2020 50 Book Challenge

[California Dreamer]

if Bob Dylan can win, anyone can.

Hear, hear. If you like the guy's music, give him a Grammy.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

50. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami

I’ve been reading reviews here and elsewhere of Murakami’s novels, but I chose his memoir about running, triathlon and writing as my first foray into his writing.

As a runner, and retired triathlete, I fully appreciate much of what he writes here. This is a great book for a mediocre runner to be inspired by.

Just noticed Congratulations on the 50.?

 

[Fueco]

Hear, hear. If you like the guy's music, give him a Grammy.

If his songwriting can change the world, he deserves more than a Grammy.

 

[California Dreamer]

If his songwriting can change the world, he deserves more than a Grammy.

As the Spartans put it: "IF". Nothing Dylan ever did changed my life, and I would seriously question any assertion that he changed the world. He does not write literature, and anybody who knows the meaning of the word would not give a literature prize to a songwriter.

 

[LonerMatt]

Spoiler: List

1. The Tangled Land
2. The Test
3. Grace of Kings
4. Wall of Storms
5. Where there was Still Love
6. The Secret Commonwealth
7. Children of Ruins
8. Hunger
9. Legacy of Ash
10. When we were Vikings
11. The Yellow Notebook
12. A Couple of Things Before the End
13. Agency
14. Sword of Fire
15. How to Fix the Future
16. The Topeka School
17. Beijing Payback
18. The Lucky Country
19. A horse walks into a bar
20. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
21. The Secret Scripture
22. Stone Sky Gold Mountain
23. The Return
24. The Lost Decade
25. Shop Class as Soulcraft

25. Shop Class as Soulcraft

A meandering, over-written account of the value of manual work, especially in comparison with white collar labour. Some good points hidden behind a writing style that's awkwardly 1850s American in its approach, god knows why.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

31.One Two Three Four The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown

This is a somewhat unconventional biography of the Fab Four (OMG I’m showing my age). Normally when I read a biography I like the writer to stay out of the narrative but Mr Brown dives right in with his own history and how the Beatles affected his life blah blah blah.

Some of the material is new and amusing. Others when taken from the various voices and personalities littered throughout the pages make it very entertaining. But at over six hundred pages it was at times a slog.

Entertaining, yes. Revelationary? At times. I must admit that Abbey Road, Sgt Peppers are still on rotation on the stereo at home.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

32. Strange Weather In Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

John Lydon sang with PIL this is not a love song, the same could be said of this book. Its an interesting exploration of the potential for love, which is deferred and emotional dysfunctionalism within Japanese urban society between an older man and middle aged woman.

Its a tragic insight into lives of quiet desperation.However the sun does shine albeit briefly only to deliver one of the devastating nihilistic last sentences in a book I’ve ever read. Mills & Boon this isn‘t.

 

[samtalkstyle]

26. Spy Sinker - Len Deighton

It's weird that the final book in this trilogy just tells the story of the other side, essentially having the story arc finished at the end of book two without saying so.
Confusing chronology.

 

[LonerMatt]

Spoiler: List

1. The Tangled Land
2. The Test
3. Grace of Kings
4. Wall of Storms
5. Where there was Still Love
6. The Secret Commonwealth
7. Children of Ruins
8. Hunger
9. Legacy of Ash
10. When we were Vikings
11. The Yellow Notebook
12. A Couple of Things Before the End
13. Agency
14. Sword of Fire
15. How to Fix the Future
16. The Topeka School
17. Beijing Payback
18. The Lucky Country
19. A horse walks into a bar
20. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
21. The Secret Scripture
22. Stone Sky Gold Mountain
23. The Return
24. The Lost Decade
25. Shop Class as Soulcraft
26. Makers

26. Makers

Generally, I'm of the perspective that many web/tech industries exacerbate the trend of concentrating wealth, increasing inequality and are not regulated to minimise their nefarious and pernicious problems.

So every once in a while it's good to read a book that's not as sour as I am. Makers is a book about how emergent technologies enable small scale businesses, namely using CNC/3d printing/etc to produce relevant products that aren't viable at large scale. A series of examples, case studies and arguments seek to explore how new waves of web-assisted, computer hosted, maker-space inspired opportunities allow people who are not that advantageously placed (in terms of capital, connections, etc) to make better, cheaper products for an audience who is keen.

Written around the time things like Kickstarter, etc, were just becoming used, this is an interested look into a world of optimism that I usually exclude myself from. To some extent it feels like the exception that proves the rule: the dedicated hobbyist make a living from selling jellyfish aquariums enabled by B2B small scale manufacturing just can't outweigh the problematic nature of disruption, tech wealth and political problems exacerbated by the attention economy.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

32. Strange Weather In Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

You read this in a very different way from me. I don't see dysfunction, desperation or nihilism, I see melancholy, gentle and unhurried love, and the inevitability of passing time, loss and death. In other words, life.

 

[Fueco]

51. Wild Words: Rituals, Routines, and Rhythms for Braving the Writer’s Path, by Nicole Gulotta

This books is a mix of memoir and how-to manual. The intent of the book, as the subtitle suggests, is to act as a guide for aspiring writers.

I think the book is a little deeper than that, holding value as a guide for making time for any sort of creative endeavor.

I found this on the shelf at my favorite local bookstore early this year (remember being able to shop freely??), and was drawn in by the cover artwork.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

You read this in a very different way from me. I don't see dysfunction, desperation or nihilism, I see melancholy, gentle and unhurried love, and the inevitability of passing time, loss and death. In other words, life.

I agree its about a slice of life. However Tuskiko from the outset is described as dysfunctional when it comes to understanding other people as her pervious attempted relationship articulates.

 

[Fueco]

52. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed, by Lori Gottlieb

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

52. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed, by Lori Gottlieb

What thought perspective are they articulating. CBT? Psychoanalysis? Or something else?

 

[Fueco]

What thought perspective are they articulating. CBT? Psychoanalysis? Or something else?

Sorry, I'd meant to add a quick blurb but then got distracted...

The book is basically a memoir, wherein the author is describing herself in a difficult situation and the web of entangled coincidences that can pop up when a therapist needs therapy herself.

She went through an unexpected breakup, and had to deal with that while still helping her own patients and maintaining a veneer of clinical professionalism when dealing with her patients' problems while internally struggling herself.

This was a very interesting book, dealing with multiple aspects of human emotion as well as how people deal with each other. Especially fascinating to me, was her exploration of the depth of others' humanity beyond that first impression.