18,17,16,15

There's been a bit of a backlog due to everything else going on. This will be quick and merciless.

Underground: My Life with SDS and Weathermen -Mark Rudd: Rudd was a student radical and a member of the SDS, then the notorious Weathermen, who incited riots, bombed and plotted against the government over a range of issues including civil rights and the Vietnam war. Rudd was a firebrand and a rabble rouse, but kind of a dumb ass domestic terrorist. As he describes them, the Weathermen came off as middle-class kids raging against a machine they didn't understand with crackpot ideas that occasionally meant well.

Rudd went into hiding, came out of hiding to much fanfare then wound up as a professor, where he still believes in progressive ideas, but isn't so much for overthrowing the government. He sort of apologizes for his activities, but also tends to distance himself from the major decision making.

Skinny Bastard: Rory Freedman and Kim Barnoin -What looks like a take no prisoners approach to nutrition and dieting is really a tedious Vegan diatribe about how if you simply give up meat, quit smoking and stop drinking coffee you'll get a hot body which women will paw all over. The authors jettison what the reader wants --which is to be thinner, healthier and more attractive -- to push a suspect agenda. If most women in the English reading world were Vegans, yes, they might have a point. Most are not and the whole idea of converting to munching on tofu and sipping decaf green tea to attract anyone is laughable unless you are already so inclined.

Other than doing your part to save animals from unnecessary suffering and the relentless barrage of descriptions of what you're actually eating, they're comparatively vague on things like exercise or goal setting.

Still, in fairness, I did find some good information and it did make me think about what I eat, but there was a lot of garbage to get through.

My verdict: I shit on this book.

A Good Man Is Hard To Find: Flannery O'Connor -A decent collection of O'Connor's short stories. Very dark and insightful. Also good for the season.

Men, Women and Ghosts -Debora Greger -I never warmed up to this collection of poems. Greger trips through the past to the point of distraction. I tried. I just didn't love it. Somebody else might have better luck.