Is That a Stilton?

My parents were proponents of subscriptions to youth to magazines, records, books, anything that came regularly and kept me busy and satisfied. I don’t remember them all, but there was a recording of such favorites as Big Rock Candy Mountain, a magazine for the Boy Scouts even when I was only a Cub, a book showing me how things worked which made me an expert in television production by the time I was nine, and an inherited subscription to the Cheese-of-the-Month Club.

That everything you want to know about television book was probably my first introduction to technology. But it is also a reminder that yesterday’s magic is often a sad reminder of how clumsy we were. The other day I watched a clip of Youtube showing the making of a popular television show in the early ’50s. The cameras were like small refrigerator boxes and didn’t have the features of even the cheapest GoPro cameras kids today tie on a kite to get a better view of the neighbors sunbathing around the pool.

And then there’s computers. Actually, there’s too much about computers but I remember two elements in my early years that I now realize were crude or mystifying elements in my technology timeline. The first was a silly quiz board that my father made in college (yes, the G. I. Bill) which wired together rows of screws & washers in such a way that a battery current would be completed and a light pop on whenever a correct match was made. The second was a demonstration in my Junior High math class which allowed visitors from the fledgling computer department at the local college to wow us with very primitive digital computation. It was also my introduction to the binary system, although I didn’t realize it at the time.

So today I use technology to overcome old-age and failing eyesight and still keep on reading. The tempting titles are piling up but I still keep a look-out for the most tempting.

Recalling the suggestions from last month:

• 04-01-23 – Hijab Butch Blues — Lamya H
• 04-02-23 – Japan Unmasked — Ichiro Kawasaki
• 04-03-23 – The Pisces — Melissa Broder
• 04-04-23 – The Incredible Events In Women’s Cell Number 3 — Kira Yarmysh
• 04-05-23 – Birnam Wood — Eleanor Catton
• 04-06-23 – The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms — J. P. Donleavy
• 04-07-23 – Naked in the Woods: My Unexpected Years in a Hippie Commune — Margaret Grundstein
• 04-08-23 – The House in the Pines — Ann Reyes
• 04-09-23 – St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street — Ada Calhoun
• 04-10-23 – The Trampling of the Lilies — Rafael Sabatini
• 04-11-23 – The Queen of Dirt Island — Donal Ryan
• 04-12-23 – Ghost Music — An Yu
• 04-13-23 – The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder — David Grann
• 04-14-23 – The New Earth — Jess Row
• 04-15-23 – Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope — Sarah Bakewell
• 04-16-23 – The Chinese Groove — Kathryn Ma
• 04-17-23 – Wanderlust — Reid Mitenbuler
• 04-18-23 – Betrayed by Rita Hayworth — Manuel Puig
• 04-19-23 – Romaine Wasn’t Built in a Day — Judith Tschann
• 04-20-23 – The White Album: Essays — Joan Didion
• 04-21-23 – The Angel Maker — Alex North
• 04-22-23 – Culture: The Story of Us, From Cave Art to K-Pop — Martin Puchner
• 04-23-23 – Robert B. Parker’s Payback — Mike Lupica
• 04-24-23 – Kiki Man Ray: Art, Love, and Rivalry in 1920s Paris — Mark Braude
• 04-25-23 – Skinfolk: A Memoir – Matthew Pratt Guterl
• 04-26-23 – What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez — Claire Jimenez
• 04-27-23 – Biography of X: A Novel — Catherine Lacey
• 04-28-23 – Someone Else’s Shoes: A Novel — Jojo Moyes
• 04-29-23 – Blood & Ink: The Scandalous Jazz Age Double Murder That Hooked America on True Crime — Joe Pompeo
• 04-30-23 – The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History — Joel Warner