And then law school happened, and that sort of broke me on reading for pleasure. The nightly, careful reading of a couple hundred pages of dry, boring legal opinions and theory will suck the soul from anyone, but it definitely dried up my reservoir of patience for reading for fun. Which sucked. You know what got me back on that train for a little while? Harry Potter. I read the crap out of those books. And then post-college, it was the Game of Thrones books that hooked me back into reading for pure pleasure. And I do truly find genuine pleasure in a great book. I'm usually a popcorn book guy - give me fanciful fiction over dreary truth any day of the week - but am up for trying new things all the time.
But, as I stated up above, I watch way too many screen-based stories. So, at the start of 2016 I made a pact with myself to read more. Partly for myself, partly as an example to my kids, but mostly just for myself. I'm still reading less than I should, but I've increased my input significantly since 2015. Here is what I read in 2016. Without further meandering, here are the books I read in 2017.
- Stephen King - It. I had to go back and re-read this one before I watched the new movie. I loved it as a curious 12 year old many moons ago, and loved it again now. Such a well-written collection of characters, full of flaws and idiosyncrasies and fears. If you've never tried it, you should.
- Alan Graham - Welcome Homeless. This dude has been working very hard to change the homeless issue in Austin. Through Mobile Loaves and Fishes and then the Community First property out east, he has transformed life for a good number of people. Very inspirational guy, although I would say that the book is at its best when telling the stories of the folks he has helped, and then bogs down some when getting more philosophical.
- Max Barry - Lexicon. Great book, very fast-paced, suspenseful read about magicians who use words to control those around them. Liked it a lot.
- Bill O'Reilly - Killing the Rising Sun. I know, I just lost all my credibility for suggestions by discussing a Bill freaking O'Reilly book, but my Dad gave me this one and it was a good read. Told the story of the Japanese atomic bomb drops, as well as the events leading up to them, very well. Pretty sure some ghost writer handled the majority of this, as it didn't involve crazy political theories or sexual harassment.
- Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Wandering through a very cool indie bookstore in Denver this summer, I spotted the fat anthology collection of the six books in this book's orbit, and just thought I should read them all again. As a kid, I geeked out about these books for a good long chunk of time, and still carry a towel in my car at all times. The first book is by far the best, hilariously odd and quirky, including a wonderful parallel between the dipshit leader of the Universe and our current President. The other books in the series are fine, but they kind of get to meandering and losing focus.
- Colston Whitehead - Underground Railroad. Very well written book, but I was fully and completely misled by the jacket blurb about what I was getting in to. Yes, there was a number of slight tweaks to the historical narrative of slaves escaping from the South, but the gory, godawful details were well represented, along with the soul-crushing sadness and depression that hung around slave's necks like so much iron chain. I liked the book, very well-written, but this is not some puff piece about cool steam trains that whisk the rebellion around under the earth.
- Kelly Barnhill - The Girl Who Drank the Moon. I think we bought this one for the kids, but they are sometimes a-holes about reading the books we think they ought to read. So I went ahead and dove in. Interesting fairy-tale narrative world, with a fun set of strange characters and roadblocks. Quick and easy read, but I enjoyed it.
- Dave Barry/Ridley Pearson - Peter and the Starcatchers. Another one purchased for the children, also another we bought at the cool bookstore in Denver, on recommendation from a pixie-ish, well-tattooed clerk who had a good knowledge of YA books. This one ended up being a Peter Pan origin story. I liked it.
- Conn Iggulden - The Dangerous Book for Boys. My uncle bought me this book, randomly, as a Christmas present after a conversation where I think I admitted an inability to handle some basic slice of male proficiency. Actually a very cool book - more reference tome than narrative story, but you can use it to figure out such useful items as knots, paper airplanes, finding true north, and lashing together a stick structure.
- Reggie Joiner / Tom Shefchunas - Lead Small. Very succinct, clever, quirky book on how to best lead small groups of youth.
- Kate Winkler Dawson - Death in the Air. I just saw an author appearance thing with this author where she described the process of figuring out this book, and it was fascinating. Kate is a professor at UT, but also is a parent at my kids' elementary school and helped coach soccer for my youngest. By proxy, that makes me famous. This book is a historical narrative, which is a term I was unfamiliar with. It means that you take a true historical event and then blend the telling of it with fictional situations or characters to blend fiction with non-fiction. This one conflates the Great London Smog of 1952, an environmental killer that was ignored and covered up by the British government, and a scary serial killer guy named John Reginald Christie. The descriptiveness of the writing is fantastic, and several of the stories are gripping. Personally, I could have done without some of the minutia of Parliament discussions that were recounted in detail in here, but I get that without those discussions you miss out on the government's complicity in the head-in-the-sand treatment of the smog. Overall a good book, even if not my normal read.
- Shea Serrano - Basketball and Other Things. I love Shea Serrano. He is a hilarious follow on Twitter, and also a very good dude who goes out of his way to use his platform of fame to do rad things for other people. His first book, The Rap Yearbook, was one of my favorite reads of last year, with the perfect mix of humor, deep and broad rap head detail, and good nostalgia. I loved it. This one is less up my alley - basketball is much lower on my totem pole of cares than rap music - but still has some funny parts that were worth the read. My favorite chapter was the one drafting fictional basketball-playing characters, especially the bit about Air Bud being an all-sport stud.
- Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist. Someone was telling me that this was their favorite book of all time and they were super pumped about introducing their kids to it. Blech. I'm apparently not deep enough to understand all the amazing parallels to my real life, because it just seemed to me like a relatively uninteresting story about a shepherd who makes bad decisions and then realizes he is good enough. I'm just an idiot though - here are two of the blurbs on the internet about this book:
- “It’s a brilliant, magical, life-changing book that continues to blow my mind with its lessons. [...] A remarkable tome.” — NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, ACTOR
- “it changed my whole life. I realized of all of the people who had conspired to get me to this place.” — PHARRELL WILLIAMS, MUSICIAN AND SONG-WRITER
- Lev Grossman - The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician's Land. These books are wonderful. Like a profane version of Harry Potter, full of fantasy and magic, but also the striking realism of what a teenager would be like if they were smart as shit, loved the Narnia books, and then learned magic without much oversight. Instead of popping off to Hogsmeade for a butter beer at the Three Broomsticks and a few sweets from Honeydukes, these characters get shit-faced and sleep around, cuss one another out, and then use magic to extract their revenge. Of course they also have to quest and solve and battle evil forces, as any good fantasy book worth its salt would demand, but the telling of these tales is excellent. One cool aspect that I very much liked was how the spells were insanely difficult. In Potter-world, you just flick your wrist and say the word and off you go. In this universe, you have to learn a million variations of each spell so that you can account for the position of the moon or the direction of the wind. Great series of books with flawed characters who resonate well.
- Drew Magary - The Postmortal. Love me some Drew Magary. Funny, foul-mouthed, he seems in many ways like a good buddy I don't actually know. His first book, The Postmortal, is a really interesting story, where you can see him coming up with a really great, basic idea for a story, and then just fleshing that out. SO EASY, I SHOULD WRITE A BOOK! In short, what would happen if science solved aging? People could still die of other stuff, but the body itself wouldn't age and people wouldn't die of the usual deterioration. What does that do to the world? The book addresses that scenario at several points in time - initial discovery and cautious embrace of the technology, widespread acceptance and its effects, those effects taken to their extreme. I thought it was a well-written book, a fun concept, and exciting read. Very good.
I've got four books stacked up on my bedside stand right now, just waiting for me to get through one that I'm in the midst of. I'll have more to present soon. If you have good suggestions, please let me know - always looking for good stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment