Saturday, December 30, 2017

Books List - 2018

Ordered by most recently listened to, first.

Audiobooks 

  1. Queue:
    1. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) - John le Carré 
  2. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (2007) - David Halberstam
    1. Bob Hope performed in Pyongyang
    2. Saying: "Die for a tie"
    3. "Whom the gods destroy they first make mad"
    4. Saying: "Uncle chump from over the hump" (meaning: cynical view of US support for Chiang Kai-shek via airflights over southern mountains)
    5. Chinese attack music (e.g., bugles)
  3. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race (2016) - Margot Lee Shetterly
    1. Saying: "Think like a man, work like a dog, act like a lady" 
  4. Small Fry (2018) - Lisa Brennan-Jobs
    1. Toes are serifs of the feet
    2. On painting: tree was just a shape
    3. Verbal abuse from Steve clearly communicated in the audiobook
  5. The Gods Themselves (1972) - Isaac Asimov
  6. Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (2008) - Chelsea Handler
    1. Odd numbers catch the eye
    2. Same blood type as Chelsea handler
  7. Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (2018) - Anand Giridharadas
    1. Venture capitalists vs. Central planners (similarities)
    2. Power poses Ted Talk by Amy Cuddy
    3. B Corporations history
  8. Barrel Fever (1994) - David Sedaris
    1. Legit laughed out loud at the voice actor saying, "You can't kill the rooster"
  9. Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation (2013) - Dan Fagin
    1. "The dose makes the poison" -- Paracelsus
    2. "All good work is done in defiance of management" -- quote over a desk of a reporter
  10. Crazy Rich Asians (2013) - Kevin Kwan
    1. So many adjectives
    2. Western Christianity notes seemed discordant/autobiographical (?)
    3. Suck cheeks in when taking pictures
  11. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York 3/3 (1974) - Robert Caro
    1. Robert Moses was a "synthetic figure"
  12. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York 2/3 (1974) - Robert Caro
    1. Moses was a natural bully ... he only seemed to respect those who stood up to him
    2. Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World (2018) - Annie Lowrey
      1. Stockton, California has a UBI (?)
      2. Alaska has a UBI
      3. UBI popularity and racial diversity (e.g., Norway, America)
    3. The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy (2018) - Greg Miller
      1. Team Trump used to using lawyers to their advantage (during private business), but seemed upset that not as effective in federal office
    4. Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times (2018) - Mark Leibovich
      1. Howard Johnson: secret for food consistency--increase cold or hot to mask differences
      2. Film: Concussion (2015 film)
    5. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York 1/3 (1974) - Robert Caro
      1. This book won the Pulitzer Prize and represents a pleasure to listen to
      2. "arrogance is, after all, one of the coefficients of money."
      3. Song: The Sidewalks of New York"
      4. LaGuardia! (E.A. Smith and the zoo animals)
      5. Whipsaw: Definition
    6. Democracy in America (1835–1840) - Alexis de Tocqueville
      1. "The French, under the old monarchy, held it for a maxim (which is still a fundamental principle of the English Constitution) that the King could do no wrong; and if he did do wrong, the blame was imputed to his advisers."
      2. "... the celebrated adage may then be applied to them, Homo puer robustus. This truth may even be perceived in America." The Latin phrase translates to, "a human being is a boy with strength".
    7. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2014) - Yuval Noah Harari
      1. It is uncomfortable to sit on bayonets
      2. ‘Don’t believe a single word these people are telling you. They have come to steal your lands.’ (story)
      3. Mathematics is not necessarily perfect; it can represent an approximation
      4. Culture-ism
      5. If you have the why, you can bear the how
    8. Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (2018) - Roxane Gay
      1. This book helped me better understand the effects of many forms of sexual assault; probably one of my books of the year
      2. We have to live in the house during the remodel
      3. Min/max: bad enough vs. not so bad
      4. Like re-breaking a crooked bone
    9. The Federalist Papers (1787–1788) - Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
      1. "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions." No. 51
      2. Nugatory: of no value or importance
      3. Cavil: make petty or unnecessary objections
      4. "I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man." No. 85
      5. Experience referenced as an argument on multiple occasions
    10. My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands (2005) - Chelsea Handler
    11. Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt (2014) - Michael Lewis
    12. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (2018) - John Carreyrou
    13. Leaves of Grass (1855) - Walt Whitman
      1. O Captain! My Captain!
      2. "Who are you indeed who would talk or sing to America?" (By Blue Ontario's Shore)
      3. A real American treasure
      4. "Concluding with two items for the imaginative genius of the West, when it worthily rises--First...that really great poetry is always...the result of a national spirit, and not the privilege of a polish'd and select few; Second, that the strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung." - A Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads [Preface to November Boughs, 1888]
    14. Fear: Trump in the White House (2018) - Bob Woodward
      1. Archie bunker focused
    15. Scrappy Little Nobody (2016) - Anna Kendrick
      1. Started this with no context for her as an actress--never seen Pitch Perfect or Twilight
      2. Clothing: get it tailored
      3. Short people get teased too (e.g., juniors clothes)
      4. Reminds me of Mindy Kaling's ability to pull back the veil vividly: hairdresser, awards, fashion, stars, acting, all the little details shared humorously and thoughtfully
    16. Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America (2018) - James and Deborah Fallows
      1. Understand a new town quickly: 
        1. Visit the public library
        2. View public art
      2. Like watching slides at the house of a friend
      3. Deborah Fallows' voice sounded youthful
    17. Grant (2017) - Ron Chernow
      1. In many ways, one of the greatest Americans, but flawed
      2. Drinking (or lack of it) comes up frequently
      3. Black people voting and bearing arms seemed the most terrifying to post-war southerners
      4. John Brown's Body - basis for song Battle Hymn of the Republic
      5. Major general John Sedgwick's (close to) last words: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."
      6. Who's buried in Grant's tomb? -- trick question comes from Groucho Marx
    18. Wuthering Heights (1847) - Emily Brontë
      1. Heathcliff's sociopathy reminded me of the character of Wolf Larsen, from Jack London's The Sea-Wolf (1904)
    19. Call for the Dead (1961) - John le Carré
      1. Delightful and fast-paced; George Smiley's introduction
    20. The Haunting of Hill House (1959) - Shirley Jackson
      1. While listening I attempted to see things from Hill House's perspective and by the end wanted to kill all the characters too
      2. Note: it's actually quite fun to see things from the haunted house's perspective
    21. House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia (2018) - Craig Unger
    22. Thank You for Your Service (2013) - David Finkel
      1. Outstanding; compassion and clear-eyed view
    23. The View from the Cheap Seats (2016) - Neil Gaiman
      1. It has moments, but often I felt the serial short bits unsatisfying (not Neil's fault, it's just when I was getting into it, it's over)
      2. There is room for things to mean more than they literally mean
      3. Bone comics
      4. Neil pronounces the word corollary as "co ROLL ah ree"
    24. Dear Life: Stories (2012) - by Alice Munro
      1. Perspective of an octogenarian Canadian writer
      2. Dinner != supper (thank you; I grew up in a mid-day dinner area)
      3. Vancouver gets a mention--was there in 2017 and place names send me back
    25. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016) - Matthew Desmond
      1. Milwaukee as a segregated town
      2. Poverty makes everything harder or impossible
      3. There's money to be made off the poor
      4. I've never experienced living in squalor as described: blocked pipes, leaking sinks, doors off hinges, no heat, trash everywhere; heartbreaking
    26. In Search of Lost Time (Remembrances of Things Past) - The Captive (1913-1927) - Marcel Proust
      1. It's Proust: joined clauses for days
      2. "Jealousy fights empty air"
      3. Next audiobook escapes copyright in 2020 : (
      4. Narrator Neville Jason does such a great job; so sad he's gone
    27. Meaty (2013) - Samantha Irby
      1. Hilarious; she's a gem
      2. Shaved Parmesan cheese way better than the powder stuff
    28. The Book of Unknown Americans (2014) - Cristina Henríquez
      1. Great book, I cried like a baby
    29. Bad Feminist (2014) - Roxane Gay
      1. Sweet Valley High - I shared this with Dawn
      2. Scrabble champion - laughed at this
    30. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (2010) - Michael Lewis
      1. Sell-side people wear ties
      2. Housing sales up in March/April because tax refunds arrive
      3. Identifying train riders by subtle clues:
        • BlackBerrys: hedge fund guys checking P&L in Asian markets
        • Sleeping: Sell-side (e.g., brokers who don't have skin in the game)
        • Briefcase/bag: Not on sell-side, because bags only carry brokerage research and brokers don't read their own reports in their spare time
        • New York Times: lawyer, back-office person, someone who worked in the financial markets without being in the markets
        • Guys who ran money: 
          • Dressed as though going to Yankees game
          • If buy-side guy dressed well, usually meant they're in trouble or meeting with someone who had given them money
        • Blazer and khakis: broker at second-tier
        • Three-thousand dollar suit and certain style hair: investment banker at J.P. Morgan, etc.
        • Front of the train: downtowners--Goldman, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch
        • Hedge fund guys: uptown
      4. Ratings agencies dragged pretty hard in terms of intelligence of staff... In his opinion, they should be pinnacle of the industry, but sadly no
    31. On the Origin of Species (1859) - Charles Darwin
      1. It closed strong but man, I wanted a stiff drink to help slog through most of it
      2. I loved the narrator pronouncing sloth like slow-th (long o)
      3. Charles talks a bit about thinking in geologic time, imagining countless incremental changes over 100 million years ... He challenges the reader to try and imagine that time frame and I confess it's beyond me
    32. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (2012) - Katherine Boo
      1. Liked this book
    33. Exit West (2017) - Mohsin Hamid
      1. This was a bittersweet love story and done very well. Bravo
      2. Depression is a failure to imagine a plausible, desirable future
    34. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life (2017) - Samantha Irby
      1. Laughed out loud multiple times 
      2. Ms. Irby represents a national treasure
      3. She wears Finn Comfort Augusta shoes
      4. She mentioned something new-to-me: Meat and three (Nashville)
    35. Talking as Fast as I Can: from Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between) (2016) - Lauren Graham
      1. OK ... I haven't seen the show
    36. A Line in the Dark (2018) - Malinda Lo
      1. OK; I enjoyed the parts discussing her art the most
    37. Less (2017) - Andrew Sean Greer
      1. Had its moments--it felt wisely written
    38. The Tao of Bill Murray: Real-Life Stories of Joy, Enlightenment, and Party Crashing (2016) - Gavin Edwards
      1. Liked this book way more than I expected
      2. Highly recommended
    39. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (2008) - Jeff Sharlet
      1. A solid work that still rings true today (see: Mariia Butina)
    40. Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less (2016) - Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
      1. It's just ok. I think it might warrant more than one read
    41. Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump (2018) - Michael Isikoff
      1. Better than average ... but just ok
    42. Her Body and Other Parties (2017) - Carmen Maria Machado
      1. Wanted to like this one but it just didn't resonate ... I think the writing was fine, just didn't translate as well as an audiobook ... and I'm ignorant of Law and Order SVU, so the longest part of the book was meaningless and incomprehensible
    43. Under the Udala Trees (2015) - Chinelo Okparanta
      1. Loved it ... after the first two hours in, that is, when it introduced Amina
      2. Lovely phrasings: "The saying goes that wood already touched by fire isn’t hard to set alight. ... Eventually our lips met. This was the beginning, our bodies being touched by the fire that was each other’s flesh."
      3. Relationships felt honest and heartfelt
    44. The Three Body Problem 三体 (2008) - Liu Cixin
      1. I don't think I'll ever forget the scene of Judgement Day crossing the Panama Canal
    45. The Other Einstein (2016) - Marie Benedict
      1. Einstein as a deeply flawed person: from charming to asshole to wife batterer
      2. "I'd become the embodiment of an old Serbian phrase, Ku a neže i na zemlji nego na eni; The house doesn't rest on the earth but on the woman."
    46. Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World (2016) - Adam Grant
      1. It's ... ok ... felt like it just moved from anecdote to anecdote without really convincing me
    47. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) - Rebecca Skloot
      1. Liked this book for taking me inside the bubble of what descendants of famous people live through (and with)
      2. Very human in many parts--visiting the graves, Deborah's mania
    48. Lab Girl (2016) - Hope Jahren
      1. Grateful to Hope and Bill for the often raw accounts: glass explosion, van overturning, mental health issues, etc.; it's all out there for everyone to absorb
      2. Funding for science in America sucks 
      3. I enjoyed the science discussions best, though at times the lack of empathy startled me (e.g., not letting the woman go home after overturning the van)
      4. I found the more poetic writings (e.g., early childhood) overwrought with too much pathos
    49. Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me (2017) - Janet Mock
      1. Thank you Janet for helping me see life through your eyes
      2. She used AOL Instant Messenger
      3. Janet Mock commenting on Holly Golightly: "the outsider looking in"
    50. A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) - John Kennedy Toole
      1. "...when a great genius appears in the world the dunces are all in confederacy against him." - Jonathan Swift, Essay on the Fates of Clergymen (1728)
      2. Loved Barrett Whitener's voicing of Ignatius' exclamation "Oh my GOD!" in a Southern American English dialect (which one? sounds like Foghorn Leghorn)
    51. An Unkindness of Ghosts (2017) - Rivers Solomon
      1. Worth a read; the ending confused me and I wish she kept going
    52. The Underground Railroad (2016) - Colson Whitehead
      1. Powerful
      2. Memorizing the Declaration of Independence
    53. The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World (2011) - David Deutsch
      1. Finally, an explanation of the wave/particle duality which makes some sense
      2. More important for politics to correct mistakes
      3. Banning debate the worst of all
      4. Instrumentalism
    54. Outliers: The Story of Success (2008) - Malcolm Gladwell
      1. Lots of interesting tidbits that help make sense of why some succeed and others don't (hello, hockey players born around January)
      2. "Distance, distrust, and constraint": characterizations of children of the working-class and the poor (sociologist Annette Lareau)
    55. Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China; also: Once Upon a Time in the East (2017) - Xiaolu Guo (郭小橹)
      1. Liked this book for the honesty: food insecurity, domestic violence, extreme poverty, life in China as a native, artistic striving
    56. Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness (2018) - Rick Hanson and Forrest Hanson
      1. OK
    57. Turtles All the Way Down (2017) - John Green
      1. I enjoyed this for the perspective it provides on the protagonist, who suffers from anxiety
    58. Jerry on Jerry: The Unpublished Jerry Garcia Interviews (2015) - Dennis McNally
      1. Interview audio quality rough in spots
    59. A Gentleman in Moscow (2016) - Amor Towles
      1. Food and wine pairings delight
      2. Near the end of this book it talks about Mishka's book, "Bread and Salt" :
        1. "Papa, when they put the dirt on my grave, crumble a a crust of BREAD on it so the sparrows will come, and I'll hear that they've come and be glad that I'm not lying alone." (Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)
        2. Bread and salt on the table—“that ancient Russian symbol of hospitality”
    60. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (2018) - Steven Pinker
      1. Ok
    61. The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986) - Richard Rhodes
      1. Learned Neils Bohr escaped to Scotland in the bomb bay of a de Havilland Mosquito and passed out from oxygen starvation
      2. Interleaves the scientific, political, and military threads
      3. Unflinchingly describes horrific suffering, both from atomic bombs (Japan) and traditional incendiaries (e.g., Dresden)
    62. The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (1993 second edition) - Steven Weinberg 
      1. Loved this book
    63. Just the Funny Parts: … And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking Into the Hollywood Boys’ Club (2018) - Nell Scovell
      1. Good read
    64. Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change (2006) - Elizabeth Kolbert
    65. The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan (1991) - Robert Kanigel
      1. Liked this book
    66. It's a Long Story: My Life (2015) - Willie Nelson
      1. Liked this much more than Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road (2011)
      2. Anecdote about burning down his hometown's billboard celebrating him has stuck with me, as has his falling out of a tree (which got him a discharge)
    67. Arcadia (1993) - Tom Stoppard
      1. Ok--can see why it works as a play; as an audiobook, went by so fast
    68. Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) - George Saunders
      1. Didn't grab me
    69. In Search of Lost Time (Remembrances of Things Past) - Sodom and Gomorrah (1913-1927) - Marcel Proust
      1. It's Proust; it's complicated
    70. A History of Ancient Greece (2007) - Eric H. Cline
    71. How to Fall in Love with Anyone: A Memoir in Essays (2017) - Mandy Len Catron
    72. Five-Carat Soul (2017) - James McBride
    73. The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer's Tale (2017) - James Atlas
      1. Lots of interactions with Saul Bellows
    74. Janesville: An American Story (2017) - Amy Goldstein
    75. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) (2011) - Mindy Kaling
    76. Why Not Me? (2015) - Mindy Kaling
      1. Thank you Mindy, for giving me karaoke tips
    77. Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) - Jesmyn Ward
      1. Powerful
    78. Alexander Hamilton (2004) - Ron Chernow
    79. Anything is Possible (2017) - Elizabeth Strout
    80. The Power (2016) - Naomi Alderman
    81. Hamilton: The Revolution (2016) - Lin-Manuel Miranda (with Jeremy McCarter)
    82. But Seriously (2017) - John McEnroe
      1. Wanted to like this book, but didn't resonate
    83. Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir By One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII (2011) - Chester Nez with Judith Schiess Avila 
    84. The Count of Monte Cristo (1844–1845) - Alexandre Dumas
      1. Lovely
    85. Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life (2017) - Caleb Wilde
    86. Getting Off: One Woman's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction (2017) - Erica Garza
    87. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (2018) - Michael Wolff
    88. Al Franken, Giant of the Senate (2017) - Al Franken
      1. Laughed out loud at a Ted Cruz joke: "When most people think of a cruise full of shit, they think of Carnival. But we think of Ted."
    89. 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West (2005) - Roger Crowley
    90. Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS (2016) - Joby Warrick
    91. The Weight of Ink (2017) - Rachel Kadish
      1. Libraries - a book that speaks to my inner reader
    92. What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (2014) - Randall Munroe
      1. Don't remember anything about this book...
    93. The Little Book of Hygge (2016) - Meik Wiking
      1. I think I can pronounce the word "hygge" now...kept saying it over and over trying to match the audiobook pronunciation 
    94. In Search of Lost Time (Remembrances of Things Past) - The Guermantes Way (1913-1927) - Marcel Proust
      1. It's Proust; unapologetically perceptive and revealingly descriptive
    Using the Overdrive app.

    E-Books

    1. What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia (2018) - Elizabeth Catte

    Print

    1. None

    Suggestions

    • 2018-01-08: David Finkel's The Good Soldiers (via)
      • Note: ebook only (Overdrive)
    • Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) - George Saunders
    • Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) - Jesmyn Ward
    • President Obama's reading list (c. Dec 2017):
      • The Power by Naomi Alderman
      • Grant by Ron Chernow
      • Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond 
      • Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein
      • Exit West by Mohsin Hamid 
      • Five-Carat Soul by James McBride 
      • Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
      • Dying: A Memoir by Cory Taylor
        • ebook only (Overdrive) - audiobook recommended 07/18/2018
      • A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
      • Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
      • *Bonus for hoops fans: Coach Wooden and Me by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Basketball (and Other Things) by Shea Serrano
    • Josh Marshall 2017 Holiday recommendations:
      • Eric H. Cline: 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History)
        • Only History of Ancient Greece available
      • Roger Crowley: Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World
        • City of Fortune and Conquerers recommendable as audiobooks
      • David Abulafia: The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean
        • Nothing as of 07/18/2018
      • James Romm: Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the Bloody Fight for His Empire
        • ebook only (Overdrive) as of 07/18/2018
      • Peter Heather: 
        • The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians
        • Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe
        • The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders
        • Note: ebook only; audiobook not recommendable (Overdrive) as of 07/18/2018
      • Hugh Thomas: Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico
        • Nothing available as of 07/18/2018
      • Lionel Casson: Libraries in the Ancient World
        • Unavailable in any format (Overdrive)
        • Life in Ancient Rome recommendable as Audiobook (Overdrive)
    • Bill Gates - 5 amazing books I read this year
      • The Best We Could Do, by Thi Bui
        • ebook only (Overdrive)
      • Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond
      • Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens, by Eddie Izzard
      • The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
        • ebook only (Overdrive)
      • Energy and Civilization: A History, by Vaclav Smil
        • Audiobook recommended (or at least I can when it lets me recommend more)
      • Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Joby Warrick
      • Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
      • The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
        • ebook only (Overdrive)
    • HackerNews
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