Patrick Lynch worries that while our supply of available information grows, our wisdom in using it is lagging behind. Lynch believes that as people access the Internet more and more, they are becoming more “tribal.” People tend to read blogs they agree with. They tend to ignore information sources they don’t agree with. This helps explain the increasing polarization of American society, but this is also becoming a world-wide phenomenon. Lynch provides plenty of examples of how GOOGLE is manipulated so certain web sites come up first in a search. I found The Internet of Us to be a thought-provoking book. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Preface
PART I: The New Old Problems of Knowledge
1. Our Digital Form of Life
2. GoogleKnowing
3. Fragmented Reasons: Is the Internet Making Us Less Reasonable?
4. Truth, Lies, and Social Media
Part II: How We Know
5. Who Wants to Know: Privacy and Autonomy
6. Who Wants to Know: Crowds, Clouds, and Networks
7. Who Gets to Know: The Political Economy of Knowledge
8. Understanding and the Digital Human
9. The Internet of
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index

After seeing Dirty Dancing: The Musical I decided to rewatch the 20th Anniversary Edition on Blu-ray. It’s back to the summer of 1963 when innocent 17-year-old Baby (Jennifer Grey) vacations with her parents at a Catskill resort. One evening Baby visits the off-limits staff quarters because of the stirring Sixties music they play. There Baby meets Johnny (Patrick Swayze) the hotel dance instructor who is as experienced as Baby is naive. Baby soon becomes Johnny’s pupil in dance and in love. Great dance routines and great Sixties music. Classic! GRADE: A
SOUNDTRACK TRACK LIST:
1. Be My Baby – The Ronettes
2. Big Girls Don’t Cry – Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
3. Merengue – Michael Lloyd & Le Disc
4. Trot the Fox – Michael Lloyd & Le Disc
5. Johnny’s Mambo – Michael Lloyd & Le Disc
6. (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life – The John Morris Orchestra
7. Where Are You Tonight? – Tom Johnston
8. Do You Love Me – The Contours
9. Love Man – Otis Redding
10. Gazebo Waltz – Michael Lloyd
11. Stay – Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs
12. Wipeout – The Surfaris
13. Hungry Eyes – Eric Carmen
14. Overload – Zappacosta
15. Hey Baby – Bruce Channel
16. De Todo un Poco – Michael Lloyd & Le Disc
17. Some Kind of Wonderful – The Drifters
18. These Arms of Mine – Otis Redding
19. Cry to Me – Solomon Burke
20. Will You Love Me Tomorrow – The Shirelles
21. Love Is Strange – Mickey & Sylvia
22. You Don’t Own Me – The Blow Monkeys
23. Yes – Merry Clayton
24. In the Still of the Night – The Five Satins
25. She’s Like the Wind – Patrick Swayze feat. Wendy Fraser
26. Kellerman’s Anthem – The Emile Bergstein Chorale
27. (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life – Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes

This musical version of the 1987 film starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey generates high energy and almost constant dancing. There’s plenty of Sixties music (the movie and the play are set in 1963) for the cast to dance to. This story of a young girl finding love at a Summer resort still has the power to engage. If Dirty Dancing shows up in your neighborhood, I recommend you see it. GRADE: B+
SONG LIST:
ACT ONE
1. Opening/This Magic Moment
2. Merengue
3. Time of My Life (Incidental)
4. You Do Something To Me
5. You’re the Cream in My Coffee
6. There Will Never Be Another You
7. Johnny’s Mambo
8. Do You Love Me?
9. Love Man
10. Honey Love
11. Infectious Cha-Cha
12. Penny’s Waltz
13. Viva La Quince Brigada
14. This Land is Your Land/ We Shall Overcome
15. Stubborn Kind of Fellow
16. De Todo un Poco /Wipe Out
17. Hungry Eyes
18. Overload
19. Hey! Baby!
20. Time of My Life (Incidental)/Johnny’s Tango
21. To the Sheldrake
22. De Todo Up Paco
23. Maybe
24. The Way Life Goes
25. These Arms of Mine
26. Cry to Me
ACT TWO
1. Dawn Interlude
2. Besame Macho
3. Save the Last Dance For Me
4. If You Were the Only Girl
5. Magic Hour Serenade
6. Duke of Earl
7. Love is Strange
8. You Don’t Own Me
9. Nunca
10. Lisa’s Hula
11. Yes!
12. In the Still of the Night
13. Summertime (Incidental)
14. Someone Like You
15. She’s Like the Wind
16. Kellerman’s Anthem
17. (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life

Captain America: Civil War kicks off the Summer Movie Season with a bang. Because of all the “collateral” damage the Avengers have caused, governments demand “accountability.” Ironically, Tony Stark (aka, Mister Independent and Diva) goes along with the “oversight.” Captain America, the Scarlet Witch, and the Falcon do not. As you can guess, this leads to a wild knock-down-drag-out fight at the Berlin Airport. Spider Man and Ant-Man show up. So does Hawkeye, War Machine and The Vision. I wish the Black Widow had more to do but with this large ensemble cast, screen time is at a premium. And, we’re introduced to Black Panther, too! Plenty of action and explosions! GRADE: A-

Alfred Bester’s first novel, The Demolished Man, won the first Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of the year in 1953. That’s a pretty good start for a novelist! The Demolished Man is an inverted detective story. In a society of telepaths, how can you commit a murder and get away with it? Alfred Bester shows you how in this clever first novel. Bester went on to write some great SF stories and another terrific science fiction novel, The Stars My Destination. But for an Award-winning First Novel, The Demolished Man is an a class of its own.

A. O. Scott, film reviewer for the New York Times, says one of the motivators for writing Better Living Through Criticism was Samuel L. Jackson on Twitter criticizing Scott’s review of the blockbuster, The Avengers. Scott and Jackson traded tweets for a period of time. I think Jackson had the better of the exchange when he dropped this word bomb: “#Avengers fans” that “AO Scott needs a new job! Let’s help him find one! One he can ACTUALLY do!” A. O. Scott spends much of this book writing about what criticism is (and isn’t), how to write insightful criticism, and what critics do right (and wrong). I enjoyed this thought-provoking romp. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
• What is criticism? (a preliminary dialogue)
• The critic as artist and vice versa
• The eye of the beholder
• Self-criticism (a further dialogue)
• Lost in the museum
• The trouble with critics
• Practical criticism (another dialogue)
• How to be wrong
• The critical condition
• The end of criticism (a final dialogue).

If you received a gift card for Christmas or a birthday and you’re looking for something to spend it on, might I suggest you consider the new Penguin Book of the British Short Story edited by Philip Hensher. These two volumes provide a great survey of British short stories. Volume One takes you from Defoe to Buchan. Volume Two takes you from P.G. Wodehouse to Zadie Smith. These books would make a wonderful gift…to yourself! Check out the stories below. See any of your favorites? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
VOLUME ONE: DANIEL DEFOE TO JOHN BUCHAN:
General Introduction
Daniel Defoe: A True Relation of the Apparition of Mrs Veal
Jonathan Swift: Directions to the Footman
Henry Fielding: The Female Husband
Hannah More: Betty Brown, the St Giles’s Orange Girl: with Some Account of Mrs Sponge, the Money Lender
Mary Lamb: The Farm House
James Hogg: John Gray o’Middleholm
John Galt: The Howdie
Frederick Marryat: South West and by West three-quarters West
William Thackeray: A Little Dinner at Timmins’s
Elizabeth Gaskell: Six Weeks at Heppenheim
Anthony Trollope: An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids
Wilkie Collins: Mrs Badgery
Charles Dickens: Mrs Lirriper’s Lodgings
Thomas Hardy: The Three Strangers
Margaret Oliphant: The Library Window
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Body Snatcher
Arthur Conan Doyle: Silver Blaze
Arthur Morrison: Behind the Shade
“Mrs Ernest Leverson”: Suggestion
Evelyn Sharp: In Dull Brown
T. Baron Russell: A Guardian of the Poor
Joseph Conrad: Amy Foster
H. G. Wells: The Magic Shop
M. R. James: The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral
˜Saki™: The Unrest-Cure
G. K. Chesterton: The Honour of Israel Gow
Max Beerbohm: Enoch Soames
Arnold Bennett: The Matador of the Five Towns
D. H. Lawrence: Daughters of the Vicar
Rudyard Kipling: The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat
Stacy Aumonier: The Great Unimpressionable
Viola Meynell: The Letter
A. E. Coppard: Olive and Camilla
E. M. Delafield: Holiday Group
Dorothy Edwards: A Country House
John Buchan: The King of Ypres
Author Biographies
Acknowledgements
VOLUME TWO: P. G. WODEHOUSE TO ZADIE SMITH
General Introduction
P. G. Wodehouse: Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court
‘Malachi” Whitaker: Courage
Jack Common: Nineteen
Elizabeth Bowen: The Dancing-Mistress
Evelyn Waugh: Cruise
James Hanley: The German Prisoner
T. H. White: The Point of Thirty Miles
Julian Maclaren-Ross: Death of a Comrade
Alum Lewis: Private Jones
“Henry Green’: The Lull
Sylvia Townsend Warner: The Trumpet Shall Sound
W. Somerset Maugham: Winter Cruise
Roald Dahl: Someone Like You
L. A. G. Strong: The Rook
T. f. Powys: The Key to the Field
Graham Green: The Hint of Explanation
G. F. Green: A Wedding
Angus Wilson: The Wrong Set
Rhys Davies: The Human Condition
Francis King: The Mouse
William Sansom: A Contest of Ladies
Samuel Selvon: Knock on Wood
Muriel Spark: Bang-Bang You’re Dead
Robert Aickman: Bind Your Hair
V. S. Naipaul: The Perfect Tenants
J. G. Ballard: The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D
Christine Brooke-Rose: Red Rubber Gloves
Elizabeth Taylor: In and Out of the Houses
Kingsley Amis: Mason’s Life
Alan Sillitoe: Mimic
V. S. Pritchett: The Camberwell Beauty
“Jean Rhys”: Pioneers, Oh, Pioneers
Ian McEwan: Pornography
Angela Carter: The Courtship of Mr. Lyon
Doris Lessing: Notes for a Case History
Penelope Fitzgerald: The Means of Escape
Alasdair Gray: Five Letters from an Eastern Empire
Bernard MacLaverty: Phonefun Limited
Shena MacKay: Cardboard City
Beryl Bainbridge: The Longstop
Douglas Dunn: Bobby’s Room
Georgina Hammick: Grist
Adam Marz-Jones: Baby Church
George MacKay Brown: Three Old Men
A. S. Byatt: Racine and the Tablecloth
Martin Amis: Career Move
Candia McWilliam: The Only Only
Janice Galloway: last thing
Ali Smith: miracle survivors
Tessa Hadley: Buckets of Blood
Adam Marek: The 40-Litre Monkey
Jon McGregor: The Remains
Zadie Smith: The Embassy of Cambodia
Author Biographies
Acknowledgements

Jeff Meyerson mentioned The Commitments in one of his comments yesterday and I decided to watch this wonderful 1991 movie again. Alan Paker directs this story of Irish musicans in the Eighties who are looking for their break to play soul music. The plot revolves around their plan to meet Wilson Pickett who is touring Ireland. One of the great parts of The Commitments is the great music from that era. Just check out the songs on The Commitments soundtrack:
TRACK LIST:
Mustang Sally 4:02
Take Me To The River 3:36
Chain Of Fools 2:58
The Dark End Of The Street 2:34
Destination Anywhere 3:08
I Can’t Stand The Rain 3:12
Try A Little Tenderness 4:31
Treat Her Right 3:35
Do Right Woman Do Right Man 3:15
Mr. Pitiful 2:07
I Never Loved A Man 3:09
In The Midnight Hour 2:21
Bye Bye Baby 3:21
Slip Away 4:27

James McBride takes on an almost impossible quest in Kill’Em and Leave. Soul singer James Brown was a secretive person who didn’t leave much behind when he died. Oh, except that $100 million dollars that the lawyers and the courts are eating up like the estate of Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House. McBride provides the rough outlines of James Brown’s life, his rise to the top and his slide to the bottom. James Brown’s marriages provide part of the reason Brown became an PCP addict. There’s plenty of sadness in Kill ‘Em and Leave. But during the mid-Sixties and early Seventies, McBride argues that James Brown challenged Motown for soul supremacy. After reading this book, I want to go back and listen to some of those old James Brown albums. Do you have a favorite James Brown song? GRADE: B