I’ve been slogging through a novel by one of my favorite authors for the last few months. I love his work, and want to love this one, but it’s the kind of piece that reads like it’s something the writer is in love with, and can’t be dissuaded from. We’ll see if I make it through it in 2020.
The name makes increasingly less sense as time goes on, and iPods join Walkmen as museum pieces, but the name is traditional at this point.
1. “Glue Sniffer” – Daddy Issues 2. “Make Me Feel” – Janelle Monáe 3. “Best Friend” – Sofi Tukker 4. “When the Tequila Runs Out” – Dawes 5. “Lucky Penny” – JD McPherson 6. “Hope the High Road” – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit 7. “Wild and Reckless” – Blitzen Trapper 8. “Bikini” – Caroline Rose 9. “Kill of the Night” – Gin Wigmore 10. “Oldest Surfer on the Beach” – Jimmy Buffett 11. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” – Metalachi 12. “Island Song” – Adventure Time and Ashley Ericksson 13. “Hunt You Down” – The Hit House 14. “Flower of the Universe” – Sade 15. “Today is the Day” – The Eels 16. “Run to Your Mama” – Goat 17. “California Love” – 2Pac 18. “You Will Be Free” – The Thermals 19. “Matador” – The Buttertones 20. “Jenny Loves the Sun” – Dead Coast 21. “Bomb (Girly-Sound Version)” – Liz Phair 22. “Livin’ On a Prayer” – Metalachi 23. “Kelp Monster” – Babewatch 24. “Swedish Fish” – Bombón 25. “Suckerfish (Girly-Sound Version)” – Liz Phair
I got fewer books read this year than I’d like. That’s partly because things got busy at times, but also because the final two Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser books — Swords & Ice Magic and The Knight and Knave of Swords — are real slogs. Like Heinlein, toward the end of his life, Leiber was probably over-sharing about his sexual proclivities, making for dissatisfying adventure stories that are also impressively anti-erotic. I’m glad that I read them, but I’d never recommend the last two or three of those books to others.
The book club with my son included The One and Only Ivan, which is set to be a Disney movie in the coming years, I believe, and was a really great book assigned at school. We also read Traveler: The Spiral Path, the illustrated version of the first Harry Potter novel, the House with a Clock in Its Walls, and Squirm all of which we enjoyed.
Because the unexamined musical taste is not worth indulging.
And yes, a lot of stuff off of soundtracks this year, along with stuff I was listening to on KROQ when I moved to Los Angeles 20 years ago this past August. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
I hope there will be more looking forward musically in 2018, rather than looking back.
1. “Love Is” – Dude York
2. “You’ll Never Walk Alone” – Dropkick Murphys
3. “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” – Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
4. “Talk to Me” – Run the Jewels
5. “I Love Seattle” – Tacocat
6. “Nowhere to Run” – Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
7. “Big Time” – Peter Gabriel
8. “Fight the Power” – Public Enemy
9. “The Power” – Sweet Spirit
10. “Love” – Lana Del Rey
11. “Add It Up” – Violent Femmes
12. “Little Blue World” – Jeremy Messersmith
13. “Morning Glory (iTunes Live: London Festival)” – Oasis
14. “Everywhere” – Ex Hex
15. “Gamma Knife” – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
16. “Cigarettes & Alcohol” – Oasis
17. “Fox on the Run” – The Sweet
18. “Blister in the Sun” – Violent Femmes
19. “Der Kommissar” – After the Fire
20. “Immigrant Song” – Led Zeppelin
21. “Don’t Look Back in Anger” – Oasis
22. “Baby Driver” – Simon & Garfunkel
23. “Hazy Shade of Winter” – The Bangles
24. “The End of Things” – Bob Mould
25. “Nightmare” – Bruise Violet
In 2017, I did something I haven’t done since 2013, which was abandon an unreadable book. Despite that, I easily beat my goal of reading 17 books over the course of the year, in part because my fifth grader and I started our own book club, to help him reach his reading goals in school.
Ironically, A Wrinkle in Time is an easier read, according to the Accelerated Reader website than the Warcraft and Minecraft novels we read, despite being much meatier in all the most important ways. And yes, he and I will be there opening weekend for the movie this spring, so we can play compare and contrast with the book.
This year’s goal is 18 books. I had never intended to have these synch up with the calendar year, but that’s an easy way to remember the goal, I suppose. (It’s going to be grim in 2100, though.)
Ironically, A Wrinkle in Time is an easier read, according to the Accelerated Reader website than the Warcraft and Minecraft novels we read, despite being much meatier in all the most important ways. And yes, he and I will be there opening weekend for the movie this spring, so we can play compare and contrast with the book.
