Reading List Q2 2022

Mostly women authors, more music than sci-fi and following threads to the end

The tenth year of keeping a reading list: I like to chronicle what I’ve read and how I’ve reacted, mostly to share my thinking about my thinking. Books are listed in the order in which I’ve finished them, which may not reflect my reading order - I sometimes have two books going at once if one is more technical or business focused and I need to season it with sci-fi or fiction. Things that truly resonate with me get longer treatments.

11. “Invisible Circus” fiction, Jennifer Eagan, finished April 8

I’m discovering Jennifer Eagan the way I found Bruce Springsteen and Rush: amazing talent already into a wonderful set of artistic styles, and I’m jumping on the bandwagon mid-way.  Having read “A Visit From The Goon Squad” as a pre-requisite for the highly anticipated “Candy House,” I went backwards through Eagan’s work and I’ll draw on the Springsteen analogy.  “Goon Squad” is “Born to Run” and “Candy House” is very much “Born in the USA” and “Invisible Circus” hit me as “Wild Innocent and E-Street Shuffle” - much more linear narrative, much more a life told in three parts.  “Circus” tells the story of Haight-Ashbury, of a time before cell phones and photo micro-essays of our lives and tries to make sense of a sister’s suicide.  It’s raw, it’s literally trippy in parts, and I will likely reference it again when Movember rolls around.

12. “The Candy House,” fiction, Jennifer Eagan, finished April 19.

The sequel-of-sorts to “A Visit From The Goon Squad” that explores family relationships, our uniqueness, our search for identity and meaning.  In an oblique reference to Hansel and Gretel that reveals the title, she also cautions against cheapening those things for the air (or aire) of “improving” your memory of life events.  As the story progresses, the characters, even those left blurry by “Goon Squad”, come into sharper focus.  I adored this as much as the first one, and while I lament not discovering her work sooner, the delay let me binge read.

13. “World Gone Mad,” fiction, Elizabeth Beck, finished April 30.

Second in Elizabeth Beck’s trilogy of jam band inspired prose, this is a direct sequel to “Summer Tour,” her 2019 musings on life in the traveling circus of a Phish warm weather circuit.  Closer in age to the dads than the lads in the book, I found this just as comforting and fun, exploring themes of musical connection and graceful, Grateful aging as well as the current post-pandemic social structure we all navigate.

14. “Hyperion,” sci-fi, Dan Simmons, finished May 10

16. “Fall of Hyperion,” sci-fi, Dan Simmons, finished May 29

Susan Rigetti mentioned the two Hyperion books in her newsletter, and generally I find her recommendations useful and expanding for my reading list.  The themes of godliness, religion, sacrifice, and loyalty come through a somewhat hazy thousand pages of what it means to be human.  Simmons dives into the deep end of sentient artificial intelligence, how we deify things of our own creation (or misunderstanding) and the relationship (good, bad and ugly) between them in a future world.  The first book is a Canterbury Tales structured set up of seven characters sent to play out the humanity-vs-future threat scenario; the sequel draws on the poetry of Keats (from which the books draw their title) to get to the true reveal.   The science isn’t as exact or hard as sci-fi that follows Simmons’ work, and the middle section of “Falls” is 400-ish pages of set up.   Happy that I read these classics, but I will skip the last two in the series.

15. “Cover Story,” fiction, Susan Rigetti, finished May 17

I’ve been a fan of Susan Rigetti since her “SquarkNotes” newsletter, and her “Whistleblower” expose of Uber.  I find I draw inspiration from her smaller observations from her writing (favorite so far: it’s acceptable to have 500 good ideas knowing that only 3-4 of them will turn into something).   “Cover Story” is a fast, fun, and attentive read – it’s loosely based on the real life story of scammer Anna Sorokin, and you chase this thread all the way to the last paragraph before unwinding all of the clues that pulled you there.  

17. “Dark Factory,” sci-fi/fiction, Kathe Koja, finished June 11

I’m not even sure how to describe this one.  It’s a transcript of what may be an acid trip, or a hallucination stimulated by a year of Facebook++ interactions, or the terminal state of William Gibson’s characters from Spook Country and Zero History.  It’s weird, and weirdly written in that you have to focus on every single detail and transition or you miss the context switches, but that weirdness gives it a certain artistic beauty.  I liked it – but I’m not sure why, which might have been the whole point.  Former Sun peer Jim Baty used to say that “good art has to make you feel uncomfortable” and the storylines – as well as the book construct – do just that.

18. “Under The Elm,” fiction/music, Elizabeth Beck, finished June 21

A fitting conclusion -- and preamble -- to Beck’s two Phish  tour books ("Summer Tour" and "World Gone Mad"), resonating with echos of strong places (for me, Bay Village on Long Beach Island and the Beatles pop art painted building just north of there) and synthetic families (thought frequently of my friend George and his 2nd family he found through the Grateful Dead, as well as my summer tour crew).  She captures the 1980 turn of the decade perfectly as Vietnam War activism yielded to so many other things.  Tying it all together, the watch word of Dead Heads -- "Be Kind" -- is foundational to the book.   Read all three, in the right order (this one last, as it completes the canon of the Calico House from the beginning)

19. “A Spindle Splintered,” fantasy/fairy tale remix, Alix Harrow, finished June 21

More of a long short story or novella, Harrow deconstructs the fairy tale and princess mythologies and then re-assembles them into a literal romp through the multiverse, sci-fi tropes, fantasy plot devices and the real meaning of empowerment.   If fairy tales are meant to convey hope, then Harrow does it by setting self-advocacy and agency as the happily ever after end points.

20. “A Mirror Mended,” fantasy/fairy tale remix, Alix Harrow, finished June 23

Continuation of “Spindle Splintered” in which the remixed modern Snow White characters drop into another story of empowerment and self-awareness.  There are fun, and especially in the current climate, necessary revisions and revisits to some too-entrenched tales of patriarchy.

21. “A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter To My Son,” Michael Ian Black, finished June 25

A Father’s Day gift from my son and his fiancee, and a perfect tear-down of some of the foundational elements of current social unrest.  It’s already a few years old, and reading this the same weekend as slate of Supreme Court decisions further dividing us made it more powerful.  Black tackles violence, empathy, emotions and the true spirit of brotherly love in a deadly seriously fashion demarcated by sidebars and one-liners and other humor punctuation to prevent this from turning into a diatribe.  It’s wonderful and full of good ideas and well researched references.