Category Archives: Book Talk

Book Column, Book Talk, Recommendations

WEEK 2: BOOK PAIRING #NONFICNOV

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This week’s host for Nonfiction November 2019 is Sarah over at Sarah’s Book Shelves. This week all of the participants are are to offer a couple of books that dovetail nicely following Sarah’s directions: “It can be a ‘If you loved this book, read this!’ or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story.”

The last time I participated in Nonfiction November I offered up a books-about-books pairing. For 2019, I’d like to pair up two books that talk about change. Specifically the fear of change while standing in the shadow of the rapidly evolving world of technology. It’s all moving so fast!

David Sax’s The Revenge of the Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter is a couple of years old and a very good read. While Sax never gets overly romantic over the things and ideas he covers, he does a good job of highlighting the benefits and uniqueness of vinyl recordings, paper, board games, etc. I recently heard a technologist say something along the lines of “… the better digital tools get at helping us, the more relevant and needed analog tools are.” It almost sounds like a contradiction, but it’s really about what it means to have a worthwhile experience and experience the world your body lives in. These are themes that Sax covers with humor, understanding and critically all at the same time. I highly recommend this book.

A wonderful counter balance to Sax’s book is Laurence Scott’s The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World . This nonfiction book came out in 2015 and is a wonderful (almost philosophical) take on what it means to walk around with a computer in your pocket, with the ability to instantly be connected digitally to anyone on the planet. There’s a ton being thrown at us every day and it can be tough to navigate. Scott’s writing is beautiful and full of empathy and understanding as he shares some of his experiences with an “always on” lifestyle. I mean the technology is here, how do we learn to cope with it and keep it in check while using it to its fullest potential to better our world.

Where David Sax offers up a summary judgement in The Revenge of the Analog Laurence Scott offers a slower “we’re all in this together so let’s try to get it right because I don’t know either” take in The Four-Dimensional Human.

If you ever find yourself wondering or worrying about the phone, music, books, ebooks, Spotify, etc. I think you’d enjoy both of these books.

AND THE FICTION PARING FOR EITHER OF THOSE. . .

If fiction is what you’re in the mood for, then check out Tim Mason’s The Darwin Affair . I’ve been recommending it to friends that enjoy historical fiction. As a thriller/mystery it’s a fair read, but it all centers on the real world release of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and the effect it had on the world at the time. Talk about a world that was afraid of change and newly rapidly evolving ideas! It was crazy times, for sure.

AND AS A NONFICTION NOVEMBER BONUS FOCUSING ON BOOKS AND FEAR OF CULTURAL CHANGE. . .

If podcasts are your current jam, then I’d recommend listening to the Pessimists Archive episode titled The Novel. Click through to their page and check out a couple of the highlights from the show notes:

  • “Too Much Reading is Harmful” by Angelo Patri (1938)
  • Novel Reading: A Cause of Female Depravity, The Monthly Mirror, 1797
  • Thomas Jefferson worries about children reading novels

Can you imagine being scared of the affect “longer books” would have on society? Talk about crazy times!?

Happy Nonfiction November!

Book Column, Book Talk, Books About Books, New Releases, Upcoming Titles

New Books I Am Looking Forward To This September

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Books about books are my absolute favorite. I love them all and if this batch of new books hitting store shelves this September are any clue, it’s going to be a great fall season. Anyway, I figure, if you’ve happened to land on this blog, these may be books you’d want on your radar as well.

Here are three that I am looking forward to reading. They all come out in September 2018:

I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Ann Bogel. This is one I’ve pre-ordered. It officially releases September 4, 2018 in hardcover. I’ve not read Bogel’s other book, but I do keep up with her popular bookish podcast What Should I Read Next. She is a huge lover of books and seems to be an even bigger fan of readers, so I think this short collection centered on “the reading life” will be very interesting.

The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time by David Ulin. I LOVE the idea of “reading as a political act”. I honestly believe that if everyone would just sit down, slow down and read more books, the world would be a much better place. I’m anxious to see what Ulin has to say on the matter. This one came out back in 2010, but this new 2018 hardcover edition (releasing September 4, 2018), being published by the cool folks at Sasquatch Books, has a little extra added in reframing the book in light of the current condition of things.

Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount. There are a gazillion miscellany books out there about books, reading and the like. But Mount’s new hardcover book will certainly earn a place on the bookshelf due to her unique book-loving artwork. Back in 2012, she did a book with Thessaly La Force titled My Ideal Bookshelf and it remains a fun one to pull down to flip through. It’s a big hit with visitors at the house too.

Book Column, Book Reviews, Book Talk

Book Review: White Tears by Hari Kunzru

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Hari Kunzru’s newest novel White Tears follows a couple privileged hipster college-educated white boys as they try to chase down, record and sell authentic black music from the dawn of the blues era. But what starts out as a snarky take on cultural appropriation and the current music scene in the U.S., ends up taking a dark turn down into the pits of American segregationist history.

For all of the beauty and fresh authentic sounds the American blues brings us, we forget why it’s called the “blues”. The stories, horrors and ghosts that gave birth to all the haunting words and rhythms were real. And it was bad.

Kunzru’s story zips back and forth through time, pulling on threads and connecting dots between the pain that birthed the blues, music laws, the 1960’s music industry and the “only vinyl will do” trends of the current decade.

I enjoyed the beginning of the book and the writing is solid. I wasn’t expecting the honest-to-goodness ghost story that crept up to help drive home the point of cultural appropriation and entitlement, but I have an appreciation for why and how Kunzru did this. Sometimes we just don’t know what we’re messing with and should just leave it alone.

It’s good to stop while reading this book and think about how the ideas are playing out “for real” in the story. It’s easy to forget the sting of all those ideas and themes, once the story starts chugging along and characters start dying and disappearing mysteriously.

I have to admit I’m a sucker for a well done all-type book cover and White Tears does look good (it’s another great one by the modern dust jacket master Peter Mendelsund) face out. Overall, I give White Tears a 3 out of 5 stars.

Book Column, Book Talk

Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!

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I love this time of year. Things seem to slow down just a tad, just before the new year, and allow some room for quiet and even spurts of uninterrupted reading. Joy!

I do hope that you have been able to carve out some moments of peace this holiday and that the stress of things piling up in the weeks ahead isn’t too daunting. It can be a scary feeling.

One of the books I managed to finish last week was Nicholas Basbanes’ Among the Gently Mad and it had a few bookish Christmas facts in there.

  1. The first time “Merry Christmas” appereared in print was in a travel book printed in 1617
  2. The first illustration of Saint Nick was in 1863
  3. The first commercially printed Christmas card was in 1843
  4. The earliest known printed illustration of Santa coming down a chimney is from 1841

I have to admit to being surprised at just how young Santa is.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, which offers tours and thoughts behind people who collect books and associated artifacts. Basbanes has been at the bookman game a long time. Though I was bummed that I was coming to this book late. It was published in 2002. So many of the radio shows, blogs, dealers, names, etc. aren’t relevant these days. I hate that I missed out on something called The Book Guys Radio Show, which seems to have had a long life, before being cancelled.

New Year’s Eve has always been one of my favorite holidays. It’s one of the few times there is some semblance of a global party and you get the sense that for a split second everyone is looking forward together. I hope you stay safe and have a fun time as we welcome 2018!

May you read lots of worthwhile words in the new year ahead.