What's On Deck

I’m approaching my 100th book review here on the Hopper. I’m four short books away, and I think those four will be classic science fiction works, or works written by a classic SF writer: Frederik Pohl, Jack Vance, Bob Shaw, Olaf Stapledon. Stuff that’s been sitting on the bookshelf behind me for ages.

Then, I’m going to start an SF book reviewing website. I have the hosting site, I’ll have a hundred reviews, I halfway sort of have an overarching theme. At the rate I read I’ll be adding 30-40 reviews a year. Next to reading, writing about the books I read is just about the most favorite thing I can think of doing. I want to make a couple of bucks doing it somehow, but I’m not quite sure how, but I'm willing to noodle around with it, doing this and that and that and this and whatnot.

I know, I know, I’ve written about my other website(s) here before, and nothing’s come of it. Truth be told, it was a combination of two factors that brought that project crashing to a halt. First, the software involved in creating and maintaining the website was so complicated and involved as to make it unworkable. I can post here on Blogger in about sixty seconds or less. If I was to do something comparable with this other website, it would take me at least an hour, maybe two figuring in troubleshooting. Second, the idea itself fizzled out.

But I found another company, so ... fingers crossed.

Since I can’t read just one book at a time, I’ve started Walter Ciszek’s He Leadeth Me a few days ago. He’s a priest who volunteered to minister oversees in Poland just before the Nazis and Soviets carved that country up in 1939. Father Ciszek then spent 30 years in the gulag. I’m sure it will be a roller coaster of a ride, but from what I heard it contains rich nuggets of spiritual wisdom within its pages. It’s been on my radar for a couple of years, so I’ve girded myself and am diving in head first.

After that I plan on finishing George Weigel’s masterful biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope. Around John Paul’s death six years ago I got about a hundred pages in. Despite dropping out, it was a fascinating, unbelievable read, being with teenaged Karol Wojtyla as he labored in his native Poland under the thumb of the brutal Nazi invaders, secretly studying for the priesthood knowing that he could very well be killed if found out.

I also have a major home project that needs to be done once we get a stretch of three or four days of good weather: power-washing and re-staining my 225-square-foot backyard deck and the wood furniture on it. There’s a very good blog post in that adventure, since it’s highly likely I’ll somehow hospitalize myself or possibly destroy the entire deck in the process.