Category: books (page 3 of 3)

December 30, 2014 / 0 Comments

29 in 52: What I read in 2014

“People with so much to say but I’m only hearing the words that you left me with on that day.” – Mary J. Blige, Nobody but You

I thought I had read a lot more this year than last because I’ve spent the entire year commuting by LA public transit but because of Serial and my new interest in podcasts, I’ve spent the last month listening rather than reading so I’m only five books up on last year. Boo. There’s too much media to consume.

I read a lot of good stuff this year, particularly in the first three months. I wrote about Americanah and Urban Tumbleweeds in January both of which are still among the most memorable. I finally read Kindred which somebody should make into a film. That time travel story was after I read 11/22/63 which is Stephen King’s excellent novel around the same concept. I love a good time travel tale.

I read a grip of graphic novels this year. The Manhattan Projects and Saga and Hawkeye continue to be great fun. I also read Winter Soldier and Days of Future Past after seeing the movies. On friend recommendation, I checked out Ms. Marvel and Lazarus and was not disappointed. On Amazon recommendation, I read The Wicked + Divine, Black Science, FBP, Velvet, and Sex Criminals and all of those were entertaining and often gorgeous to look at. Image is really hitting it out the park right now.

I think my favorite book of the year, though, was Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton. The service dominates my every day. It’s birth (and the tools and people that spawned it) coincide with my own growth and participation in our digital culture. I was at those South Bys. In some ways, its history feels a bit like my own history. #relatable

It’s also just a damn good read. I devoured it and wanted to talk about it to anyone who had also read or cared.

I also recommend (in no particular order)

Also, books I acquired this year but have yet to read/finish reading

January 22, 2014 / 0 Comments

Urban Tumbleweed: The Dust That Clings…

“It’s just another day, another episode.” – Van Hunt, Dust

Zadi Diaz tweeted this the other day in a retweet:

Poetry helps get the creative juices going: RT @PoetryFound: Sign up to have a poem emailed to you each day. http://t.co/9GrTC64rmw

— Zadi Diaz (@Zadi) January 19, 2014

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That resonated with me as I’d been slowly making my way through Urban Tumbleweed, Harryette Mullen’s tanka diary released late last year. Like Americanah, I read this as a physical, rather than e-, book. Poetry seems like something you should be able to squeeze between your fingers or hear spoken aloud.

It’s entirely possible I don’t know what I’m talking about, though. I don’t read much poetry. My interaction with poems are more of the rhythmic american variety.

But I tumbled an LA Times review that featured one of her tankas and it was clear something in it was meant for me. So, I’ve been reading it during rides to and from work and finding myself attempting to capture my observations of the happenings on the metro in verse.

Tankas. Longer than the haiku that are more common in the US. These are my poor attempts at that form.

A trio of girls take selfies on the speeding train,
Quick flashes of light and dark as background
I could learn from their artistry

The toddler and the old man next to each other but unrelated
One in stroller, the other with cane
Neither on sure footing

Loud youngsters drink and intimidate until they reach their stop
As the doors close
Quiet kindness returns for the relieved riders

Two girls pantomime being fisherman and prey
Giggles, smiles, and finally an embrace oblivious to all
I smile too.

The world makes more sense in a poem.

January 22, 2014 / 0 Comments

Falling in Love with an Americanah

“Now I’m falling in love all over and over again.” – Onyeka Onwenu, Falling in Love

I’m listening to Onyeka Onwenu’s Legend Reloaded right now. She’s a popular Nigerian singer and actress (and much more) who gets name-checked in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah. I’d never heard of her before which is probably a sign of my American-ness. Characters in the book—as well as real people discussing Beyoncė’s Grown Woman track—roll their eyes at the rest of the world’s seeming inability to get beyond Fela Kuti and 70s era Nigerian funk and soul and see the progression and complexity of modern popular culture in the country.

Beyond the relationship between the two main characters, Ifemelu and Obinze, which is a compelling one, what I was most appreciative of is this constant reminder of how ignorant I am of Africa and it’s many varied peoples and countries. I’m humbled by this. While reading, I felt far less cosmopolitan than many of these fictional folks.

If you’ve read any recent best of book lists, you know this is one of the most beloved novels of 2013. So I’m not going to review it. It’s very enjoyable. I could spend a whole ‘nother novel with the character of Dike who, if this was a movie, steals the show every time he appears.

I will note that this is the first physical novel I’ve read in a good long while. Most of my physical books these days are graphic novels. I retained more—at least of the emotional impact—reading this way. That tactile connection is powerful. I did miss being able to quickly highlight sections of the book and be able to go back and review them online. My scribbled down notes aren’t cutting it and so you’ll find no quotes on my tumblr or referenced here because I’m not sure of their accuracy.

This was my first Adichie book.

It won’t be my last.

December 24, 2013 / 0 Comments

The Story-Reading Animal

“All you ever did was break me.” – Miley Cyrus, Wrecking Ball

I read 24 books over the past 52 weeks. And, as usual, it’s hard to select a favorite one. I only read for pleasure so if I don’t like a book, I don’t finish it. If I do finish one, I found the experience quite enjoyable.

The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall–which I added to my queue on an endorsement from Brain Pickings–was my most highlighted book of the year and this was my favorite line:

Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.

So, if I were to recommend a book I read this year, it would be that one.

These are the other reads from this year that I’d suggest to others

I read others but these are the ones that left a mark.

November 27, 2013 / 0 Comments

Revisiting My Old Friend, The Stephen King Novel

“If you can find me, come and get me out of here.” – Oingo Boingo, Private Life

From the age of 12 till about 23, Stephen King was my favorite author. During that time, I read nearly every one of his novels and short stories and his plot driven approach to story telling still informs what I like to read today.

Over the last 15 years, though, I’ve been much more selective with what I’ve read from him. It probably began with The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon—a novella I just couldn’t work my way through. The Dark Tower Novels, Duma Key, and interesting experiments like The Colorado Kid and American Vampire, sure, but, for the most part, I’ve passed. Much of his most recent work just didn’t appeal for whatever reason. Even stories I finished and enjoyed hadn’t filled me with that hunger for me that a much younger me felt upon completion. Only Walter Mosley’s work and the occasional exceptional YA series seem to do that for me these days.

Until now. My third reading of The Shining followed by his latest, Doctor Sleep, has me hungry for more.

I first visited The Overlook Hotel when I was 13 or 14 and returned again in my early twenties. I don’t think I really understood the story either time. What I remembered as I began reading again a couple months ago were a few lingering ideas: Danny Torrance seemed awfully smart for a 4/5 year old; Jack Torrance was scary as hell; and, the hotel exploding.

This time, I still thought Danny was a little too smart but I found many more things that captured my attention that I think I blitzed past previously: the history of the hotel; the hotel as character; how badass Wendy gets when the shit hits the fan.

This poster is way better than the film.

Given these new revelations, I completely get why Stephen King dislikes Kubrick’s film version. He’s right, the movie adaptation of The Shining is terrible. I didn’t get that when I was kid but it really is. Nearly everything that is wonderful and dreadful and terrifying in the book is lost in the film as Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance goes from asshole to evil in a few short steps without any context to who he is and how he got to this point. Dick Hallorann gets incredibly short-changed in the film. And, worst of all, the hotel loses it’s role as the true evil and a character unto itself. In watching the movie for the first time in decades, I was annoyed from the opening moments till the end.

Doctor Sleep felt like a necessary corrective after consuming that dreck Halloween week. It answers the question of what happened to Danny Torrance after that terrible winter in the late seventies and it’s wonderfully scary and modern and mythological and hopeful. There are long sections of terror and awfulness and fleeting moments of dread but you always feel hope and redemption around the edges. And you’re rewarded. It’s a tale of complicated humans and scary monsters and it felt both like the stories I remember from my youth and exactly the kind of thing I want to read now.

I didn’t immediately jump to 11/22/63—a novel that seems perfect for right now, 50 years after that terrible day—as it’s finally time to read Mockingjay (I told you about those infectious YA series). But it’s next. It’s nice to revisit old friends and find you still like them very much.

August 21, 2013 / 0 Comments

From Easy to Elmore

“Words are the finest invention that human beings have ever made. They build bridges and burn ’em down. Glue or acid, that’s what the words you say will be. But you got to be careful. Sometimes you might have both parts at the same time. You got to watch out, because some words will at first pull somebody close and then turn him against you in time.”

— Walter Mosley, Little Green

I was all set to write about Little Green. Written by Walter Mosley (perhaps my favorite author) about the latest adventures of Easy Rawlins (my favorite literary character) as he, once again, tries to figure out what’s going on in the underbelly of Los Angeles (my favorite city). And then, Elmore Leonard died.

Leonard, like Mosley, tells stories that feel alive with characters that feel real in worlds I believe I could go to or that might exist. Human beings in their yarns act like human beings. They talk in real ways.With Mosley and Leonard, their writing doesn’t sound like writing.

I’ve written here before about lessons Elmore has shared about writing. If Easy is my favorite character of books, Leonard’s Karen Sisco is probably my second. And, Timothy Olyphant’s version of Raylan Givens on Justified is my favorite television character today.

So, while my intention was to tell you how much I enjoyed Little Green in detail, it feels more important and pressing to tell you that Elmore Leonard matters to me.

Little Green was good. You should read it. I, however, am going to read Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories. I own the soundtrack for the 2007 film but have neither seen the movie nor read many of Leonard’s westerns.

Let’s see how inventive the premier crime novelist is with those kinds of words.

February 3, 2013 / 0 Comments

Notes on Amazing Things Will Happen

“I’m a problem that will never be solved.” – Kanye West, Amazing

I have met CC Chapman before at SXSW. He’s also good friends with one of my favorite people online (do you know Clarence?). So, when his book started being mentioned regularly on Twitter as a great quick read to start the year, I picked it up.

Let’s not be hyperbolic here. Amazing Things Will Happen isn’t life changing. CC presents a lot of common sense lessons that I think many of us who have had at least a decade in the work force know even if we don’t always act on them. They are good reminders, though, and as I noted in my previous post, sometimes we need a pep talk. These nuggets were the highlights for me:

Never forget that the worst anyone can ever say is no. But, you’ll never hear yes if you don’t ask.

You cannot be afraid to ask for help. People want to help others, and if they even remotely care about you, then they will be glad to step up and help you with anything you ask for, if they can.

Any day you are not sick and are above ground is a good day.

What I most appreciated was the process CC outlines for figuring out and making sense of the big ideas (and sometimes the little nags) going through your head. This is the harder trick, right? It’s easy to know when something is wrong or when something needs to change but putting some real effort and attention towards making those adjustments are difficult. We are creatures of habit and pushing ourselves to think different and with more purpose is not something we are prone to do. I’ve also been reading Thinking, Fast and Slow and much of the story there is about how our brains work in these ways.

So, to have that push to find moments of quiet and just think, to write down thoughts and ideas without self-editing, and to be honest with myself?

Thanks CC.