2022 Reading Challenge

Book 22: We Jazz Magazine - Issue 4 "The Call" (We Jazz Helsinki, 2022)

I have barely been able to put this down since getting it last week. This series just keeps getting better and better! This one has articles on Horace Tapscott, Bill Frisell, pandemic collecting/playlists, GoGo Penguin, Tokyo Jazz Joints, J Dilla, Matthew Halsall......the list goes on!

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Book 22: We Jazz Magazine - Issue 4 "The Call" (We Jazz Helsinki, 2022)

I have barely been able to put this down since getting it last week. This series just keeps getting better and better! This one has articles on Horace Tapscott, Bill Frisell, pandemic collecting/playlists, GoGo Penguin, Tokyo Jazz Joints, J Dilla, Matthew Halsall......the list goes on!

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Good to know these continue to be great. I've ordered the first two, to be shipped when issue 1's repress releases in a couple of weeks. May have to nab 3 and 4 in another month or two, if available.
 
Book 25

Swim Team by Johnnie Christmas
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I've been a big fan of Johnnie Christmas for quite a few years now - he's done some great collaborations with formerly Vancouver-based comics writer Ed Brisson and I've checked out pretty much anything I've seen his name on since. This is easily my favourite. Being a "youth" title made it a breezy read (I read the entire thing over roughly half of one of my 95-minute ferry trips today) but not without substance. In addition to the universally relatable anxieties and insecurities explored within the story, there is a good bit of history around the impacts a racist America has had on the Black communities' relationships with swimming. Very enjoyable stuff from an artist I hope to be following in many genres for many years to come.
 
Finished it today.

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Took me about 2.5 months. I thought it was great, though I will say I prefer Anna Karenina, I think. The segments of philosophy and the portions of war maneuvering get to be kind of a slog, but the main stories portions with Pierre, Natasha, Andrei, etc are rapturously good. I probably won't touch this one again for a while, if ever, while I'm already wanting to read AK again. Glad I did it though!
12. Women Talking by Miriam Towes. Read this in anticipation of the upcoming movie. Very good! A reflection of our times which are actually very bad.

13. Legend of Luke by Brian Jacques. Threw in a Redwall because I needed something easy and light. This one was fine.

14. Lapvona by Otessa Moshfegh. Her sickest and most fucked up yet, I love her sooo much.

15. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Really enjoyed it!! Maybe not as good as it's made out to be, but still great! Probably the quickest I've read a ~900 page book (about 3 weeks).

Currently reading Invisible Girl, a recent Pulitzer winner. Zooming through books these days and no intention to slow down.
 
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Book 26

Heat 2 by Michael Mann & Meg Gardiner
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I put a hold on this at my local library pretty much as soon as it was announced. I'm pretty sure it was the first time I've ever been the first one to check out a book from them. I'd hoped to get another viewing of the movie in before reading as the dozen or so times I've seen it were all over 20 years ago. Fortunately the short prologue does a great job of reigniting the familiarity and setting the stage to pick up exactly where things left off before bouncing back and forth before and after the events of the movie. As with the original film, this book was an absolute thrill ride - well-paced and expanding on the familiar characters quite nicely. Even when I could see things coming before they happened I was on the edge of my seat for much of the book.
 
Book 27

This Planet is Doomed by Sun Ra
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I don't know how enjoyable this would be for someone who is not already a Sun Ra fan, but for those who may not yet have realized: I am. And I quite enjoyed rhis. Much more then the collected poems I read last year as this one has better flow and doesn't sometimes have two or three versions of the same poem in a row. I really like the full presentation Kicks Books has done with this and am glad I was able to track down a copy, even if it cost more than one should reasonably pay for a pocketbook!
 
Three more from me:

Book 34 - The Alice Network - Kate Quinn
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My sister read this and really liked it and recommended it to me but I admit I was kind of bored while reading this. I think she and I just have different taste as I tend to prefer deep character studies over action-y plots. But if you like historical fiction and spies you would probably like this one. It takes place over two timelines following two different women who come together after WWII to track down the one woman's cousin who disappeared in France during the war. I liked the characters well enough but I didn't find them super compelling.

Book 35 - Best Debut Short Stories 2020 - Various Authors
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I got this ebook for like $1.99 on Bookbub last year and never got around to reading it. These were the short stories that were selected for the Pen America Dau Prize in 2020. Like all short story anthologies, there were some I liked more than others but I really enjoyed most of these. I think my favorite story was Madam's Sister by Mbozi Haimbe but there were a lot of good ones in this collection. Only one author I had ever heard of too (Kikuko Tsumura) so I look forward to checking out the others' longer works once they are available.

Book 36 - Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid
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I flew through this one in a couple days and thought it was very readable. This one is set in Philadelphia and follows a young woman who doesn't know what she wants to do with her life and is currently working as a babysitter for a rich family when she has to take their daughter out in the middle of the night and is almost accused of kidnapping by a security guard at a grocery store. I found the interactions between the characters after this incident to be interesting and frustrating in all the right ways. I would definitely recommend this one. Also, you can tell the author has lived in Philly because the descriptions of the city are accurate.
 
Book 28

Cut To Fortress by Tawahum Bige
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Debut collection of poetry from a young poet whose work I've been following for the past half dozen years. We've shared community and stages through those years, and I published one of the poems found here in the literary journal I co-founded and published back in 2016/2017 (as well as a couple others that didn't make this manuscript.) It made me very happy to see this book on the shelf earlier this year because I know Tawahum has been working very hard to make it happen, and faced some unfortunate circumstance along the way.
 
A good selection of six for August’s reads.

Book 41: Elmet - Fiona Mozley

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Intriguing story of a family, living largely off-the-grid in an area of Yorkshire that’s very close to where I’m originally from. An area notorious for being a little on the rough side where bare-knuckle fights are held in pub car parks and woodland clearings, often for very high pots.
The man of this family, a local hard-man, builds a home on land that the now absent mother used to own but presently belongs to the local slum landlord and crime boss.
The kids struggle in school so take up an education with a local woman who appears to be the only grounded character in their lives.
The dad is reluctantly forced to fight for the crime baron to clear his land debt and when one of his equally criminal boys is found killed, the dad becomes the prime suspect. This results in a shocking showdown and finale at the family property.
There’s very little joy in this book but the open end leaves you with a glimmer of hope for the kids as they both make their own way out of their unconventional upbringing.

Book 42: Money - Martin Amis

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Superb satire of the early ‘80s and the desire for and misuse of wealth.
Full of despicable characters lead by Londoner, John Self, a vicious and at times violent sexist, pornography and prostitute loving slob who, despite already doing well for himself financially, is drawn into the Hollywood dream by an American producer promising to make Self’s script treatment a reality.
Crossing the Atlantic multiple times, Self juggles women like commodities in his portfolio while massaging the egos of his scriptwriter and future cast, forgets which bars he has been barred from and steadily increases the tips he feeds the bellhop at the NY hotel he resides in to unhealthy amounts.
When the script for the film requires a rewrite, Self employs a writer bloke from the pub he has forced a friendship with called Martin Amis to do it.
All the while, Self is being harassed on the phone by a disgruntled and unknown somebody from his past, the identity reveal marking the surprise plot twist in the novel.
The book is weird, quirky and very, very funny. It’s my second Martin Amis having read London Fields last year. I’m told these two are his best but I’ll definitely try others.

Book 43: The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

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This was a wonderful story recommended to me by my wife shortly after the initial release but I’ve only just got around to it.
Narrated by a dead girl, raped and murdered, we learn the story of those closest to her leading up to and following her death.
Tragic and deeply sad at times, it brilliantly shines hope on an unthinkable time for a family.

Book 44: The Water Dancer - Ta-Nehisi Coates

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Beautiful, lyrical prose puts a magical spin on a story of American slaves and the Underground, set during the period when the Virginia tobacco fields were drying up due to over-farming and many slaves were being sent to Natchez and other more fertile places for new owners to enforce ever harsher work conditions.
Following a mystical escape from an accident and a subsequent botched escape attempt, Hiram is conscripted to the Underground on the hopes of his ability to ‘Conduct’ - to transport people through the bending of space - to safer, more free parts of the nation under the tutelage of Moses, aka Harriet Tubman, herself a master of Conduction.
It’s a really interesting transformation of historical fiction into an almost science fiction that I enjoyed a lot but I can imagine won’t satisfy die hard fans of either genre.


Book 45: little scratch - Rebecca Watson

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Using typesetting in a very novel way to tell the story of a young woman dealing with being raped, Watson absolutely blew me away with this single day - waking to sleeping - account. It is the most honest and heart wrenching depiction of how rape traumatises the victim that I’ve ever read. With no graphic details of the rape to sexualise, glamourise or titillate, Watson purely details the way almost every waking thought, action and reaction are affected afterwards.
Every boy and man should read this.
The page is frequently split into columns, detailing actions, thoughts, dialogue, all running concurrently throughout the moment. What at first seems like a gimmick, quickly becomes normal and I wonder whether I’ll see more books adopt this style going forward, it’s really effective at getting a lot of information across without being too wordy. Naturally, my Paperwhite doesn’t appreciate the strange layout so the Kindle app on the iPad did the trick.
At ~200pp, many with few words on, it’s a quick read and I found myself engrossed in it, highly recommended.

Book 46: Red Pill - Hari Kunzru

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A bit of a slow burner this, hinting early on at heavy intellectual undertones but, it panned out to be a really entertaining tale of a man’s breakdown amidst the days and months approaching Trump’s presidency.
Starting with a decision by a writer to accept a place at a sort of workspace with a stipend based in Germany, only a stone’s throw from both the location where a 19th century writer shot a woman followed by himself and also the property where the Final Solution decision was made in 1942.
The writer struggles to fit into the organised nature of the Centre and finds himself arguing with other intellectuals and suspecting the organisation of unauthorised surveillance while spending most of his time watching a TV show that sounds a lot like The Shield but with obscure right wing literary references.
The book takes a strange 90 degree turn at this stage as it tells a lengthy and personal portrait of how the East German Stasi infiltrated the life of one of the Centre’s maids, effectively ruining any relationships she had during her early 20s.
Next, we return to current events as we’re introduced to Gary/Anton, the man behind the TV show that’s hooked our writer who transpires to be an alt right influencer and ultimately involved with the Trump presidential race.
We see the writer succumb to a mental breakdown as the growing fear of all things ‘right’ threaten his liberal ideals at every turn.
It’s a timely novel that in many ways captures the fear so many felt during that electoral race. As Trump 2.0 possibly looms around the corner, many may still find this an uncomfortable read.
 
I totally agree. and I read the second half way quicker than the first.
The extended scene where
Andrei is dying just wrecked me. And Pierre's whole arc from would-be assassin to Natasha is so fucking good.

Still think I prefer Anna Karenina as a whole. Or at least, I already have some desire to reread AK and almost no desire to read W&P again.

Also, I recommend checking out the Soviet 60s movie adaptation. It's 7.5 hrs long and fuckin bananas.
 
@ayayrawn - I meant to ask - which translation of W&P did you read? I read the Pevear/Volokhonsky version. As I read about other versions it makes me wonder if I will ever dare to read it again, and try someone else's translation.
 
@ayayrawn - I meant to ask - which translation of W&P did you read? I read the Pevear/Volokhonsky version. As I read about other versions it makes me wonder if I will ever dare to read it again, and try someone else's translation.
I read the Maude translation, which I think is one of the original translations. Both W&P and AK I read the Oxford classic versions of, which was nice because it kept the original languages like French and German in context, while translating them on the page, and had footnotes for obscure references. Made them both easier.

Edit: also, AK was a newer translation by Rosamund Bartlett.
 
@ayayrawn - I meant to ask - which translation of W&P did you read? I read the Pevear/Volokhonsky version. As I read about other versions it makes me wonder if I will ever dare to read it again, and try someone else's translation.

I want to do this with The Master and Margarita some day. I used to have three translations, but I've only read one.
 
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