August Books

Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories

by Alifa Rifaat, Denys Johnson-Davies (Translator)

Stumbled on this thanks to the inimitable Mona Eltahawy. Incredibly vivid and powerful stories from someone who seems to understand life in Egypt for a muslim woman.

Much Ado About Nothing

by William Shakespeare

Come for the hilarity of mistaken identity; stay for the fantastic puns and wordplay. Read it in advance of the OG's company's performance, and was glad to have done so.

Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music

by Gerri Hirshey

Disappointing. A little hagiographic, and I didn't learn much. Really expected to like it.

The Salterton Trilogy (The Salterton Trilogy #1-3)

by Robertson Davies

Thought I was going to like this more than I did. The characters were a little twee, and though I enjoyed the third book significantly more than the first two, a couple of plot developments at the end were implausible. Not his best, but saying that sets the bar quite high.

June/July Books

Thought I'd read more this summer, but I seem to have spent an abundance of time at the wheel. Full list for 2015 and links here.

Cakes and Ale

by W. Somerset Maugham

Got better towards the end. The points are well made about writers and the people they actually are, but the story moves slowly, despite its brevity.

Bel-Ami

by Guy de Maupassant

Thoroughly entertaining tale of an amoral rascal's ascendancy in French society. Enjoyed this much more than I had expected to. A gift from Pat.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

by Marie Kondo, Cathy Hirano (Translator)

Disappointing after all the hype. Should have been an Atlantic article; could have used some decluttering of its own.

The Run of His Life : The People versus O. J. Simpson

by Jeffrey Toobin

Fun to look back at how race and the media sabotaged this investigation and trial. Enjoyed learning that OJ was a very bad speller and a wholesale fraud. First of two in my ongoing book exchange with Pat.

Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution

by Mona Eltahawy

Life ain't easy for a muslim woman who asks questions and thinks about stuff.

I Want to Get Married!: One Wannabe Bride's Misadventures with Handsome Houdinis, Technicolor Grooms, Morality Police, and Other Mr. Not-Quite-Rights

by Ghada Abdel Aal

Very funny stories of life as a young woman in Egypt. Sex and the City for the Caged Virgin. Glad she found the humor in it.

True Grit

by Charles Portis

Great story, with a lead character who stands alongside Huck Finn and well above the others in American literature. A pleasure to read.

Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Largely repetitive after the first two books. But I am nonetheless glad that she keeps speaking out.

Real Men Do Yoga: 21 Star Athletes Reveal Their Secrets of Strength, Flexibility and Peak Performance

by John Capouya

That's what the retired army guy, now personal trainer told me as we hiked down Mount Monadnock this month, and I vowed to look into it. I've been doing one of the the no nonsense thirty minute routines in the book every other day for a week now, and I quite like it, especially for balance and flexibility.

May books

Full 2015 list here.

Memoirs of a Woman Doctor 

by نوال السعداوي, Nawal El-Saadawi, Catherine Cobham (Translator)

It's hard to be a woman in Egypt, no doubt. Kind of felt that the ending--love on her terms--was a bit of a cop out. Does it always have to end this way?

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

by Mohsin Hamid

Did not buy the Ancient Mariner plot-driver nor the relationship with the main woman character, nor almost anything else in this book. His reaction to 9/11 was implausible and poorly explained--not furthering the mutual understanding we need.

How to Be a Woman

by Caitlin Moran

Funny throughout. Learned something about the author. Not sure about the rest of the gender.

The Glass Cage: Automation and Us

by Nicholas Carr

Thought provoking look at how technology can inhibit or undermine creativity and efficiency. Worthwhile, if overlong.

All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr

Beautifully written war story that plays cleverly with time and place. A pleasure to read.

The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square 

by Steven A. Cook

Scholarly, but readable account of postwar politics in Egypt. Sadly it ends with Mubarak's arrest in 2011. Time for an update, or at least an addendum, as there is still a lot of uncertainty.

Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard on You?: A Memoir

by George Clinton, Ben Greenman

Memoir of the remarkable career of a true innovator. One wonders how different things might have been without the thirty years of crack addiction.

The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Not as moving as her story, but still powerful and thought provoking.

Essential Manners for Men: What to Do, When to Do It, and Why

by Peter Post

A gift from my wife (hmm?). After finishing it, I think I'm pretty good in the manners department. But I've read a lot about the influence of confirmation bias on decision making, so I'm not sure.

Short Cuts: Selected Stories

by Raymond Carver,

Really like his stories. These were true to form.

April Books

A mixed bag this month, but Ayaan Hirsi Ali's story and Lester Bangs' writing were both welcome discoveries. The former is my favourite book so far this year.

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

by Michael Moss

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the explosive story of the rise of the processed food industry and its link to the emerging obesity epidemic. Michael Moss reveals how companies use salt, sugar, and fat to addict us and, more important, how we can fight back.

Note

Interesting look at the manipulation of food to make it taste better. The seedy underbelly of capitalism. Nothing startling.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing

by Eimear McBride

Eimear McBride's debut tells, with astonishing insight and in brutal detail, the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, to read A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation.

Touching on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma, McBride writes with singular intensity, acute sensitivity and mordant wit. A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is moving, funny – and alarming. It is a book you will never forget. 

Note

Picked this up at the library on a whim. That was a mistake. Nasty and hard to read, at least for me.

Infidel

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of "The Caged Virgin, " Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West. One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following an Islamist's murder of her colleague, Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the movie "Submission."

"Infidel" is the eagerly awaited story of the coming of age of this elegant, distinguished -- and sometimes reviled -- political superstar and champion of free speech. With a gimlet eye and measured, often ironic, voice, Hirsi Ali recounts the evolution of her beliefs, her ironclad will, and her extraordinary resolve to fight injustice done in the name of religion. Raised in a strict Muslim family and extended clan, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries largely ruled by despots. In her early twenties, she escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim immigrant women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament. Even though she is under constant threat -- demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from her family and clan -- she refuses to be silenced.

Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright little girl evolved out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no story could be timelier or more significant. 

Note

Remarkable story, including a good look at the mistreatment of women by Islamic society. Everyone should read this book.

Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader

by Lester Bangs, John Morthland (Editor),

Before his untimely death in 1982, Lester Bangs was inarguably the most influential critic of rock and roll. Writing in hyper-intelligent Benzedrine prose that calls to mind Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson, he eschewed all conventional thinking as he discussed everything from Black Sabbath being the first truly Catholic band to Anne Murray’s smoldering sexuality. In Mainlines, Blood Feasts, Bad Taste fellow rock critic John Morthland has compiled a companion volume to Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, the first, now classic collection of Bangs’s work. Here are excerpts from an autobiographical piece Bangs wrote as a teenager, travel essays, and, of course, the music pieces, essays, and criticism covering everything from titans like Miles Davis, Lou Reed, and the Rolling Stones to esoteric musicians like Brian Eno and Captain Beefheart. Singularly entertaining, this book is an absolute must for anyone interested in the history of rock. 

Note

Great writing on rock music--somewhere between Hunter S. Thompson and Nick Hornby. Also fun to read reviews of early eighties music thirty years on.

The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and The Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life

by Uri Gneezy

Can economics be passionate? Can it centre on people and what really matters to them? And can it help us understand why they do what they do in everyday life? Two revolutionary economists believe it can.

In The Why Axis, Uri Gneezy and John List lead us on a journey to discover the economics underlying human motivation and how to structure the incentives that can get people to move mountains.

Finding the right incentive can be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but Gneezy and List have pioneered an innovative approach to zeroing in on those needles. Like other economists, they gather data and build models, but then they go much, much further, embedding themselves in our messy world—the factories, schools, communities and offices where people live, work and play. Their goal: to discover solutions to the big, difficult problems, such as the gap between rich and poor, the violence plaguing inner city schools, why people really discriminate, and whether women are really less competitive than men.

Their revelatory and startling discoveries about how incentives really work are both groundbreaking and immensely practical. This research will change the way we both think about and take action on big and little problems. Anyone working in business, politics, education or philanthropy can use the approach Gneezy and List describe in The Why Axis to reach a deeper, more nuanced understanding of human behaviour and a better grasp of what motivates people and why. 

Note

Not a lot new here, but that's because I'm familiar with most of the research, not because it's uninteresting. And this is straight from the source. Also learned what a tontine is.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

by Cheryl Strayed

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State — and she would do it alone.
Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wildpowerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her. 

Note

Recommended as something to help me understand how women see the world. Not sure it succeeded in this regard, as she seems sui generis, but I very much enjoyed the story and her writing.

No Static at All

I've finally gotten my audio consumption delivery capability to a place where I'm pretty much content/ The ACDC is driven by two competing desires: to have everything work perfectly; and to spend as little as possible. And it has to cover a number of scenarios: at home; walking the dog; working out; and in the car.

I came home with the following set up:

• music and podcasts managed on computer and played at home through a sound dock connected by cable to a computer;
• Bluetooth sound dock in the living room (birthday present for the OG, not part of my ACDC);
• Ipod shuffle for the gym and other out-of-the-house activity (wireless headphones broken and discontinued by the manufacurer;
• car radio, with occasional iphone connected via cable.

The biggest catalyst for change was Spotify. The Gs love it, and though I installed it years ago, I've never really used it. But when they announced last year that a family plan was available for the premium model (unlimited skips, available offline), I decided to give it a try, and it was part of a birthday present for the BG in November, although we didn't get it up and running until the following month.

I installed it on my computer, and it quickly and efficiently indexed the music in my ITunes library. After a few hiccups in syncing the files on my phone and tablet (it kept wanting to store files locally, filling up my phone with files from my computer), I learned via the Internet, that if I mirrored my ITunes library in Spotify's "Songs" folder, I  would have a link to my universe of music, and could shuffle through my collection, using either my phone or tablet to skip a song that I don't want to hear.

Mine are black

So now when I'm cooking dinner, I take the phone and the dock into the kitchen, connect them via bluetooth and shuffle through everything from Afrika Bambataa to Warren Zevon. I love how songs that I haven't thought of in years pop up and remind me who I was in the 80s and 90s.

When it's time to walk the dog, I do the same thing, except that I have a $30 pair of bluetooth headphones that I pair with my phone, In the morning, it's two plays of the news on Radio France, and in the evening, the LeDuc shuffle.

About the same size as the shuffle

When it's time to go to the gym, I load up the WeFunk podcast on my shuffle, and I've purchased a $20 transmitter that sends the audio to the bluetooth headphones. This means that I can either clip the shuffle to my shorts, or put it in one of the cubbyholes while I work out. The range is about thirty feet, so if I were to, ahem, when, I forget it, I get an "out of range" message from the headphones. If I'm walking to and from the gym (usually on Saturdays) I'll switch to talk, usually Bill Simmons (if it's basketball or an interesting guest), Econtalk or the Ted talks.

In the car, I have a magnetic dock for the phone, and I'll connect it to the AUX jack on the radio with a cable that stays in the car, and plug it into the cigarette lighter for long trips. I'll either shuffle through my own music or I've been experimenting with Artist radio, which so far, seems better than Pandora, which I tried and ditched a couple of years ago. So far, it has worked great, and I can run the music and the GPS simultaneously. It still kind of eerie when the music suddenly stops and the phone tells me to get ready for a turn. But in a "whoa" kind or way.

My only complaint is that this ACDC does not expose me to a lot of new music. The Gs monopolize the radio when I'm chauffeuring them to one of their many activities, but their taste is a little poppy, and I'm just not feeling the constant cycling through Maroon 5 and the like. Occasionally we'll find a song we like (the new Ed Sheeran for example), but I can only listen to it 4-5 times over the course of thirty minutes before I'm a little tired of it. But the OG has done some digging in the crates, and her tastes are maturing (though they are also countrifying), so perhaps there is some hope that she can play the "tastemaker" role filled by various cool friends with large record collections over the years.

It's interesting to compare this ACDC to the walkman, mix tape, mtv world of yore, and I look forward to telling my grandchildren about the old days, when I needed to pair devices before they would work together; when wireless range was only thirty feet; and the cloud thought that George Benson belonged on a radio station inspired by the Fatback band. This may help me remember.

March Books

Full list for 2015 is here. This month was nicely balanced, with hints of technology, travel and history. Disappointed by fiction.

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

by Chuck Klosterman

Building on the national bestselling success of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, preeminent pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman unleashes his best book yet—the story of his cross-country tour of sites where rock stars have died and his search for love, excitement, and the meaning of death.

For 6,557 miles, Chuck Klosterman thought about dying. He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock ‘n’ roll all the way. Within the span of twenty-one days, Chuck had three relationships end—one by choice, one by chance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a half-mile through a bean field. A man in Dickinson, North Dakota, explained to him why we have fewer windmills than we used to. He listened to the KISS solo albums and the Rod Stewart box set. At one point, poisonous snakes became involved. The road is hard. From the Chelsea Hotel to the swampland where Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane went down to the site where Kurt Cobain blew his head off, Chuck explored every brand of rock star demise. He wanted to know why the greatest career move any musician can make is to stop breathing...and what this means for the rest of us.

A little disjointed and not about what it purports to be about, but I'm pretty certain he could write about anything and I'd love it. His encyclopedic knowledge of the collective (and solo) oeuvre of Kiss is really something.

Spring Chicken: Stay Young Forever (or Die Trying)

by Bill Gifford

SPRING CHICKEN is a full-throttle, high-energy ride through the latest research, popular mythology, and ancient wisdom on mankind's oldest obsession: How can we live longer? And better? In his funny, self-deprecating voice, veteran reporter Bill Gifford takes readers on a fascinating journey through the science of aging, from the obvious signs like wrinkles and baldness right down into the innermost workings of cells. We visit cutting-edge labs where scientists are working to "hack" the aging process, like purging "senescent" cells from mice to reverse the effects of aging. He'll reveal why some people live past 100 without even trying, what has happened with resveratrol, the "red wine pill" that made headlines a few years ago, how your fat tissue is trying to kill you, and how it's possible to unlock longevity-promoting pathways that are programmed into our very genes. Gifford separates the wheat from the chaff as he exposes hoaxes and scams foisted upon an aging society, and arms readers with the best possible advice on what to do, what not to do, and what life-changing treatments may be right around the corner. 

An intoxicating mixture of deep reporting, fascinating science, and prescriptive takeaway, SPRING CHICKEN will reveal the extraordinary breakthroughs that may yet bring us eternal youth, while exposing dangerous deceptions that prey on the innocent and ignorant.

Enjoyable and well-researched review of the "anti-aging" market and what you can do (and buy) to stay young and avoid dementia.

Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages

by Frances Gies, Joseph Gies

An illuminating look at the monumental inventions of the Middle Ages, by the authors of Life in a Medieval Castle. 

Interesting look at the many technological advances during the so-called :dark ages." A little slow sometimes, but worth the effort. Recommended by Pat.

How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World

by Steven Johnson

From the New York Times–bestselling author of Where Good Ideas Come From and Everything Bad Is Good for You, a new look at the power and legacy of great ideas.In this illustrated history, Steven Johnson explores the history of innovation over centuries, tracing facets of modern life (refrigeration, clocks, and eyeglass lenses, to name a few) from their creation by hobbyists, amateurs, and entrepreneurs to their unintended historical consequences. Filled with surprising stories of accidental genius and brilliant mistakes—from the French publisher who invented the phonograph before Edison but forgot to include playback, to the Hollywood movie star who helped invent the technology behind Wi-Fi and Bluetooth—How We Got to Now investigates the secret history behind the everyday objects of contemporary life.
 
In his trademark style, Johnson examines unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated fields: how the invention of air-conditioning enabled the largest migration of human beings in the history of the species—to cities such as Dubai or Phoenix, which would otherwise be virtually uninhabitable; how pendulum clocks helped trigger the industrial revolution; and how clean water made it possible to manufacture computer chips. Accompanied by a major six-part television series on PBS, How We Got to Now is the story of collaborative networks building the modern world, written in the provocative, informative, and engaging style that has earned Johnson fans around the globe.

Really enjoyed this, but I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff. Is air conditioning as important to society as agriculture? Maybe not, but it's a legitimate question.

The Complete Stories of Truman Capote

by Truman Capote, Reynolds Price (Introduction)

A landmark collection that brings together Truman Capote’s life’s work in the form he called his “great love,” The Complete Stories confirms Capote’s status as a master of the short story.
Ranging from the gothic South to the chic East Coast, from rural children to aging urban sophisticates, all the unforgettable places and people of Capote’s oeuvre are here, in stories as elegant as they are heartfelt, as haunting as they are compassionate. Reading them reminds us of the miraculous gifts of a beloved American original. 

After a hundred pages, I was not enjoying these. I skipped to the story mentioned on the flyleaf as noteworthy. Didn't care for that one either, so I gave up. He tries to be fantastic in a way that wasn't interesting to me, in the same way that zombies aren't today.

The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos (Trilogy #3)

by Patrick Leigh Fermor

A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water were the first two volumes in a projected trilogy that would describe the walk that Patrick Leigh Fermor undertook at the age of eighteen from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. 'When are you going to finish Vol. III?' was the cry from his fans; but although he wished he could, the words refused to come. The curious thing was that he had not only written an early draft of the last part of the walk, but that it predated the other two. It remains unfinished butThe Broken Road completes an extraordinary journey. 

Enjoyed this even more than I expected to--and even more than A Time of Gifts-- perhaps due to the location of his travel this time (the Balkans) or for the wistful take on what actually happened in the region and to the people.