Sense and Nonsense

Facebook Bust

Few things make me happier these days than seeing Facebook's stock price keep going down.  I relish the thought that all those Facebook employees and investors are losing money.  Down another 9.6% today! Yay!

Best Marriage Proposal Ever

Hard to top this (via Crooks & Liars):

Isaac wanted to propose to his girlfriend, so he enlisted over 60 friends to stage a Busby Berkeley street-show lip-dub extravaganza ambush. What follows is five minutes of heart-stoppingly sweet and romantic wedding proposal. I mean: Z. O. M. F.G.

On Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012, I told my girlfriend to meet me at my parent's house for dinner. When she arrived I had stationed my brother to sit her in the back of an open Honda CRV and give her some headphones. He "wanted to play her a song"...

What she got instead was the world's first Live Lip-Dub Proposal.

 

Books, Books, Books

If you click on "Books" in the category list over in the left column, you'll see that for about 18 months -- from early 2010 until early September of 2011 -- I regularly posted short notes about books when I finished reading them. During that time, I heard from a few friends, who said that they found these short book notices interesting and helpful, useful guides for their own reading choices.  But after a while, it simply became too burdensome, given the number of books I read, to keep up with the chore.  So, I stopped.  

But with the arrival of summer -- and the approach of more free time -- I'm ready to resume the book notes, if there seems to be any interest in having them.  So, if you're a regular reader and liked having those short notes, please comment here or send me an email (click on the email link at the bottom of the left column) to let me know that.  Thanks.

Meanwhile, here's a list of all the books I've read since my post on September 5, 2011, about Rules of Civility, the wonderful book by Amor Towles.  They're listed here in reverse chronological order, with the most recently read listed first. Yes, it's a lot of reading.  Eighty-five books between Labor Day and Memorial Day -- an average of a little more than two a week. 

Almost all of these books are fiction. Regular readers here know that my tastes are eclectic.  So, this list contains the usual broad mix.

Meredith Maran, A Theory of Small Earthquakes

Donald Ray Pollock, The Devil All the Time

Karin Slaughter, Triptych

Kristan Higgins, My One and Only

Karin Slaughter, Snatched

Frank Roberts, Jackass on a Camel

John Irving, One Person

Elin Hilderbrand, The Love Season

Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers

Jennifer Probst, The Marriage Bargain

Mark Allen Smith, The Inquisitor

Liz Moore, Heft

Adam Wilson, Flatscreen

Joshilyn Jackson, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty

Anne Korkeakivi, An Unexpected Guest

Deborah Copaken Kogan, The Red Book

Meredith Goldstein, The Singles

Carol Anshaw, Carry the One

Charlotte Rogan, The Lifeboat

Pete Dexter, Spooner

Anne Tyler, The Beginner’s Goodbye

Susan Wilson, The Dog Who Danced

Carmine Gallo, The Apple Experience

Thomas Mallon, Watergate

William Landay, Defending Jacob

Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

E L James, Fifty Shades of Grey

Amber Dermont, The Starboard Sea

Chris Pavone, The Expats

Caroline Leavitt, Pictures of You

Lauren Fox, Friends Like Us

Lauren Fox, Still Life with Husband

Hilma Wolitzer, The Doctor’s Daughter

Hilma Wolitzer, Hearts

Hilma Wolitzer, An Available Man

Stewart O’Nan, Last Night at the Lobster

Stewart O’Nan, Emily, Alone

Stewart O’Nan, The Odds

Penelope Lively, How It All Began

Penelope Lively, Consequences

Alan Lightman, Mr g: A Novel About the Creation

Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

Rosamund Lupton, Sister

Ali Smith, There But For The

Susan Fales-Hill, One Flight Up

Bridget Asher, The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted

Sarah Rayner, One Moment, One Morning

Deborah Kay Davies, True Things About Me

Leah Hager Cohen, House Lights

Leah Hager Cohen, The Grief of Others

Evan Thomas and Mike Allen, Playbook 2012: The Right Fights Back

Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Justin Torres, We the Animals

Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

David Bell, Cemetery Girl

Alison Espach, The Adults

Therese Fowler, Reunion

Alan Bennett, Smut

Deborah Reed, Carry Yourself Back to Me

John Rector, Already Gone

Helen DeWitt, Lightning Rods

Jose Saramago, Cain

David Bergen, The Matter with Morris

Elissa Schappell, Blueprints for Building Better Girls

Anne Enright, The Forgotten Waltz

Louise Penny, A Trick of Light

Denis Johnson, Train Dreams

Tom Franklin, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

Bonnie Nadzam, Lamb

Samantha Sotto, Before Ever After

Nicholas Sparks, The Best of Me

Jonathan Franzen, Freedom

Alexander Maksik, You Deserve Nothing

Lily Tuck, I Married you for Happiness

T. R. Ragan, Abducted

Charles Frazier, Nightwoods

Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding

Mary Mcgarry Morris, Light from a Distant Star

Joan Didion, Blue Nights

Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

David Whitehouse, Bed

Patti Callahan Henry, Coming Up for Air

 

 

 

Government Spending Falls Under Obama

The right-wing claim that government spending under President Obama is "out of control" is, of course, sheer nonsense. Now, we have Forbes magazine and the Wall Street Journal, two bastions of conservative journalism, confirming that, in fact, spending by the federal government is growing at a slower rate than at any time in 60 years -- since Eisenhower!  Two compelling charts:

 

Bad Dad