At this time of year I get lots of messages from my chatty Facebook pals that contain quizzes about who you are, what your fortune will be in the coming year, etc.
Most of these exercises require you to sign in with Facebook, so the idea, I’m sure, is to send advertising your way, but the themes of the quizzes can range from ordinary to pretty wild.
Sure, “What will you accomplish in 2018?” sounds fine but what about “What does your bar fight look like” or “What will be your dress size in 2018?” I’m sure all the fellows out there are just itching to do that one.
Apparently some algorithm can take your posts and decide for you which friend will get pregnant in 2018, which song was written about you, which saint will watch over you in 2018, and, my favourite: “Watch your video about your mafia gang!”
Hmmm. I tend to avoid anything online that asks too many personal questions.
Perhaps I’m smarter than I think.
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Got a cool post from the Vancouver Island Regional Library (VIRL) listing their most borrowed books of 2017.
Are your favourites on here? You might like to try some of these.
VIRL’s 39 branches circulated more than five million books, DVDs and CDs in 2017, just in case you thought no one uses a library any more.
Top fiction:
1. Night school by Lee Child; 2. Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien; 3. No man’s land by David Baldacci; 4. Home by Harlan Coben; 5. A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny.
Non-Fiction:
1. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande; 2. The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up: the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing by Marie Kondo; 3. The Hidden Life of Trees: what they feel, how they communicate: discoveries from a secret world by Peter Wohlleben; 4. The Inconvenient Indian: a curious account of Native people in North America by Thomas King; 5. Forever Painless: lasting relief through gentle movement by Miranda Esmonde-White.
Children’s Books:
1. Double Down by Jeff Kinney; 2. The Wizard’s Wand: the ninth adventure in the Kingdom of Fantasy by Geronimo Stilton; 3. Thea Stilton and the Madagascar Madness by Thea Stilton; 4. Magical Mission by Geronimo Stilton; 5. Tales from a Not-So-Friendly Frenemy by Rachel Renée Russell.
Teen Books
1. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One & Two by J.K. Rowling; 2. The Giver by Lois Lowry; 3. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green; 4. Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth; 5. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.
DVDs
1. Sully; 2. The Girl on the Train; 3. Florence Foster Jenkins; 4. Jason Bourne; 5. The Accountant
For a complete list of the Top 10 in each category, or to print out the list, go online to http://virl.bc.ca/sites/default/files/documents/News%20Releases/VIRL-Top-10-2017.pdf