Loyal Defender

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.”

Happy soon New Year!