Reading List Q3 2022

I believe this is the 39th installment in the series of short book reports, a tradition that likely dates back to 3rd grade. 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. In particular, Ada Palmer’s “Perhaps the Stars” took me months (and two attempts) to finish but was quite worth the effort.

22. “Never Say You Can’t Survive,” Charlie Jane Anders, finished July 5.

I enjoy the peek through the fourth wall where authors talk about their motivations, writing process, or source material.  Anders’s book is a bit of everything, including the use of narrative as a way to deal with extreme social pressure (Anders has suffered all of the possible derision vectors, from middle school through her adult life).   Along with Jeff Tweedy’s “How To Write One Song” I found this full of interesting advice about brainstorming, letting the narrative unfold itself, un-origami original style, and creating characters that compel readers to relate (My alliteration, not so much).   The insights into “City In The Middle Of The Night” and “All The Birds in the Sky,” two of Anders’ novel length works, made me appreciate that them much more.

23. “Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes,” music/biography, Dan Oulette, finished July 9.

Disclaimer: I loved this book so much I was willing to tolerate the impossibly bad kerning in about 5% of the pages.  There are sentences and some paragraphs were the spaces between words are indistinguishable from the inter-letter spaces, forcing the reader to parse sentences like a complex crossword puzzle.  But it’s worth it. There are no lurid details or pluck-and-tell sequences despite the number of high profile and high calamity jazz musicians whom Ron Carter propelled from the rhythm section. You get the sense of Ron Carter as a musician: incredibly hard working, precise, demanding of accountability from his bandmates, and above all a lifelong teacher.  His thoughts on discovering chord progressions and tonal structure to guide extended pieces along, or his approach to lessons were both a wonderful reflection of my last few years of bass lessons and an insight into how the most-recorded bassist of all time (upwards of 2,500 recording credits) continues to strive for creativity and excellence.   There’s a page in the last few chapters where Carter talks about learning bass structure from listening to trombonist JJ Johnson – something I’ve been taught (find the instrument carrying the bass lines) and has vastly improved my listening and appreciation of everything from string sections to small jazz groups.  And to square the circle: the teacher who imparted that wisdom is a trombonist who was taught (in music school) …by Ron Carter.

24. “Two Beats Ahead,” music/business, Panos Panay/R Michael Hendrix, finished July 15

A quick review of how Berklee and IDEO think about strategy, innovation, and team work – drawing on changes in the music business, education, and culturally relevant context.  The “playlist” chapters felt like page-fillers (create a Spotify playlist and publish it?  At odds with the “we’re using technology for good” themes of the book) but the key ideas about building teams, managing disruption and re-invention of approach are quite good.

25. “A Prayer for the Crown-Shy,” sci-fi, Becky Chambers, finished July 18

The second slightly-longer novella in the “Monk and Robot” series and more wonderful than the first. Chambers explores gender, humanity, and identity in ways that echo mentally long after I reach the last page.   Strange aside: Mosscap, the self-aware robot that ambles through these stories, is profoundly sensitive to not extending itself with materials foreign to itself.  Reading that line of thought, punctuated by my daily walks to pick up broken glass on the beach, helped me root the intention of that minimal beach clean up - the glass is foreign to the beach.  I’m truly anticipating the next book(s) in this world.

26. “Perhaps the Stars,” sci-fi/politics, Ada Palmer, finished July 30

One of the few books that I started, put down, and then decided to finish: The final part of “Terra Ignota” ties together all of the politics, strategies, historical references and quasi-religious themes.  While the first three books create a world rich in technology and “invisible hand” politics, the final book covers the resulting war of wills and fight over man’s fate in excruciating detail, drawing on classical Greek literature, Thomas Hobbes, and channeling some of the revolutionary spirit of the 18th-20th centuries.  Yes, it’s that complex and the middle slowed my reading to a crawl.  Fresh perspective and a few uninterrupted hours to really think through the rich ideas helped, and I’m quite happy to have finished it – it ends with multiple triumphs, political, literal and personal.

27. “Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible and Fried,” music/biography, Chris Connelly, finished July 31

One of the first industrial/post-rock/hardcore metal musicians, Connelly provided keyboards, loops, and vocals for a variety of bands including KMDFM, Ministry and Al Jourgensen’s troupe of loudness.   Written half in response to Jourgensen’s public lambasting of bandmates, Connelly’s book is less biography and more a toxicology report on a decade of rock and roll life style. I only discovered the book through a note in a Regressive Aid Facebook page, with a forward reference to Billy Tucker (Regressive Aid guitarist, before KMFDM/Ministry, who has been the subject of several of my Movember musings).  Bill Rieflin also makes cameo appearances, before leaving the industrial scene for King Crimson (one might argue that Crim’s “Lark’s Tongues in Aspic” was the first industrial rock composition with its drum parts for sheet metal.)  Connelly is uproariously funny, having added half a dozen phrases to my vernacular.  At the same time, this is the memoir that Keith Richards would have written had the Stones not been bathing in popularity and money; it’s a far better description of the life of an average touring musician teetering on the edge of homelessness and financial and pharmacy-induced turpitude.  But it’s still funny.

28. “This Time Tomorrow,” fiction, Emma Straub, finished August 2

A time travel book that explores relationships, aging, happiness and a series of “what if” questions.  The time travel mechanics were useful plot devices, and it’s a fast and somewhat happy read, fine for the beach, and I had at least a few “I get it” smiles.

29. “Inhibitor Phase,” sci-fi, Alastair Reynolds, finished August 5

The (last?) book in the Revelation Space world, set after the events that destroyed the main sequence of the worlds and characters created.  A story of human resilience, deceit, loyalty and evolving friendships, with the echoes of characters and places from this superb world surfacing as needed.  

30. “Eversion,” sci-fi, Alastair Reynolds, finished August 7

(Mild Spoiler) An elegant, eloquent book that explores whether Ais can will themselves to humanity, and dream of both better states and backstories to explain our messiness as humans.  It’s an induction proof, told as a series of increasingly complex character and context stories that turn inside out to reveal the true story of which they are the warp and woof.  Once the true state of human and related affairs is revealed, it’s a literal mad dash to a superb finish, and some of the space-as-navy metaphors that populated the Revenger series show up here. In addition to improving my vocabulary, Reynolds’s text is so well crafted that you pick out the parallels and begin assembling the back and forward stories only to be continually and happily surprised.

31. “The Boys In The Boat,” sports/history, Daniel James Brown, finished August 11

The University of Washington men’s 8-oar rowing team won the gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and their story encodes the deepest tales of Depression era asceticism, endurance, patriotism, and worth ethic.  Featuring a biography of key oar Joe Rantz, who overcame numerous obstacles and hardships to make the UW varsity boat, Brown’s story weaves in the politics of sport and the rise of facism in Germany, the mechanics of rowing, and the emergence of west coast powerhouses in what was historically an east coast prep school sport. Having taken up rowing this year, I found the descriptions of actual races and their cadences fascinating and almost palpable in their description.   

32. “Manhattan Beach,” fiction, Jennifer Eagan, finished August 13

Deep into the Eagan canon, this is her first work of historical fiction and has the same deft, weaving storylines of her current (and future) fiction.  Set in the early days of WWII, it traces a young woman and her family’s interactions with organized crime, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and a complex family history where almost everything - except the actual war waged in Europe - is a cause of death and loss.

33. “Take A Sad Song,” music, James Campion, finished August 26

A musical, social, emotional and cultural analysis of “Hey Jude,” the longest-charting, longest-running and most widely recognized of the Beatles song book.  Campion has an innate ability to dive into music and find those phrases that resonate deep in your soul, whether it was his biography of Warren Zevon or his summer tour book about Dog Voices and the Jersey shore bar scenes.  What you get in his latest is a careful, touching deconstruction of the context for “Hey Jude” turned into an induction proof of how and why we need anthemic songs, whether in 1968, as the Beatles disbanded, or in the throes of 2022.  I was singing “Na Na Na NaNaNaNa” nightly as I closed the Kindle.

34. “Look At Me,” fiction, Jennifer Eagan, finished September 2.

One of Eagan’s earlier works written before the events of 9-11-01, ubiquitous cellphones and the surveillance economy, yet remarkably prescient and accurate in predicting all of those shifts and the rise of internet celebrity.  The story threads weave, bump and turn against each other, darting into difficult or indeterminate territory like a 90-minute Nikki Glaser dark comedy set.  There are thematic elements of wanting to escape the branded, facade driven world, to become invisible and yet still “there” – parts of William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition trilogy retold in midwestern America.

35. “Centers of Gravity,” sci-fi, Marko Kloos, finished September 3.

The ninth and likely final book in the “Frontlines” series; originally intended as a trilogy and expanded as Kloos found more subplots and escape routes for the human heroes.  There are some loose ends left unknit: the more exact nature of the aliens that literally rocked the last two thirds of the series and how humanity thrives and survives long term, but the series brings the characters  fittingly back home – if this is it for the series then it was a well written and well landed conclusion. (Editorial note: I pre-ordered this before I went fully Kindle, and got a paper copy, which subsequently and literally melted in the 110 degree Vegas heat.  A good single day read as I was dropping quatros around the pool deck).

36. “Wish It Lasted Forever,” sports, Dan Shaughnessy, finished September 18.

Shaughnessy’s sports writing, along with Leigh Montville, was a staple of my early adult days in Boston.  He captures the zeitgeist of Boston in the days when the Patriots, Red Sox and Bruins were all incredibly mediocre, and the Celtics were the champions of the city.  Having lived in the city, and observed both the 1984 and 1986 championships from a slight distance (I was both moving in and moving out during those seasons), I appreciated Shaughnessy’s slight pull back of the curtain on a team dynamic that is perhaps once in a decade.  These players had fun; reading Bill Walton’s biography was just as much fun as reading about how his teammates gave him relentless grief as the good natured catalyst for team chemistry.