My top Instagram photos of 2014

My most-liked photos of #2014, via @iconosquare. Journalism, family and sharks. Seems about right.

A video posted by Beau Yarbrough (@lby3) on Dec 12, 2014 at 3:50pm PST

Books read, 2014

I had hoped to beat 2013’s total of 14 books, and am midway through two excellent ones, but both are slow-going, both because they’re fairly hefty reads during the holidays, and because I’m savoring them both: Tim Powers’ tour-de-force Declare, which melds World War II and Cold War espionage with genies and, from the looks of thing, Biblical apocrypha, and the incredibly comprehensive The Frood, a biography of Douglas Adams which includes many never-before-seen outtakes that never made it into the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy stories or other works. Both are fantastic reads and both are slow going.

Feb. 28: Top Secret America by Dana Priest
March 16: Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams
May 28: Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
June 1: Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville by Gina Arnold
June 9: Doctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts and Douglas Adams
June 15: The Last Kind Words Saloon by Larry McMurtry
July 5: The Government Manual for New Pirates by Matthew David Brozik
July 31: The Radleys by Matt Haig
Aug. 25: The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas
Aug. 26: The Magician King by Lev Grossman
Sept. 23: Grimbeard Goes to Prison by Samwise Didier
Oct. 12: The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman
Nov. 11: Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
Nov. 22: Skink–No Surrender by Carl Hiaasen

Stay away from Last Kind Words Saloon, by the way. I’m not sure what McMurtry was going for there, but it reads like the old “be awful to you until you break up with me” maneuver and is all around unpleasant. Forget “not watering your plants while you’re away and letting them die” or “forgetting to pick you up at the airport” awful; we’re talking “I let your dog out of the house and it got hit by a car and died” awful. You’ve been warned.

The greatest journalism video of all time

iPod Top 100: 2013

A little later than usual this year, but here’s what I was listening to the most in 2013.

Previous editions can be found here: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

There’s probably something a psychologist could tease out of the number of female rockers on these lists, which seems to be the only consistent element over the years.

1. “Party Kids” – Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside
2. “The Sword By My Side” – The Thermals
3. “Awkward” – San Cisco
4. “Black Sheep” – Gin Wigmore
5. “They Told Me” – Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside
6. “Holy Roller” – Thao & The Get Down Stay Down
7. “Summer in the City” – The Eels
8. “Island Song” – Zac Brown Band
9. “Slyd” – !!!!
10. “Water” – Brad Paisley
(more…)

Books read, 2013

So, by any measure, I improved on the 12 books I read in 2012 and 2011: I read 13 or 14, depending on whether you count me giving up on one book in eye-rolling disgust. (Failure to “end” a short story once might be interesting, doing it for every story in a book is a ridiculous affectation.)

Here’s what I read in 2013, including my periodic re-reads of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series (Mostly Harmless will get polished off in 2014):

Feb. 5: Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber
Feb. 15: Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
March 21: The Bible Repairman and Other Stories by Tim Powers
April 21: St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell (abandoned)
May 20: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
June 2: The Old Editor Says: Maxims for Writing and Editing by John E. McIntyre
June 10: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
July 10: Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen
July 30: The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel by Neil Gaiman
Aug. 24: Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams
Sept. 29: The Elements of Style Illustrated by William Strunk Jr.
Oct. 29: Can Journalism Survive: An Inside Look at American Newsrooms by David M. Ryfe
Nov. 30: Year Zero: A Novel by Rob Reid
Dec. 22: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams

I’m currently reading Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State by Dana Priest and listening to the audio book of Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley.