2022 Reading Challenge
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TrainFan73
Frothy
This ended up being #13
TrainFan73
Frothy
#14
Bull Shannon
Well-Known Member
Book 31: Nightside of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe
I know, I know. I thought I was done with these Gene Wolfe books. But after rereading the Book of the New Sun / Urth of the New Sun, I was compelled to give this next installment of his Solar Cycle a shot. I'm not sure yet how this series relates to the previous one (though I have a feeling it's simply a different story/era in the same world), and was worried Long Sun would only appeal to diehards, but I enjoyed this first volume quite a bit. Maybe I'm a diehard at this point?
I know, I know. I thought I was done with these Gene Wolfe books. But after rereading the Book of the New Sun / Urth of the New Sun, I was compelled to give this next installment of his Solar Cycle a shot. I'm not sure yet how this series relates to the previous one (though I have a feeling it's simply a different story/era in the same world), and was worried Long Sun would only appeal to diehards, but I enjoyed this first volume quite a bit. Maybe I'm a diehard at this point?
avecigrec
Well-Known Member
Book 34
Star Wars: From A Certain Point Of View by Various
I've actually been savouring this one over the past couple of months. The concept is fantastic, and the payoff is mostly excellent. 40 writers examine the original Star Wars film through the eyes of secondary, or even fleeting characters. There is an absolutely stellar cast of talent involved in this, and it was exceptionally cool to branch out into the lives and thoughts of characters like the creature in the garbage shute, the red droid that originally gets chosen with 3PO or the Tuskan Raiders that ambush Luke. Even Yoda and Lando show up here, responding in real time to events here before their official debuts in The Empire Strikes Back. Definitely recommended for Star Wars fans.
Book 35
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire
So happy to finally have Warsan Shire's first full-length book in the world, although it is not necessarily a happy book. Filled with displacement and vulnerability Shire presents powerful narratives of Somali/Immigrant experiences, blurring the lines between blood relations and culture as a whole. There is a lot of hurt, anguish and uncertainty here but it is brilliantly put together into a formidable debut collection of poetry.
Star Wars: From A Certain Point Of View by Various
I've actually been savouring this one over the past couple of months. The concept is fantastic, and the payoff is mostly excellent. 40 writers examine the original Star Wars film through the eyes of secondary, or even fleeting characters. There is an absolutely stellar cast of talent involved in this, and it was exceptionally cool to branch out into the lives and thoughts of characters like the creature in the garbage shute, the red droid that originally gets chosen with 3PO or the Tuskan Raiders that ambush Luke. Even Yoda and Lando show up here, responding in real time to events here before their official debuts in The Empire Strikes Back. Definitely recommended for Star Wars fans.
Book 35
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire
So happy to finally have Warsan Shire's first full-length book in the world, although it is not necessarily a happy book. Filled with displacement and vulnerability Shire presents powerful narratives of Somali/Immigrant experiences, blurring the lines between blood relations and culture as a whole. There is a lot of hurt, anguish and uncertainty here but it is brilliantly put together into a formidable debut collection of poetry.
TrainFan73
Frothy
oooooohhh. that Star Wars books sounds awesome. There is an Empire volume too!
avecigrec
Well-Known Member
Book 36
Sun Ra: Art On Saturn - The Album Cover Art of Sun Ra's Saturn Label by Irwin Chusid & Chris Reisman
Spent a large portion of my evening with this beauty - an absolute wealth of treasures, featuring many fine one-of-a-kind Sun Ra album covers from private collections around the world. The book is certainly more of a visual art book than anything else, but there are a few great written pieces that accompany it. I know I'll be revisiting this one quite often!
Sun Ra: Art On Saturn - The Album Cover Art of Sun Ra's Saturn Label by Irwin Chusid & Chris Reisman
Spent a large portion of my evening with this beauty - an absolute wealth of treasures, featuring many fine one-of-a-kind Sun Ra album covers from private collections around the world. The book is certainly more of a visual art book than anything else, but there are a few great written pieces that accompany it. I know I'll be revisiting this one quite often!
avecigrec
Well-Known Member
Book 37
World Galaxy: A Magazine by We Jazz
I was very interested in this series when it first launched, but the cost to ship to me was a cause for a pause. Thankfully @Selaws kept posting about how great the magazines are and I decided to bite the bullet right as We Jazz announced a second printing of this first issue. From the design to the content this is an excellent magazine that warrants cover-to-cover reading and will be revisited frequently as a reference too! The feature on Sun Ra covers pretty familiar territory for me but is nevertheless very well presented and the feature on Alice Coltrane is superb (unsurprising as Ashley Kahn wrote it.) Additionally, I now have a bunch of Scandanavian music and musicians I'm keen to check out.
Issues 3-5 are in the mail and should arrive well before I get through #2. Great stuff!
World Galaxy: A Magazine by We Jazz
I was very interested in this series when it first launched, but the cost to ship to me was a cause for a pause. Thankfully @Selaws kept posting about how great the magazines are and I decided to bite the bullet right as We Jazz announced a second printing of this first issue. From the design to the content this is an excellent magazine that warrants cover-to-cover reading and will be revisited frequently as a reference too! The feature on Sun Ra covers pretty familiar territory for me but is nevertheless very well presented and the feature on Alice Coltrane is superb (unsurprising as Ashley Kahn wrote it.) Additionally, I now have a bunch of Scandanavian music and musicians I'm keen to check out.
Issues 3-5 are in the mail and should arrive well before I get through #2. Great stuff!
Thackeraye
Well-Known Member
We don’t have a jigsaw thread, so it will have to go here! Started this today.
avecigrec
Well-Known Member
Book 38
Flaming Telepaths: Imaginos Expanded and Specified by Martin Popoff
This one is definitely not for everyone! Popoff has pieced together a fakeloric chronology of occult activity leading into World War 1 as a companion and deeper dive into Sandy Pearlman's Imaginos mythos - explored throughout many Blue Öyster Cult songs and most specifically on the release Imaginos, and Albert Bouchard's current revisiting on Re Imaginos and Imaginos 2 - Bombs Over Germany (Minus Zero And Counting), with a third volume forthcoming. Pearlman's The Soft Doctrines of Immaginos follows the machinations of Imaginos as an "actor of history," meddling in the affairs of humanity in order to see how they respond to evil. Pearlman's original source material is sporadic and vague through the songs that saw release through the years, expanded upon somewhat in interviews. Popoff clearly had some fun here listing the known and inferring the unknown to deepen the myth. Particularly enjoyable to read within fever dreams of covid isolation, but not recommended for anybody not already heavily interested in Imaginos or BÖC mythos.
Flaming Telepaths: Imaginos Expanded and Specified by Martin Popoff
This one is definitely not for everyone! Popoff has pieced together a fakeloric chronology of occult activity leading into World War 1 as a companion and deeper dive into Sandy Pearlman's Imaginos mythos - explored throughout many Blue Öyster Cult songs and most specifically on the release Imaginos, and Albert Bouchard's current revisiting on Re Imaginos and Imaginos 2 - Bombs Over Germany (Minus Zero And Counting), with a third volume forthcoming. Pearlman's The Soft Doctrines of Immaginos follows the machinations of Imaginos as an "actor of history," meddling in the affairs of humanity in order to see how they respond to evil. Pearlman's original source material is sporadic and vague through the songs that saw release through the years, expanded upon somewhat in interviews. Popoff clearly had some fun here listing the known and inferring the unknown to deepen the myth. Particularly enjoyable to read within fever dreams of covid isolation, but not recommended for anybody not already heavily interested in Imaginos or BÖC mythos.
Bull Shannon
Well-Known Member
Book 32: The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy's last book, The Road, was published in 2006. It was also the first McCarthy I read, in 2007, and I spent the last 15 years combing through nearly every book in his bibliography (I'm still three short with Cities of the Plain, Outer Dark, and Suttree). The Passenger (and its sequel/companion Stella Maris, out in December) has been brewing basically since The Road, and rumors have been swirling about his story of atomic bombs, deep-sea salvage, and a brother-sister romance.
It's hard to describe this book without ruining the experience of reading it, as it doesn't really push itself past its synopsis, plot-wise. Bobby Western is a salvage diver in the early 80s, living a sparse life of working and having discursive discussions with the colorful characters who hang around a divers' bar. He's clearly haunted by his sister's death, as well as his father's legacy as one of the engineers of the atomic bomb.
After exploring a mysterious plane wreck in a river, Bobby comes under scrutiny by unspecified government agencies. This is where the book's sense of anticlimax/antiplot is deepest as the book turns into an inverted No Country for Old Men: as the situation gets more dire, the why of Western's pursuit becomes murkier, and Western himself seems basically unconcerned by the tightening noose. Ultimately, the murky vagaries of the plot lead to a feeling of the past in constant pursuit; it feels more like a thematic feature than a narrative bug. McCarthy is clearly even more focused on death, legacy, and grief; and in typical fashion he concludes that we're all dust, it's all actively crumbling around us, and any motion towards self-preservation is dishonesty with yourself and nature. It's a story intensely focused on grief and grieving; the present is barely worth engaging with, don't even bother divining the future, and the past itself is too painful to fully reckon with.
This is a deeply strange book especially seeing that, for all the grief, there is a lot of humor, wordplay, and puns. McCarthy includes a "yes I'm serious, and don't call me Shirley" joke. The dialogues can be infuriating for McCarthy's lack of punctuation and no "he said/she said" dialogue attribution. Nearly every chapter begins with an italicized conversation between Western's sister and the apparitions brought on by her deteriorating mental health. They're nearly interminable, but clearly crucial to the book's texture and theme of the prison of human consciousness, and as the book ambles towards its conclusion they bleed into the rest of the story in a way that carries thematic heft. I'm half-dreading Stella Maris, a much-slimmer novel which apparently consists entirely of a dialogue between the sister and her therapist.
You're crazy for this one, Mack.
Cormac McCarthy's last book, The Road, was published in 2006. It was also the first McCarthy I read, in 2007, and I spent the last 15 years combing through nearly every book in his bibliography (I'm still three short with Cities of the Plain, Outer Dark, and Suttree). The Passenger (and its sequel/companion Stella Maris, out in December) has been brewing basically since The Road, and rumors have been swirling about his story of atomic bombs, deep-sea salvage, and a brother-sister romance.
It's hard to describe this book without ruining the experience of reading it, as it doesn't really push itself past its synopsis, plot-wise. Bobby Western is a salvage diver in the early 80s, living a sparse life of working and having discursive discussions with the colorful characters who hang around a divers' bar. He's clearly haunted by his sister's death, as well as his father's legacy as one of the engineers of the atomic bomb.
After exploring a mysterious plane wreck in a river, Bobby comes under scrutiny by unspecified government agencies. This is where the book's sense of anticlimax/antiplot is deepest as the book turns into an inverted No Country for Old Men: as the situation gets more dire, the why of Western's pursuit becomes murkier, and Western himself seems basically unconcerned by the tightening noose. Ultimately, the murky vagaries of the plot lead to a feeling of the past in constant pursuit; it feels more like a thematic feature than a narrative bug. McCarthy is clearly even more focused on death, legacy, and grief; and in typical fashion he concludes that we're all dust, it's all actively crumbling around us, and any motion towards self-preservation is dishonesty with yourself and nature. It's a story intensely focused on grief and grieving; the present is barely worth engaging with, don't even bother divining the future, and the past itself is too painful to fully reckon with.
This is a deeply strange book especially seeing that, for all the grief, there is a lot of humor, wordplay, and puns. McCarthy includes a "yes I'm serious, and don't call me Shirley" joke. The dialogues can be infuriating for McCarthy's lack of punctuation and no "he said/she said" dialogue attribution. Nearly every chapter begins with an italicized conversation between Western's sister and the apparitions brought on by her deteriorating mental health. They're nearly interminable, but clearly crucial to the book's texture and theme of the prison of human consciousness, and as the book ambles towards its conclusion they bleed into the rest of the story in a way that carries thematic heft. I'm half-dreading Stella Maris, a much-slimmer novel which apparently consists entirely of a dialogue between the sister and her therapist.
You're crazy for this one, Mack.
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avecigrec
Well-Known Member
Book 39
The Graveyard of the Pacific - Shipwreck Tales from the Depths of History by Anthony Dalton
This one I picked up from the hospital gift shop last week after finishing the books I'd brought with me during a 9-hour ER visit (I suffered a minor intercostal tear in a coughing fit, which turned out to be from covid - hurt like fuck, but mostly better now!) These Amazing Stories books are typically very light reads about interesting historical events or figures. This one particularly appealed because my colleague and wrote a short spoken word show about the Graveyard of the Pacific that we performed for a weekend in Victoria's inner harbour, our audience surrounding an old ship propeller on the shore just off a bike path. Surprisingly I don't think either of us encountered this book while we were doing our research. I read about 85% of this at the hospital last week and figured today I should finish it. Very short synopses of a handful of shipwrecks around here - most of them I already knew about, but a few new ones. This is exactly the perfect kind of book to pick up from a hospital gift shop. Easy to read (as long as you can handle the very high body count, mind) and not great or terrible. Enjoyable enough, with a few wild pictures.
The Graveyard of the Pacific - Shipwreck Tales from the Depths of History by Anthony Dalton
This one I picked up from the hospital gift shop last week after finishing the books I'd brought with me during a 9-hour ER visit (I suffered a minor intercostal tear in a coughing fit, which turned out to be from covid - hurt like fuck, but mostly better now!) These Amazing Stories books are typically very light reads about interesting historical events or figures. This one particularly appealed because my colleague and wrote a short spoken word show about the Graveyard of the Pacific that we performed for a weekend in Victoria's inner harbour, our audience surrounding an old ship propeller on the shore just off a bike path. Surprisingly I don't think either of us encountered this book while we were doing our research. I read about 85% of this at the hospital last week and figured today I should finish it. Very short synopses of a handful of shipwrecks around here - most of them I already knew about, but a few new ones. This is exactly the perfect kind of book to pick up from a hospital gift shop. Easy to read (as long as you can handle the very high body count, mind) and not great or terrible. Enjoyable enough, with a few wild pictures.
BjorgenFjorgen
Well-Known Member
Finished this last night (#31 on the year) and thought some of you other music and hi-fi nerds might enjoy it. The narrator is a down-on-his-luck middle-aged divorcé who builds amplifiers and puts together complete hi-fi systems for the wealthy in Beijing. He's tasked with building "the best sound system in the world" for a mysterious client. At 126 pages it's a quick and enjoyable read, and it seems like the author really did his research on audio equipment.
Selaws
Well-Known Member
Book 30: Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday, 2021)
336 pages
I picked this book up at a charity shop on a whim, not knowing anything about it apart from seeing the great cover art and title. I was so impressed with it, an incredibly easy read and really gripping. It's a fictional story of a black furniture salesman in Harlem that has to deal with gangsters, corrupt police, racism, riots, and all whilst raising his family. Really fun crime caper. I saw that Colson Whitehead is a double Pulitzer prize winner and I will be looking out for some of his other books for sure!
336 pages
I picked this book up at a charity shop on a whim, not knowing anything about it apart from seeing the great cover art and title. I was so impressed with it, an incredibly easy read and really gripping. It's a fictional story of a black furniture salesman in Harlem that has to deal with gangsters, corrupt police, racism, riots, and all whilst raising his family. Really fun crime caper. I saw that Colson Whitehead is a double Pulitzer prize winner and I will be looking out for some of his other books for sure!
avecigrec
Well-Known Member
I picked this one up from a neighborhood little free library a few months back but haven't got to it yet. Perhaps I should move it closer to the front of the queue.
Selaws
Well-Known Member
Oooh nice! It was a really nice, easy-going read. Great story as well.
mgp
Well-Known Member
I went through a phase last year where I read everything Whitehead has ever written (actually I just looked and there are a couple I missed). The thing that impressed me most about him is how he can swing from one style to the next. Sag Harbor is a real slice of life / coming of age story, and then you have Underground Railroad, which is (obviously) a much heavier subject matter, and Intuitionist is a surrealist mystery. I suppose race in America is the one common thread.
I've made it through a few more:
25. Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer - My brother suggested this one, and I wanted to like it more than I did. I've found myself reading about not-to-distant dystopian futures a bit too often this year... and this one is best described as an eco-sci-fi thriller. It's really well done for what it is (a page turner), but at the end of the day it kind of lost it's rhythm for me. Maybe VanderMeer (who I do not know but is clearly talented) was trying to do too much. Or maybe I just wasn't in the right mood.
26. Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips - This one I really liked. There's something about remote far flung places that I've alway romanticized even though I've never lived in one. This one is in theory about a two girls that vanish in the Kamchatka Peninsula (far far NE of Russia), but it's really about all of the people whose lives were touched by this mystery and who are closely intertwined in a remote and isolated part of the world.
27. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders - I needed a change of pace, and I got it. Hard to describe except it's about Lincoln trying to cope with the untimely death of his son Willie, and the spirits that are living in the in-between space between life and death. Not an easy read - lots of characters who take turns telling their stories (and interrupting each other) - but a very impressive and ultimately rewarding read. And apparently there is an audiobook that includes Nick Offerman, Megan Mullaly, Jeff Tweedy, Susan Sarandon, Don Cheedle, Rainn Wilson, Ben Stiller, Ben Hader, Keegan Michael-Key, and the list goes on (according to wiki there are 166 characters). I'm playing that on my next road trip.
I've made it through a few more:
25. Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer - My brother suggested this one, and I wanted to like it more than I did. I've found myself reading about not-to-distant dystopian futures a bit too often this year... and this one is best described as an eco-sci-fi thriller. It's really well done for what it is (a page turner), but at the end of the day it kind of lost it's rhythm for me. Maybe VanderMeer (who I do not know but is clearly talented) was trying to do too much. Or maybe I just wasn't in the right mood.
26. Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips - This one I really liked. There's something about remote far flung places that I've alway romanticized even though I've never lived in one. This one is in theory about a two girls that vanish in the Kamchatka Peninsula (far far NE of Russia), but it's really about all of the people whose lives were touched by this mystery and who are closely intertwined in a remote and isolated part of the world.
27. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders - I needed a change of pace, and I got it. Hard to describe except it's about Lincoln trying to cope with the untimely death of his son Willie, and the spirits that are living in the in-between space between life and death. Not an easy read - lots of characters who take turns telling their stories (and interrupting each other) - but a very impressive and ultimately rewarding read. And apparently there is an audiobook that includes Nick Offerman, Megan Mullaly, Jeff Tweedy, Susan Sarandon, Don Cheedle, Rainn Wilson, Ben Stiller, Ben Hader, Keegan Michael-Key, and the list goes on (according to wiki there are 166 characters). I'm playing that on my next road trip.
Selaws
Well-Known Member
avecigrec
Well-Known Member
Put a hold on this at my library after you posted and read the first chapter while waiting for my coworker to pick me up this morning. Digging it so far.
mgp
Well-Known Member
Tough question, only because they are so different.
Nickel Boys was the first of his that read, and it really blew me away. I loved Sag Harbor, and it's a bit of a lighter read (without giving away too much). Underground Railroad is incredible too (and as you may guess a difficult subject matter). Any of those!