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I really liked Robinson Crusoe. Much more than I expected to. It had a much deeper spiritual component that I had not expected, though maybe religion was just always part of life for Europeans of the 1700s. Robin(son) was a disobedient young man, even if "a good guy" in the eyes of the world. When he was shipwrecked and landed on his island of no despair he went from not caring about Religion, to being mad at God, to knowing God never existed, to praying for his needs, to celebrating a sabbath, to being thankful that he had survived, to actually reading his Bible, to a true personal relationship with Jesus to bringing the only man he met to the same, and struggling how to live as a Christian in the world God put him.

At one time I thought it may have been the best Christian Fiction I ever read, it felt so much more real than dumb stories like the Left Behind series or radicicolous stories like the Amish Romance series, until the last third or so of the book when it got kind of racist and violent, and adamantly anti-Catholic. While there are many racist and violent people who call themselves Christians now-a-days I don't believe that was ever the plan of the prince of peace, and the Catholic Church is the Church He founded.

But even with all I am amazed how much Defoe kept me "turning the pages" of my audio book in a very interesting story, told almost completely without any additional characters. I have a hard time believing the claim that this was the first ever English novel, but it would make sense why all of the older stuff we read in school were plays (which were meant to be seen not read) and not novels.

Above all what I learned most from this book is that Donald Trump has always been a peice of trash.

The United States Football League started with a fervent idea. Americans love their football so give them more of it in the spring. When Dixon defined it he was able to get support by showing desire from fans, and the key to making it a success was marketing well while keeping costs, particularly salaries, low.

After the first week end had amazing TV ratings and attendance the rest of the owners decided they knew better than Dixon. By the end of the year everyone had gone way over the spending goals and way under TV ratings, with the only team to have made a profit was the only one that followed the plan.

By the next year they wanted to expand, and the future president of the United States deciy he wanted in on the deal and immediately took to trying reshape the league in his own image.

Long story short a lots of egos, no one able to keep their mouth shut not to mention a desire to believe all good rumors and ignore all bad rumors, they followed Trump's lead off the end of the world. They sued the NFL on anti-trust wforfs & won, for which the court awarded them $1 in damages.

I was somewhat disappointed in 20,000 leagues. It was much more hard science fiction and not so much action adventure. Nothing particularly against hard sci-fi its just not so much my preference. I'm also disappointed not in Verne by any means, but in the public libraries that keep putting these very much adult oriented books in the children's section because they are "classics" which I guess is their way of saying kids should read the classics.

This might be two classic audiobooks in a row that I think the movie was better. Like Black Beauty, the Disney version of 20,0000 Leagues was a childhood favorite of mine. Though I've probably only seen this one a dozen times. In the film it always felt like a surprise around every corner, while in the book it was a scientific discovery. While that's certainly a kind of surprise, it's not giant monster attack.

I am sure at its time it was a amazing, but in the 21st century nothing to write home about.

@hankg@bookwyrm.social It's a bit longer than it needs to be, but otherwise good, and if you are taking it as your jumping off point for DS9-Relaunch series you will not be disappointed.