X Marks the Spot
(Posted on my personal Facebook page on 12-30-23.)
It is customary at the end of the year that certain
publications, bloggers, writers, pundits and other influencers announce their
choices for books worth reading. Even
former United States President Barack Obama did this.
For any interested, through Goodreads, here is a link to
books I read or at least skimmed through in 2023. Similar links are available for other
years. I appreciate that Goodreads
allows one to track these in a systematic way.
I like the Goodreads web site and app.
And it’s good to do some reading of good books and to even learn
something from bad books. Of course, one
can’t and shouldn’t read everything (check Ecclesiastes 12:12 and the whole
chapter) but one can try to make good decisions in what to read.
I posted reviews of many of these books here on my private
Facebook page. Some of the latest ones
haven’t been publicly reviewed yet.
A change that I plan for 2024 is to start doing this on X
(formerly known as Twitter). Since I
started doing these book reviews online in June 2021, there have been a lot of
them – 378 pages worth of reviews as well as some commentaries. Many of these older writings I now look to
share on X.
I’ve never been satisfied that Facebook is the best fit for
book reviews, at least of the type I do, but I did it anyway. Facebook can be good for photo sharing and family
and friend updates. There have been more
ads on Facebook than there used to be.
Also, there has long been a fake account under my name, and Facebook has
done nothing about it despite numerous reports by me and by others. I don’t like that Facebook management has
failed to address that. Having said
that, I still plan to maintain my Facebook account and may cross post future
book reviews on both Facebook and X.
He is far from perfect and can be a little flaky sometimes,
it seems, but since Elon Musk bought X, it has been better in fostering free
speech and in not suppressing significant viewpoints and discussions, which is
a good thing. In my view, X remains by
far the major leader in the social media category that it is in, exceeding
competitors like Threads, Gab, Post News, Mastodon, Truth Social, Poa.st, and
others. I plan to purchase an X Premium
account to allow me the freedom to publish long form messages.
I will also note again that I do share links (and occasional
comments) on the blog/web site, loyaldefender.info. I intentionally try to keep that as bare
bones and simple as possible. There is a
word search bar on the top left of the web sites. Also, one may comment on the web pages at
loyaldefender.info, though few so far have taken advantage of doing so. I don’t delete comments except in rare
cases. Feel free to check out
loyaldefender.info if you haven’t already.
For any interested, the link to my account at X is
https://twitter.com/davidmarkbecker. As
noted, I plan to start very actively using it beginning in 2024. The theme Bible verse in my X profile is “The one who boasts must boast in the Lord. 2
Corinthians 10:17.”
