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It may not be the worst way to sort out the applicants for your time and attention. But surely there are some who would just like to have some applicants.

But that's how the empire exercises its naked power.

I think the new color scheme is an improvement and find the posts easier to read. I can't find the link for First Unread.... any more. The Blog page looks better, on my browser and screen at least. The Home page still needs a face lift.

Are you electrical or mechanical or electromechanical? Digital or analog? Wet or dry? Can you be reset?

I have read both First Circle and Cancer Ward, and if I could only read one I would take First Circle. While it is a great picture of a certain life and circumstance, the characters and their reactions take you out of Soviet Russia in much wider considerations of freedom and commitment. If you...

"Good art," taught Carter, "glorifies God and reveals the true nature of God, man and nature. Bad art starts with man, glorifies man or objects and shapes." I am really struck by the cultural blinders here. If these kids are confronted with a Chinese porcelain vase or an African mask or a...

This was much of the story in Greenland also. You land on an unfamiliar shore, and you see trees. So you cut the trees for your use. After all, trees will grow again. Yes, but if you don't understand the local ecology you do not realize that the tree that might take 30 years to reach that size...

In years of dealing with Amazon, they have never messed up on an order they filled themselves. Remarkable, when you consider the many ways in which errors could occur. If there were an error, I would not think it was evil-doing on their part, but a mistake, and I would ask for a refund. They...

I persisted with Underworld and read the whole darn thing. I was sorry afterwards. It's overlong and overdone and deliberately confusing. The book I did enjoy was White Noise. Great social commentary and wonderful characters.

Just ordered from Amazon: A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement (3 novels) by Anthony Powell A Dance to the Music of Time: Second Movement (3 novels) by Anthony Powell Russian Thinkers by Isaiah Berlin Just received from Bookmooch: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

True enough. Yet some of the expatriate Indians seeking spouses would say "caste no bar" but describe skin color. I speculate that, living in the U.S., non Indians don't know what caste you are but may react to skin color.

But consider looking at Narayan's short stories. I liked them better than his novels.

Look out! Someone may test what degree of flirtatious message it takes to make you complain.

As an outside observer of Indian culture, I think that there is considerable color consciousness. I looked at a matrimonial website (U.S.) and most of the posters mentioned skin color: light skinned, fair, wheat complexion.

Do people abuse power because "god" tells them to, or do they invoke "god" to justify their abuse of power? I think it can go either way or both ways. Never underestimate the ability to find a reason for what you want to do.

I loved both books, Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse. In Collapse I was particularly struck by the accounts of Easter Island and the Vikings in Greenland. Sometimes you read about the "mystery" of Easter Island, but their disaster is not so mysterious. Same with Greenland, about which I knew...

Sometimes these imaginings really make the story - and history - come alive. In a novel entitled Children of the Arbat (sorry, forget the author's name) he imagines Josef Stalin's thinking and interactions, including an exchange with his dentist. It made Stalin into a real, admittedly scarey...

It's a whole series, must be up to about seven books by now. Begin at the beginning and enjoy the wonderful characters. They are not soft, but very likable. Plus I enjoyed the picture of Botswana and hope it is accurate.

Maybe. And then again, maybe it's nervous laughter.

For fantasy, take a look at the books of Ursula LeGuin: The Lathe of Heaven, The Dispossessed, and others. For crime, consider the British classic writers: Agatha Christie, P. D. James, Dorothy Sayers.