Reading - a bit over a year's worth of books...

The 'reading/what I've read' posts on the blog continues to be an albatross of sorts.  Been over a year since I've done a post - see here - of books I've read, when the original idea was 'read a book/write a quick review' and move on to the next.  Complicated by two things I think... first is I tend to read a handful of tomes at the same time, so when I wrap up one I'd much rather keep reading the others than write anything up.  The other reason is, much as the overall tone/raison d'etre of this slice of the internet has changed over the years, it doesn't feel quite as pertinent to... well, whatever.

First started throwing things up on the blog so when I first moved to Japan folks could see what was going on, the wife [before she joined me] and family could check out the apartment and and how life was progressing.  Or when the geo-bachelor thing was happening a couple years ago it was a pseudo-connection of showing what TV I was watching/what I was reading/what daily life was life as some sort of bridge to the wife I wasn't around everyday...

Now, what with the advent of Facebook and Picasa Photo Albums and no longer living alone and all the other ways to stay connected in the early 21st... things change.  Now the blog serves as more of way to hold myself accountable [diet, exercise, tech/life balance] and a place to vent about all the shit that makes me crazy in the world.  The latter useful in that it hopefully curbs the desire to steal a sniper rifle at some point and find the nearest clock tower...

[Like I joked - hopefully - at a get together a few weeks ago, if I do lose my shit, no one can say it came out of nowhere.  I'll never be described as the "quiet, nondescript, good neighbor" who one day, out of the blue, goes nuts.  Not by anyone who frequents the blog, anyways.  My damage is clear and way out there for anybody to read.]

Regardless, to the best of my recollection, over the last year [Dec 10 to end of Dec 11] every time I finished up a book I jotted down the title, at least.  Lot of fiction this year, as more than a bit was read sitting bedside and at the hospital over the summer.  Books of depth and requiring a great deal of thought didn't often make the cut.  Anyways, all the stuff I remembered to write down, and brief commentary where I feel particularly verbose, after the jump... [click through if you're reading from the main page]


One of the best non-fiction books I read this past year was A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell.  I've always enjoyed the contrary and the counter-intuitive, that which debunks or puts paid to the conventional wisdom, and this book does it in spades.  Perhaps my new favorite history book, supplanting Zinn's People's History as the best at exposing the pathetic generics we're force fed as kids.  The book is filled with well documented stuff that flips the script on the standard history...  Some of the more interesting examples:

• A number of the Founding Fathers weren't the bastions of freedom and democracy we're told.  Instead they were joyless, sanctimonious prudes who advocated for democracy precisely because it would limit and check the freedoms and liberties inherent in America, not promote them.  Additionally, they didn't much care for capitalism, as it would give folks options, which inevitably would lead to "leisure," vice and degradation.
• The blackface and minstrel shows of the slavery and Jim Crow eras weren't meant to mock or degrade blacks, but instead the motives of the minstrels lied in their envy and jealousies of the black and slave cultures.  They longed for the perceived freedoms and liberties they saw in the slaves being outside the social, cultural and economic mores of "free" white men - a romanticism of the life of slaves.  In short, because slave life was "cool." Blackface was the 'wigger' of it's era.
•  The group of women who did the most to lay the foundations for women's social, economic and political equality were prostitutes.

Breathe Smart: The Secret to Happiness, Health and Long Life - Aaron Hoopes - a simplified pranayama 101.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon - David Grann - real life Indiana Jones and historical mysteries. Awesome read.  Also read his The Devil and Sherlock Holmes.  More of a mixed bag, but pretty good.

The Day After and Other Stories - Wil Wheaton, actor of ST:TNG fame, has morphed into a hell of a writer.

The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet by Robb Wolf, The Primal Blueprint: Reprogram your genes for effortless weight loss, vibrant health, and boundless energy by Mark Sisson, The Protein Power Lifeplan by Michael R. Eades and Mary Dan Eades, Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution, Revised Edition.  These books have served as the basis for my dietary changes over the past year. Down 37 pounds [as of this AM] and in better shape than I've been in in at least the last 7 years. Work in progress, but these are all great resources, imho.

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health by William Davis,  New Atkins for a New You: The Ultimate Diet for Shedding Weight and Feeling Great, Potatoes Not Prozac: Solutions for Sugar Sensitivity and The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Plan, the last two both by Kathleen DesMaisons are other nutrition and food books I found really worthwhile.

Ultimate Warrior Workouts by Martin Rooney, Huge in a Hurry by Chad Waterbury, Xtreme Training by Randy Couture, We're Working Out by Al Kavadlo, Building the Classic Physique by Steve Reeves & John Little, The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss, Ironman's Home Gym Handbook by Steve Holman, Slim, Calm, Sexy Yoga by Tara Stiles, Built for Show by Nate Green and Bring It! by Tony Horton - all training books, obviously.  All from which I got good stuff, to various degrees.

Superman: Miracle Monday and Superman: Last Son of Krypton by Elliot S. Maggin.  Old school, Chris Reeve/Superman movie era books.  Good fun.

I re-read Richard Bach's Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, as I do every once in a while.  One of the formative books of my life, first read when I was a teen.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max.  If Max's stories are true, dude's a sociopath.  Tells funny stories though.

Shibumi by Trevanian and the authorized prequel Satori by Don Winslow - wildly entertaining spy/philosophy/ninja books.  Pull quotes:

• "Generalization is flawed thinking only when applied to individuals.  It is the most accurate way to describe a mass, the Wad.  And yours is a democracy, a dictatorship of the Wad."
• "When one chooses to fight, it is one's responsibility to fight well."
• "I am an admirer of beauty and, like all cynics, a disappointed romantic."

The Emperor's General by James Webb - fictionalized account of post-WWII Japan.  Good read.

A Complaint Free World by Will Bowen.  A worthwhile read on the advantages of reducing complaining, criticizing and gossip in your life.

Sandman Slim and the sequels Kill the Dead and Aloha From Hell by Richard Kadrey are all massively entertaining.  Occult, hardboiled PI, magic, twisted, dark, hilarious.  Awesome.

Miscellany - The Burning Wire by Jeffrey Deaver.  The List of Seven by Mark Frost.  Mentally Incontinent: That Time I Burned Down a Hooters, That Time My Stalker Crashed on My Couch, and Nine Other Stories from My Weird Life by Joe Peacock.  The Templar Legion by Paul Christopher.  SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.  The Point Man by Steve Englehart.  The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer.  52 by G. Cox.  Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude by Neal Pollack.  The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk.  Dead Zero: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel and Soft Target by Stephen Hunter.  Cool IT - The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming by Bjorn Lomborg.  The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship by Claire Wolfe.  Ghost Story [Dresden Files 13] by Jim Butcher.  Entangled by Graham Hancock.  50 Things You're Not Supposed to Know: Religion by Daniele Bolleli.  Run!: 26 Stories of Blisters and Bliss by Dean Karnazakes.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Graham-Smith was wildly entertaining.  I finished it, I think, in less than 24 hours.  That good.  From the title alone, you probably know whether you'd dig it.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain.  Bourdain is an awesomely profane and literary storyteller.  Enjoyed the hell out of this.

Over the summer and fall I read all 22 of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, including the spinoff Wicked Appetite.  Extremely enjoyable.  Occasionally light on plot, but outstanding characters, humor and dialogue.  Quintessential summer "beach" reading, in the best sense of the term.  

This month marked the second anniversary of the death of author Robert B. Parker.  I discovered Parker my last couple years in Japan and simply devoured all of his Spenser novels - 40 of them in total over the last few years.  His last Spenser novel, Sixkill, was published posthumously last year.  A sad day.  It looks like the Spenser series will be continued by writer Ace Atkins, whose Crossroad Blues I also read and enjoyed this past year, to try him out and see if he'd do Spenser justice.  So the adventures will continue, and they'll probably be good reads, but they won't be quite the same.

There's something in the staccato rhythms Parker wrote in, the seemingly simplistic but ultimately complex beats of language and dialogue and description, the way he turned phrases and made observations that was just... marvelous.

But most of all, the thing that resonated most with the books, ostensibly about just another semi-hardboiled PI gumshoe working his way through the latest kidnapping or murder is that the stories were never about that, not really.  They were about what it takes to be a person, to be a man, to maintain a relationship, about autonomy and life and about all the other important things that really matter.  They're philosophy disguised as crime fiction.

So I've been working my way this past year through the rest of the Parker catalog - his young adult novels The Boxer and the Spy and The Edenville Owls.  His Philip Marlowe novel Poodle Springs.  His baseball book, that's not really about baseball either, Double Play.  His Cole and Hitch series of westerns [all four of them - Appaloosa, Brimstone, Resolution and Blue Eyed Devil.] - which is almost as entertaining as his Spenser series.    His Wyatt Earp novel Gunman's Rhapsody.  And his standalone Wilderness, which might be his most introspective and autobiographical books, in some sense.   I imagine I'll tackle his Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone series next.

The Detachment by Barry Eisler.  Combines characters from several of his novels into one uber-Magnificent Seven-A Team-style-superspy/assassin thriller.  Great read.  Plus, this:

"'You don't think it can happen here?  Do yourself a favor...  Google COINTELPRO,  or Operation Mockingbird, oh, and especially Operation Northwoods.  You might also look intoOperation Ajax, Operation Gladio, Operation Mongoose, and the so-called Strategy of Tension.  And those are just the ones that have leaked.  There are others.  Unless you think the Reichstag Fire and the Gleiwitz incident and the Russian apartment bombings were unique to their respective times and places and could never happen elsewhere, least of all in America.  But you don't strike me as that naive.'"
'Was nine-eleven an inside job, too?'
'It wasn't, though the way it's been exploited, it might as well have been.  But are you arguing that because not all cataclysms occur behind a false flag, that none of them do?'"

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer.  A history of the Mormon faith, mixed in with tales of its violent and fundamentalist offshoots.  Outstanding book.  I don't think you could finish it without understanding just how bugfuck crazy and transparently false this religious movement is.  [And then, if your mind could bear the consideration, you'd realize how those observations apply to all faiths.]

Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries by Tim Anderson.  A 'teaching in Japan' retrospective by a NC native, so there's a bit of 'my life' crossover.  Fun read.

Comics, Collected Editions
The Ultimates: Ultimate Collection and The Ultimates 2: Ultimate Collection by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch.  Ultimate Comics Avengers Vol 1: The Next Generation by Mark Millar and Carlos Pacheco.  Super Friends! Volume 1 and Volume 2.  The Punisher: Welcome Back Frank by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon.  Warren Ellis' Apparat: The Singles Collection.  Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin run, first 3 volumes - Batman Reborn, Batman Vs Robin, Batman and Robin Must Die.  The Waiting Place: The Definitive Edition by Sean Mckeever and Mike Norton.  Doom Patrol: We Who About to Die by Keith Giffen.  DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories, Vol 2: Batman and Robin.  Vertigo Pop: Tokyo Days, Bangkok Nights.  Two-Step by Warren Ellis, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti.  The Invincible Iron Man Omnibus by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca.  Iron Man: Extremis by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov.  Iron Fist: Immortal Weapons.  Green Lantern: Secret Origin by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis.  Booster Gold: Day of Death and The Tomorrow Memory by Keith Giffen.  The Incredible Hercules: World War Hulk by Greg Pak and Gary Frank.  Suicide Squad: Trial by Fire and Suicide Squad: From the Ashes by John Ostrander.  Infinity, Inc: The Generations Saga V1 by Roy Thomas and Jerry Ordway.  Morning Glories Volume 1 & Volume 2 by Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma.  Mage: The Hero Discovered by Matt Wagner.  New Teen Titans: Games by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.  Stumptown by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth.  The Question: Pipeline by Greg Rucka and Cully Hamner.

Maybe my favorite series from the last couple years, including this past one, has been Gail Simone's Secret Six.  Damaged anti-heroes and villains join up to wreak havoc, explore dysfunctional psyche and generally fuck things up.  Funniest book I've read in a damn long time.  Think 'The Dirty Dozen' but with better dialogue and flashier costumes.

All the editions of the series, thus far [I haven't gotten the last one yet] - Villains United, Six Degrees of Devastation, Unhinged, Depths, Danse Macabre, Cats in the Cradle, The Reptile Brain.