2022 Reading Challenge

I've been curious to check this one out. I picked up Stamped (for kids) for when my son is a bit older and really liked how it was done, and have really dug Kendi's other work.
I would pick up a copy and read it. The language in it is very kid friendly, and like I said, it taught me things that I had never learned before. It's very accessible. It only took me a couple of days to get through it .
 
Book 17: Second Place - Rachel Cusk

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A short but beautiful read. This is my fourth of Cusk's books having read her Outline trilogy last year. Her writing style is very special. She can come across as so blunt, so matter-of-fact, but her narrators and I'd hazard a guess that she herself are extraordinarily analytical of the everyday and mundane and ooze intelligence and intellectualism with every thought. I imagine Cusk to be the kind of person I'd look forward to meeting right up to the point where I realised she could outthink, outwit, outsmart me on every conversational level but, I still really love reading her words.
The titular Second Place refers to an outbuilding which the narrator, M and her husband own that they invite people to stay at, to think, to write, to do as they please, as guests or as self-sufficient non-paying tenants. M invites a painter, L who she has admired for close to two decades, his artwork having changed her life, spiritually at any rate and who she would love to paint the landscape of the marshland where she and her family live. L accepts but arrives with a young, beautiful girl(friend) which sets off feelings of dissatisfaction and jealousy in our narrator and in turn, instant feelings of resentment from both parties.
The story pootles along steadily with family drama, spite and tragedy mixed in and Cusk puts it all on the pages as realistically as it can be.
Likely not enough happens for lots of reader's tastes but I really enjoyed this one.

I'm off on a long overdue and twice rescheduled holiday tomorrow to Greece so I'll post whatever I manage to read when I get back.
 
Book 12 - Swing Time - Zadie Smith
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I enjoyed this one a lot, though I think it did lose some steam towards the end. It took me a while to get through it for absolutely no reason. I will definitely be on the lookout for Smith's other works because I love her writing style.

Book 13 - We Were Liars - e. lockhart
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This one I did not get along with, however. I'm sure it was my fault as I'm not much of a thriller person and am not really the target demographic for this book, but I was recommended it by multiple people and I was curious. I did guess the twist part way through, so yay me! If you like YA thrillers you might vibe with this one more than I did.

Book 14 - Hood Feminism - Mikki Kendall
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I thought this book was really good at bringing up important issues that people don't always consider when talking about feminism, but I feel like I understand a lot better how the issues all interact with each other.
 
Book 11 & 12:

We Jazz Magazine - Issue 1 "World Galaxy" (We Jazz Helsinki, 2021)
We Jazz Magazine - Issue 2 "Pursuance" (We Jazz Helsinki, 2022)


I decided to share these here on the off chance that someone might find them interesting enough to look into. Plus at over 100 pages each they might as well be books! They are both absolutely fantastic and contain some really great articles that spread from interviews with contemporary performers to articles on classic albums and photo essays. They include a George Wein article, the Fallon/Brotzmann controversy, A Love Supreme Live In Seattle article, classic jazz festival posters photo essays, Irreversible Entanglements interview/bio, 2 Sun Ra articles, John Corbett interview, Alice Coltrane's Harp essay, Andreas Muller interview, Derek Bailey essay, the list goes on....

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Book 7

Star Wars: The High Republic - The Rising Storm by Cavan Scott
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Exhilerating. This is the the second primary novel in The High Republic setting, taking place nearly a year after the first, and is basically a 400-page high stakes ensemble action sequence. I'm really digging the way Cavan Scott writes Star Wars.
 
I'm about halfway through Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I thought maybe I'd stop and move to something else for awhile but I feel the need to finish it. It's dense and so heartbreaking; I can't usually read a lot of it at once. Sometimes 20 pages is enough for one day.
 
I'm about halfway through Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I thought maybe I'd stop and move to something else for awhile but I feel the need to finish it. It's dense and so heartbreaking; I can't usually read a lot of it at once. Sometimes 20 pages is enough for one day.

I really need to finally knock that one off my to-read list. I've had a copy for half a dozen or so years but just haven't gotten to it yet.
 
Book 7: Psalm of the Wild-Build by Becky Chambers
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This book was a perfect balm after a slew of challenging reads, either in form or subject matter. I've read Chambers's other prominent book, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, and while I liked her aspirations towards writing "cozy" sci-fi that's more about misfits finding themselves and found families, sometimes the humor was a bit too "squee!" and the cast felt like the Burger King Kids Club in the sense that every individual had a single diverse trait that nearly overwhelmed and defined their character.

Psalm is set in some undefined future, on an Earth-like planet or moon, after robots have become sentient and decided to split from humanity. In a sort of anti-Matrix, the machines live in the woods while humans learned to develop society in a less exploitative manner. Dex, the main character, is a tea monk who goes from town to town, brewing tea for people and listening to their problems; they're somewhere between therapist and guru and daycare manager. Of course, Dex feels a yearning for something different, and takes a chance detour through the woods. There, they meet Mosscap, a robot chosen to make human-robot contact for the first time since the split.

The book mostly concerns their journey, and the ways they get to know one another. It has a slight philosophical bent as the two engage in chatter over their preferences in life, how they live, and how they choose to find meaning. Not meant as faint praise, but I could see this as a decent entry point into philosophy for younger readers, as it focuses a lot on the question of what one takes for granted and what one might see if they take one step outside themselves.

Good book, short book; I hear there's a sequel coming, and I won't be waiting to pick it up.

I'd be curious if anyone has any other cozy or hangout suggestions; it's rare for me to find fiction that steps on the brakes and just gives you a slice of life, or captures the pleasures of the quotidian.
 
I really need to finally knock that one off my to-read list. I've had a copy for half a dozen or so years but just haven't gotten to it yet.
I bought my copy last summer and finally dived in...glad I did.

It's one of those books that is hard to recommend or gush about, and yet it's also essential reading imo.
 
Book 7: Psalm of the Wild-Build by Becky Chambers
91cx0OCVgMS.jpg

This book was a perfect balm after a slew of challenging reads, either in form or subject matter. I've read Chambers's other prominent book, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, and while I liked her aspirations towards writing "cozy" sci-fi that's more about misfits finding themselves and found families, sometimes the humor was a bit too "squee!" and the cast felt like the Burger King Kids Club in the sense that every individual had a single diverse trait that nearly overwhelmed and defined their character.

Psalm is set in some undefined future, on an Earth-like planet or moon, after robots have become sentient and decided to split from humanity. In a sort of anti-Matrix, the machines live in the woods while humans learned to develop society in a less exploitative manner. Dex, the main character, is a tea monk who goes from town to town, brewing tea for people and listening to their problems; they're somewhere between therapist and guru and daycare manager. Of course, Dex feels a yearning for something different, and takes a chance detour through the woods. There, they meet Mosscap, a robot chosen to make human-robot contact for the first time since the split.

The book mostly concerns their journey, and the ways they get to know one another. It has a slight philosophical bent as the two engage in chatter over their preferences in life, how they live, and how they choose to find meaning. Not meant as faint praise, but I could see this as a decent entry point into philosophy for younger readers, as it focuses a lot on the question of what one takes for granted and what one might see if they take one step outside themselves.

Good book, short book; I hear there's a sequel coming, and I won't be waiting to pick it up.

I'd be curious if anyone has any other cozy or hangout suggestions; it's rare for me to find fiction that steps on the brakes and just gives you a slice of life, or captures the pleasures of the quotidian.

Oooh, my wife just read this and absolutely loved it. Gonna have to track a copy down and check it out, I think! (She does e-books but I need physical)
 
Book 7: Psalm of the Wild-Build by Becky Chambers
91cx0OCVgMS.jpg

This book was a perfect balm after a slew of challenging reads, either in form or subject matter. I've read Chambers's other prominent book, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, and while I liked her aspirations towards writing "cozy" sci-fi that's more about misfits finding themselves and found families, sometimes the humor was a bit too "squee!" and the cast felt like the Burger King Kids Club in the sense that every individual had a single diverse trait that nearly overwhelmed and defined their character.

Psalm is set in some undefined future, on an Earth-like planet or moon, after robots have become sentient and decided to split from humanity. In a sort of anti-Matrix, the machines live in the woods while humans learned to develop society in a less exploitative manner. Dex, the main character, is a tea monk who goes from town to town, brewing tea for people and listening to their problems; they're somewhere between therapist and guru and daycare manager. Of course, Dex feels a yearning for something different, and takes a chance detour through the woods. There, they meet Mosscap, a robot chosen to make human-robot contact for the first time since the split.

The book mostly concerns their journey, and the ways they get to know one another. It has a slight philosophical bent as the two engage in chatter over their preferences in life, how they live, and how they choose to find meaning. Not meant as faint praise, but I could see this as a decent entry point into philosophy for younger readers, as it focuses a lot on the question of what one takes for granted and what one might see if they take one step outside themselves.

Good book, short book; I hear there's a sequel coming, and I won't be waiting to pick it up.

I'd be curious if anyone has any other cozy or hangout suggestions; it's rare for me to find fiction that steps on the brakes and just gives you a slice of life, or captures the pleasures of the quotidian.
This is on my list, I'm glad you recommended it! I also have A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet in my kindle library but I haven't read it yet.

Your synopsis of the book reminds me of a lot of the pre-Meiji restoration era Japanese literature I had to read in college. They're not all very upbeat, but there's a very meditative feel to a lot of them.
 
Book 15 - Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
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Well, I read this one in 3 days so I guess it's fair to say I liked it. I do think the end was a bit anticlimactic, but I liked that the point of the book was more to focus on the characters and how the world came to be the way it was over plot. I would warn that the catalyst of the story is a pandemic so I can understand why reading that during these times can make some people anxious. But if that doesn't bother you, I'd definitely recommend this one. I think the author has a new book coming out (or it just came out recently) that I will need to add to my list.

I'm currently cycling through two books at the moment. The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda which is not my typical genre but the writing/translation is lovely so far, and The Deep by Rivers Solomon which I am listening to on audiobook (which is narrated by Daveed Diggs and I would definitely recommend in audiobook form).
 
Book 15 - Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
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Well, I read this one in 3 days so I guess it's fair to say I liked it. I do think the end was a bit anticlimactic, but I liked that the point of the book was more to focus on the characters and how the world came to be the way it was over plot. I would warn that the catalyst of the story is a pandemic so I can understand why reading that during these times can make some people anxious. But if that doesn't bother you, I'd definitely recommend this one. I think the author has a new book coming out (or it just came out recently) that I will need to add to my list.

I'm currently cycling through two books at the moment. The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda which is not my typical genre but the writing/translation is lovely so far, and The Deep by Rivers Solomon which I am listening to on audiobook (which is narrated by Daveed Diggs and I would definitely recommend in audiobook form).

I might have to check out the show some time, because I read this one years ago and remember almost nothing at all about it (but there was a glut of post-apocalyptic literary sci-fi adjacent works at the time, so they just kind of blended together).
 
I might have to check out the show some time, because I read this one years ago and remember almost nothing at all about it (but there was a glut of post-apocalyptic literary sci-fi adjacent works at the time, so they just kind of blended together).
Yes, the show is probably the next thing on my list once I finish what I'm watching now. I've heard it's not exactly the same, but everyone I've talked to seemed to like it.
 
Yes, the show is probably the next thing on my list once I finish what I'm watching now. I've heard it's not exactly the same, but everyone I've talked to seemed to like it.
The show is very good! I watched it right after reading the novel, which I also really liked, but I thought this was better. They took it in a really enjoyable direction off the path of the novel.
 
Book #7

Jonathan Ames "A Man Named Doll" (2021 Pushkin Press)

Impressions: Oh, I really enjoyed this. This is the first Jonathan Ames book I read. It's a gritty modern noir, but the writing and style feels classic. Loved the first-person narration and witty humor of the main character. Story is well constructed and provides good unpredictable twists and turns. I didn't know this when I picked up the book, but Jonathan Ames is the creator of the too-early terminated HBO show Bored To Death, with Ted Danson, Jason Schwartzman and Zack Galifianakis, which I also enjoyed. Definitely going to seek out more Ames.

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Next up:

Sean Doolittle "The Cleanup"

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Book 15 - Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
I just finished another one of her novels: The Glass Hotel, which I enjoyed a lot. Like Station Eleven, it’s a very engaging and quick read. And she’s got a little bit of the David Mitchell meta thing going, where she has Easter eggs throughout that reference her other works. In her case, just station eleven, to my knowledge as I’ve yet to read anything else by her. I just grabbed the new one l, Sea of Tranquility, this week and am excited to dive in.

While I’m here, that was #8.

#7 was Rabbit run by John Updike. Rabbit is your consummate antihero. Actually it’s one of those stories where you kind of dislike every person in it, even as you’re rooting for them all, and they are all repeatedly failing. Great book.
 
Book 8

Black Nerd Problems by William Evans & Omar Holmon

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This one I've actually had on the go for probably about six months - the essays are all pretty short and easy reads so it's been my go-to for line-ups, being on hold, the bathroom, and a palate cleanser between other books. I've been a longtime fan of William Evans's poetry and have followed the Black Nerd Problems website since its inception and this book is a perfect representation of many of my favourite aspects of the website - a broad spectrum of nerdery laced with loads of humour, perspectives and experiences much different from my own, and generous use of the word "muthafuckas!" Very enjoyable.
 
I just finished another one of her novels: The Glass Hotel, which I enjoyed a lot. Like Station Eleven, it’s a very engaging and quick read. And she’s got a little bit of the David Mitchell meta thing going, where she has Easter eggs throughout that reference her other works. In her case, just station eleven, to my knowledge as I’ve yet to read anything else by her. I just grabbed the new one l, Sea of Tranquility, this week and am excited to dive in.

While I’m here, that was #8.

#7 was Rabbit run by John Updike. Rabbit is your consummate antihero. Actually it’s one of those stories where you kind of dislike every person in it, even as you’re rooting for them all, and they are all repeatedly failing. Great book.
The rest of the Rabbit books are interesting; he put one out each decade or so, and matches the arc of Rabbit’s life with that of American society. I only didn’t make it through #4, Rabbit at Rest, because I thought it’d be cute to read on a florida visit (since Rabbit retires to Florida) and got instantly depressed by his descriptions of the Tamiami Trail, an incredibly depressing highway my wife’s grandparents live off of.
 
Book 9

Star Wars: The High Republic - A Test of Courage by Justina Ireland

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Being a juvenile novel, this was a breezy read, but also more substantial than I expected given the age it's targeted toward. Am looking forward to reading this one with my son eventually but, for now, I enjoyed it for myself. I'm pretty all-in on The High Republic material. It's fun Star Wars and all the publications compliment each other nicely.
 
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