only non-fiction books for my birthday & was gifted three of the four requested. (Look for "The Loot" to-morrow or the next day.) The one I did not receive was, interestingly, the one I most wish to read. So, I've got a new batch of non-fiction books on the horizon, jumping right near the top of the queue. But at the same time "Presently" has hardly changed in months & months, & I really do wish to finish Burroughs's Barsoom series. A little self-discipline, old son; read what you've already got in the queue; the new books will still be waiting for you when you finish Clockers.

Recently
Sir Richard Francis Burton, translator, "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" from The Arabian Nights
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
Thor Heyerdahl, translated by F. H. Lyon, Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft

Currently
Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics
Matthew Kelly, The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic: How Engaging 1% of Catholics Could Change the World ***paused***

Presently
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Swords of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Synthetic Men of Mars
Sir Ernest Shackleton, South: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Llana of Gathol
Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter of Mars
Sir Richard Francis Burton, translator, "Sinbad the Sailor" from The Arabian Nights
Richard Price, Clockers
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill ***shelved***

The Rebel Black Dot Municipal Song of the Day
Billy Joel, "Allentown" from The Nylon Curtain (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Though "Allentown" is very much about the economic & social decline of Pennsylvania thirty years ago (titled after Allentown, but rather more about Bethlehem), it is easy to see parallels to sacred Michigan in the twenty-first century, especially in the exodus of kith & peers out of not just their hometowns but the whole state.

"And its getting very hard to stay…"