2024 Reading Challenge

[Selaws]

Book 16: Everscape: The Wings Of Embra by Christopher Sergi (Orion Nebbs Publishing, 2018)

My wife's work colleague wrote this book and she bought a copy to show support. I gave it a go and loved it. Really great world-building with similar themes to Harry Potter but with a more space-aged approach. Great stuff.



Book 17: The Rum Diary by Hunter S Thompson (Bloomsbury, 2011)

I think this is the 9th time of reading this book and it never gets old. One of my favourites without a doubt.



Book 18: Jog On: How Running Saved My Life by Bella Mackie (William Collins, 2018)

A really great read that is in part a journal into the life of Mackie, and in part a guide on how running can be used as a tool to help mental health.



Book 19: Tokyo Jazz Joints / Rare Mags - Zine (Self-Published 2024)

Despite this 'zine' being short, the photos capture within are incredible. Slices of life within the context of Japanese jazz kissa. Incredible.

 

[jamieanderson1968]

Next batch of 3 books, and again a bit ho-hum. My reading has been slowing down with these 3, becoming a bit of a chore. Also started a 900 page history of DDay which I plan to nibble on through the rest of the year.

#19 Jake Adelstein - Tokyo Noir - book 3 in his Tokyo Vice memoirs series and definitely ran out of steam part way through this one.


#20 - Gary Phillips - Ash Dark as Night - book 2 of the Ash series, set during the Watts riots in LA, a bit more of the same from the first book.


# Peter Goodman - How the World Ran Out of Everything - if you wondered it was so hard to buy things online and why they took forever to arrive at your house, and you are suffering from insomnia they you should read this. What should have been a 60p, 3 part series in The New Yorker or Atlantic is spread over 350 pages.

 

[Bull Shannon]

Book 12: There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, by Hanif Abdurraqib
View attachment 201565
I was born in the 80s, and came into grade school during the height of Michael Jordan worship and the cultural dominance of basketball. I had parents whose instinct was to pull us kids away from anything popular for reasons they didn’t understand, but while the narrative at home was we shouldn’t worship people who “bounce a ball for a living” (my dad, a Black republican, had nothing but time for “pull your shorts up” respectability policing), I still understood the cachet the ball held on the schoolyard and to this day envy the constancy and drama of sports fandom.

With There’s Always This Year, Hanif Abdurriqib unravels the sport, its history and conventions, and threads it between the individual experience, the wider Black experience, and most importantly, the interchangeability of one’s identity with the identity of location. This is a book about accepting your hometown (a place inherently thrust upon us and a part of our identity that exists the furthest away from choice), leaving it, coming back, and what it means when others leave, whether pulled away by opportunity or force.

I keep putting off posting an update until I can take a sec to snap pics of everything. Well, I had a minute today but all my books are packed up for a move. So let's just dump 'em:

Book 13: Dead Man’s Walk, by Larry McMurtry
The third book in the Lonesome Dove series, and the first prequel. Struggles to justify its existence beyond an attachment to two characters stiffly fated to become who we know them as, but too young to have become them yet.

Book 14: The Overstory, by Richard Powers
There's some powerful writing here, especially in the first sections establishing the ensemble; especially in the Hoel Chestnut section. But as Powers piles on the characters, they start resembling archetypes more than people, and exhaustion sets in. There's some redundancy in these archetypes, and the middle section drags as several converge upon the same story of environmental activism. Melodrama supersedes character development, and the purported focus on trees starts to burble into occasional mentions that trees are, in fact, quite old.

I must be a curmudgeon, because the overwhelming response to this book is a shifted perspective when it comes to our detachment from the natural world, and I simply did not relate to it. I love trees, I'm a lifelong outdoorsman (nothing extreme; I just like to sleep under stars regularly), and the back-page hypothesis that maybe the earth will survive us is nothing new to me. But while Powers initially establishes several characters' relationship with trees, the eventual focus on human melodrama - hamstrung by impersonal detachment as it is - leaves me feeling I read a book about people and trees in which the author included all their diligent research but, ultimately, was more interested in people while relying heavily on familiar tropes in depicting them. Well, save for the three or four characters he forgets to develop in the final two thirds of the story.
I felt I read something for people who haven't left the city and won't plan to.

Book 15: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Reread for the first time since high school in preparation for Percival Everett’s James, a retelling of Twain’s yarn from the perspective of Jim. Simply a crackerjack book; it reads so quickly and the stories are both propulsive and funny. Minus points for the appearance of Tom Sawyer in the last quarter or so; I just hate his schemes.

Book 16: James, by Percival Everett
Good book! The first section of this story is the one most interested in revising one’s impression of Huck Finn, and then the story blessedly moves in its own direction, following its intended themes. Code Switching is the phrase of the day for sure; Everett envisions a 19th century south where the slaves are well read and erudite in private, hiding behind a curtain of ignorance and “lawdy lawdy lawd” to avoid challenging and upsetting their captors.

Book 17: The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, by Gene Wolfe
Been picking my way through this since last Thanksgiving; if you’ve had eyes on this thread you know I dig Wolfe a lot, but this is my first short story collection from him. The results are certainly mixed; the title story is excellent, but there are some thin-soup clunkers in the mix. Even the good stories are a little too indebted to The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Book 18: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie
My first Christie! This is one of the Poirot books, and has a reputation as Christie’s breakout work. I’m lukewarm on the murder mystery genre; I enjoy the setups and cast introductions, but the succession of conversations ironing out who was where and when really drag for me.

That said, I’d remarked on the same thing aloud to Mrs. Bull, mainly complaining that I never feel compelled to solve the mystery, and the solution always seems to come out of nowhere. “Though I kind of wonder if X did it, because that would be very intriguing,” and as soon as I turned back to the book, Poirot revealed X as the killer.

Book 19: Mao II, by Don Delillo
Senior year of high school I capped off a short run of silly short films with a self-serious short film about a director who was tired of making silly movies and wanted to make a capital-s serious movie. After showing it, a teacher told me to put that movie on a shelf and check it out like five years later. Well it’s been twenty, and I found it when cleaning up a hard drive; I could only handle a couple minutes of it, but I saw what that teacher saw: in fretting over what type of artist my art said I was, I’d created something so inwardly focused and self-concerned that I’d basically broadcast to the world (and eventually myself) all my fears while forgetting to entertain.

I don’t think Delillo is failing on the level 17 year-old me was, but he was certainly working in the same mode here.

 

[avecigrec]

Book 16: James, by Percival Everett
Good book! The first section of this story is the one most interested in revising one’s impression of Huck Finn, and then the story blessedly moves in its own direction, following its intended themes. Code Switching is the phrase of the day for sure; Everett envisions a 19th century south where the slaves are well read and erudite in private, hiding behind a curtain of ignorance and “lawdy lawdy lawd” to avoid challenging and upsetting their captors.

Looking forward to checking this one out!

 

[mgp]

I've got a few more, still going pretty slowly here!

7. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. Well... my 13 year old read this, and she asked me to read it so that we could have a mini book club. How could I resist? In case she ever comes across this, I will say that it's a book and that I read it. Just kidding. It tries way too hard, and isn't very good.

8. The Upcycled Self by Tariq Trotter / Black Thought. I'm pretty sure I got this recommendation here, so preaching to the choir. Really well written memoir by a fascinating guy. I knew a bit about his history through Questlove interviews, but there's a lot more to it. Really hard for my sheltered self to imagine doing so much while coming from his background. Highly recommended.

9. Deacon King Kong by James McBride. I wasn't on a beach, but was looking for a beach read. This checked all the boxes, and I really enjoyed it: a fast moving, funny story, with a lot of quirky characters, and enough heart to make a lasting impression.

 

[mdmost]

So I can get my August book lined up, does anyone have a good recommendation for a book on the making of Kind of Blue? There's a new book out that talks about Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and Coltrane which I'm considering but I really want a more technical book about how the album was created and what was going on in the recording sessions. The album turns 65 this August.

 

[jamieanderson1968]

So I can get my August book lined up, does anyone have a good recommendation for a book on the making of Kind of Blue? There's a new book out that talks about Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and Coltrane which I'm considering but I really want a more technical book about how the album was created and what was going on in the recording sessions. The album turns 65 this August.

Calling @Selaws

 

[Nee Lewman]

So I can get my August book lined up, does anyone have a good recommendation for a book on the making of Kind of Blue? There's a new book out that talks about Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and Coltrane which I'm considering but I really want a more technical book about how the album was created and what was going on in the recording sessions. The album turns 65 this August.

I would assume this would fit the bill:
Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece
https://a.co/d/41iEbJD

 

[mdmost]

I would assume this would fit the bill:
Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece
https://a.co/d/41iEbJD

That’s the one I’ve looked at and will most likely get.

 

[avecigrec]

Book 30

Giant by Mikaël


I'm officially enamoured with Mikaël's work.

After immensely enjoying Harlem I immediately put in holds on his first two books at the library. This one, his first, centers around a group of Irish immigrants, particularly one known as Giant, who worked building the skyscrapers Rockerfeller Center. The art throughout is stunning and the story unfolds at a perfect pace, balancing humour, Intrigue, introspection and character study. Harlem was great; Giant was incredible. Recommended.

 

[Mr Moore]

July 2024

Book 37: Ali Smith - Summer

What an absolutely perfect ending to the perfect quartet. Such good reading - I'd urge anybody who loves good, modern literature to get on board. The subject of Brexit won't be as relevant to much of the international readers but, it really does just provide a backdrop to the wonderfully full characters on display throughout these books, all dealing with turmoil caused by that decision. Covid and lockdown also play a part in this last entry so somewhat more widely appreciable, as does the ever-present influence of art in its many forms. Spectacularly good writing.

Book 38: Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter

This one was a really well crafted tale once it got going but, only following a very lengthy introduction that amounts to little more than how he came about the subsequent story. In a very young mid-1600s Boston, after giving birth, an adulteress is imprisoned and made to wear an embroidered Scarlet A upon herself to stigmatize her upon release. Refusing to disclose the father or flee the area, Hester's husband makes a timely return from his absence in Europe and sets about to out and shame the culprit. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of classic literature won't find the revelation a surprise but that doesn't stop it being good, really good in fact and clear why it remains a classic but, boy, some of the writing is flowery beyond even Hawthorne's contemporary Dickens at times and proved a challenge for these modern eyes.

Book 39: Joyce Carol Oates - We Were The Mulvaneys

A prom night rape is the catalyst for the systematic breakdown of a once idyllic, hard-working Waltonsesque family in small town America. Inability to speak about the event, shame, guilt, resentment and bitterness corrupt the fabric of the family as Oates paints such a vivid and detailed portrait that is steeped with tragedy. Excellent, if not heart-breaking at times read.

Book 40: Paul Auster - Timbuktu

OK story from a dog's point of view detailing its life up to and beyond the passing of his vagrant owner. Pleasant enough read but far from vital in the Auster canon.

Book 41: Willa Cather - Death Comes for the Archbishop

This one was alright - various tales of a couple of Catholic priests from the Old World settling in and around New Mexico in the 1800s and their efforts to bring the faith to a fairly primitive setting where even the existing priests didn't get the Catholic memo. The writing was excellent but for me, the episodic nature of each story within the larger story didn't really appeal and I felt a bit like I was being short-changed out of any real character development.

Book 42: Junot Diaz - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Thoroughly enjoyable read detailing a life that to be quite honest seems anything but wondrous to me. That aside, the writing is rich with colour and vivid in its characterizations. The sad and terrifying history of the Dominican Republic was fascinating for someone who knows only the modern all-inclusive resort aspect of the country. My only criticism would be what often read like a real effort by Diaz to shoehorn a sort of late '90s/early '00s movie dialogue, (somewhere between Tarantino and Kevin Smith), into his storytelling in an effort to keep 'hip'. I didn't hate it exactly, it just felt deliberate to the point of being clunky.

I'm off on my hols tomorrow taking in Bruges-Amsterdam-Berlin-Prague. Despite a few decent length train journeys, I know I won't get a massive amount of reading time outside of them but, I do have a couple of titles set in some of those places that I'm going to try and squeeze in throughout the month.

 

[mdmost]

Endurance was so damn good. An amazing tale of survival and never giving up. I could not imagine having to endure those conditions and sense of hopelessness against those massive odds. Really happy I chose to read that.

I've been having good luck reading two books a month so I'm going to add a 2nd book. I have an idea for the first one which I've seen on here and wanted to try out.

Heard good things about this one:

On August 17th, I'll start the Making of Kind of Blue by Ashley Kahn.

 

[Selaws]

So I can get my August book lined up, does anyone have a good recommendation for a book on the making of Kind of Blue? There's a new book out that talks about Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and Coltrane which I'm considering but I really want a more technical book about how the album was created and what was going on in the recording sessions. The album turns 65 this August.

Calling @Selaws

Sorry, I missed this when you first posted.

Yes, the Ashley Kahn book (this is the edition I have) is likely your best bet. Its a really good overview, digs into the finer points, and Kahn is generally considered to be one of the better jazz writers.

If you end up reading this and like the style/pace, then check out his other book which delves into the making of Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" (This one) and for extra credit he also has an equally fascinating book on the history of Impulse! Records (This one)

 

[Nee Lewman]

Sorry, I missed this when you first posted.

Yes, the Ashley Kahn book (this is the edition I have) is likely your best bet. Its a really good overview, digs into the finer points, and Kahn is generally considered to be one of the better jazz writers.

If you end up reading this and like the style/pace, then check out his other book which delves into the making of Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" (This one) and for extra credit he also has an equally fascinating book on the history of Impulse! Records (This one)

I’ve read the Live Supreme book and have the impulse book in my infinite pile.

 

[ayayrawn]

It's been a minute! I've been on a bit of a tear this year, so here's another fat update from the last couple months,

10. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon - My first Pynchon in a while - I read Gravity's Rainbow back in 2017. I want to read Vineland with the news that PTA is making a movie of it soon but wanted to ease back in with something smaller. I thoroughly enjoyed this novella. Thought it was hilarious and stimulating.

11. A Fortune For Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib - A nice poetry collection (though I think I connect more with Hanif's essays and culture writing).

12. Unfortunately, It was Paradise by Mahmoud Darwish - An English translated collection by the late, celebrated Palestinian Poem. Much of this is very heartbreaking, as you'd expect, but very beautiful and ethereal.

13. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell - This was fantastic. A devasting but stunningly rendered realist look at Shakespeare (never named) and his wife Agnes' lose of their son Hamnet. Loved this one. Chloe Zhao is working on an adaptation of this starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, which seems like perfection lined up, so keep an eye out.

14. Actual Air by David Berman - A reread of the late Silver Jews singer's only collection. Anybody interested in his music or poetry should check this out. It's wonderful.

15. There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib - @Bull Shannon summed it up well, this thing is goddamn amazing. More loosely structured than Hanif's other collections, and feels much more dense philosophically, but no less stunning in its emotional honesty and examination of culture. Y'all gotta read this.

16. There There by Tommy Orange - A novel of interwoven narratives on the Native American experience. I has heard acclaim for this back in 2018 when it came out, and have heard even more buzz for Orange's latest novel Wandering Stars that came out (I think) this year, so decied to check it out. It's a very bleak story, and maybe a bit overambitious for what it ends up accomplishing, but I liked it and think it's good.

17. One Piece Vol.105 by Eiichiro Oda - lol

18. No Man is an Island by Thomas Merton - I don't consider myself catholic anymore, but I really admire the candor, humor, and intelligence of Merton's writing. This is a great collection of essays on spirituality that work not just for religious folks, but for people trying to make sense of their internal workings. The universal application of mysticism is super fascinating to me.

19. Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur - Just finished this today. An incredible autobiography about one badass woman. It's absolutely unreal what she was put through, and I gotta say good for her for making it out. Would pair Excellently with the Autobiography of Malcolm X. If you're interested in the writings of black revolutionaries, want an extremely unflattering examination of the legal system, or to be inspired by somebody's resilience, check this out.

About to start Long Live the Post Horn by Vigdis Hjorth, and perhaps some books on screenwriting and movie-making to kick myself into creative gear. After that, I'm not sure! Need to line-up my next reads still. Also, still listening to Werner Herzog's memoir on audiobook, which is hilarious and fascinating. Recommend.

20. Long Live the Post Horn! By Vigdis Hjorth - Norwegian novel about a woman who's lost all interest in life and her unlikely journey reclaiming it via support for her local post office union. Solid and life-affirming.

21. Devotional Cinema by Nathaniel Dorsky - Short essay from an experimental filmmaker on his methods and style.

22. Stags Leap: Poems by Sharon Olds - This is a pulitzer winning collection, but I didn't connect with it much. The words are lovely, but Olds' style is EXTREMELY personal, and it felt a little TMI sometimes.

23. Given: Poems by Wendell Berry - Wendell is a local legend and I figured I hadn't read any of his in a while. This was a nice, obscure collection.

24. Every Man For Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog - An audiobook I'd been listening to a while. As hilarious, fascinating, and bizarre as you'd expect an extensive Herzog memoir to be. I absolutely loved it. he man is insane. If you're a fan of his work even a little bit, you should check this out.

25. Averno by Louise Gluck - Another collection from one of my favorite poets. This one was dark, but really stirring.

26. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark - This is a very large fantasy novel I've been reading for the last month and a half and just finished today. It's an alternate history where magic exists in England written in an Austenian pastiche. I liked it, though it's probably too long - it starts out really fun and becomes laborous maybe 2/3 in, and kind of dissatisfied with how many loose ends are left open. Though, I realize it's more about the journey with this one - it's extremely dense and probably has more parallels and commentary on English history than I picked up on. I respect it for that. Also most of the characters are assholes who have no clue what they're doing, in which it may be as true to life as can be. In any case, glad I read it, but will probably not pick up again. Loved her recent novel, Piranesi, a lot more, and look forward to whatever else she's doing.

I think next I'm finally (FINALLY) going to read the final two books in The Expanse series after however many years of reading these, and be done with it, and then go back to some old-fashioned regular length novels after that. Also currently enjoying David Grann's The Wager on audiobook.

 

[ranbalam]

Book 15
This took awhile to get through, partly because I wasn't home a lot the last couple weeks. But also, it's so dry. But man, Bill has worked with SO many talented people, his particular insight is great. It's not tech-heavy which helps shorten it. I was going to rate it lower, but I'm so impressed with his resume, I'd say it's worth a read.

 

[mdmost]

Heard good things about this one:

On August 17th, I'll start the Making of Kind of Blue by Ashley Kahn.

I finished this in 2 days. Got through 112 pages on day 1 and the rest today. Might be the easiest, most efficient read I've ever done. It really has no proper place for you to stop except for when she sidebars with some historical backgrounds on nuclear weapons or tactics. An amazingly scary as hell read. I would highly recommend it but just know you're getting something very bleak. Felt like a Tom Clancy book about the end of the world.

Now I have to find something to read since the Kind of Blue book was meant for mid-month to coincide with the 65th anniversary and my Colorado trip.

 

[avecigrec]

Book 31

Gamerville by Johnnie Christmas


A breezy read youth graphic novel that showcases the importance of human connection in an age of screens, as well as a willingness to try new things. Johnnie Christmas is one of a handful of local and semi-local artists I've been following for a bunch of years now. He's worked on a variety of adult comics and collaborated with Margaret Atwood, but his youth graphic novels are particularly quite enjoyable.

 

[mdmost]

Decided to try this one since I need something less heavy after the nuclear destruction of our planet.

 

[avecigrec]

Book 32

Bootblack by Mikaël


This was easily my least favourite of Mikaël's New York Tryptich. Not that it was bad by any means, its a well-told and masterfully illustrated tale, to be sure, I just didn't find it as compelling as the other two. That said, the art is cinematic in scope and draws you right into the past.

...and that gets me caught up with my library stuff for a while. Hoping I can knock a couple things off my own backlog while the fam and I are on the road for the next couple weeks!