Category Archives: Reading

Books Read, March 2013

Reading

Odd fits and starts in my reading this month, distracted and unattached.

Books Read, January 2013

Reading
  • Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn —I don’t usually like reading “books of the moment,” but I’ll be damned if this book didn’t completely engross me. I haven’t love-hated a book like this in a long time.
  • Pavane by Keith Roberts — Perhaps the opposite of Gone Girl, this quiet and intense alternate history is remarkable and sometimes frustrating.
  • Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation by Sharon Salzberg —Reading this in preparation for undertaking the 28-day Meditation Challenge in February
  • The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks —Banks’ newest Culture novel; I just started this a few nights ago.

It’s looking like February may be occupied with Infinite Jest…

“Look at it another way. We’re here. We’re nice guys. We’re doing O.K. But we know that in X number of years, we won’t be here, and between now and then something unpleasant is gonna happen, or at least potentially unpleasant and scary. And when we turn to try and understand that, I don’t really think the humanist verities are quite enough. Because that would be crazy if they were. It would be so weird if we knew just as much as we needed to know to answer all the questions of the universe. Wouldn’t that be freaky? Whereas the probability is high that there is a vast reality that we have no way to perceive, that’s actually bearing down on us now and influencing everything. The idea of saying, ‘Well, we can’t see it, therefore we don’t need to see it,’ seems really weird to me.”

George Saunders, “George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You’ll Read This Year”

Gods Without Men

My Favorite Books and Music from 2012

Music, Reading,

I meant to post this closer to New Year’s Day, but so go the resolutions. Here are the books and music I particularly enjoyed last year (no matter when they were released).

Books

I don’t know if these were truly the best books I read, but they are the ones I remember, that particularly enthralled me or have stayed in my mind.

Music

Again, these may or may not be the best but the numbers don’t lie. Here are my top 20 most-listened-to artists, tracked by Last.fm. Proving that, while I try to listen to new music as much as possible, most of my musical DNA set fast in my twenties.

Not represented is the music listened to in my car (since Last.fm doesn’t scrobble my old-fashioned mix CDs). If we factor that in, I’m sure you’d see a much higher representation of They Might Be Giants, Tegan & Sara, Fitz & the Tantrums, and Girl Talk.

I know.

  1. The Mountain Goats
  2. Metallica
  3. The Beatles
  4. Sufjan Stevens
  5. Phish
  6. Rush
  7. Beastie Boys
  8. fun.
  9. Fucked Up
  10. Bob Mould
  11. Anthrax
  12. Yo La Tengo
  13. S.O.D.
  14. Diana Krall
  15. Weezer
  16. Grateful Dead
  17. D.R.I.
  18. Group Love
  19. Brian Eno
  20. Frank Ocean

Books Read, December 2012

Reading

Great month of reading.

Continued to loosely track some Web reading using Reading.am (which you can also follow along with on Twitter).

Heres to many, many pages of happiness in the new year!

Books Read, November 2012

Reading

Spent most of the month absorbed in KSR.

Also started to loosely track some of my Web reading using Reading.am (which you can also follow along with on Twitter).