And now, I present the second round of books I bought from our local bookstore, The Book Seller, using the balance of a retirement gift from my colleagues. Unlike the first round, which I more or less impulsively bought based on what was available in the store, I special-ordered these.
Note: This is where you’d usually find my affiliate disclaimer, but it felt weird to link to Amazon in a post about books I bought from my local bookstore. The links in this post go to The Book Seller, which doesn’t sponsor me in any way.
I don’t remember where I first heard of What Art Does — it was probably mentioned in one of Andrew Scheps’s Covid interviews (“Andrew Talks to Awesome People“). But I recently saw Eno give a sort-of tour of his studio and was once again struck by how unusual his approach to things is.
I also just learned that Eno co-wrote this — as is often the case when a (male) famous person has a name attached to the book, it becomes exclusively his. Certainly, when I’ve heard the book talked about , it’s always “Eno says this” and “Eno says that”… I look forward to learning more find out more about “Bette A.” — beyond just knowing that she’s a Dutch artist, novelist, and art school teacher.
I’m also not sure where I first heard about Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song. I think I was skeptical, at first — not all great songwriters are great writers, nor are they necessarily insightful. But Dylan’s work is sophisticated, and the title intrigued me, and the reviews made it seem worth a gander.
Ted Chiang’s first short story collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, absolutely blew me away. It has a wide range of stories, all incredibly well written (despite, or because of, the fact that his day job is computer programmer). The wonderful film Arrival is adapted from one of his stories — and, as is true even with the best adaptations, there are things about the story that simply can’t be captured in film. Amazing work.
I was sure I’d enjoy his second collection, but this sense was confirmed when Tim Ferriss said that he’d been afraid these stories wouldn’t live up to the first collection — and they blew him away. Even better than Stories. This will probably be somewhere near the top of the pile.
One of my colleagues, with whom I share an interest in the mystery genre, recommended I read Wilkie Collins, who is considered one of the first mystery writers. I read The Moonstone, often touted as the first detective novel, but my colleague said that The Woman in White — often touted as the first mystery novel — was the one I should read.
I follow the advice of trusted friends, so I added this to the stack.
I’ve been working through Gaiman’s The Sandman series, which is among the best, if not the best, comic work out there — certainly the best I’ve seen. I’ve already got Volume 5 queued up, so I figured I’d grab the two following ones. That should keep me tided over for a bit.
As I said in my Round 1 post, It will be awhile before I get to any of these, as I decided to kick of my retirement with Joyce’s Ulysses. I am, however, over 200 pages into that — and enjoying it (though I won’t claim I’m understanding it). I am pleased with that progress, especially since I find that I my attention span has been growing, and I’ve been able to sit with the book for longer stretches.
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