The London Calling Reading Challenge

This is genius! And since I just started a book set in London, I’m in! First selection: Ready, Steady, Go! The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London by Shawn Levy. I picked this up at a used record shop in South Dakota.

"Brand New Cadillac"

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge?
Pretty well. There's a lot of abandonment going on with all this travel, same as in the song. I could go back and check, but I believe the Cadillac from the Traveler's Bureau may have been the longest-lived of the many cars Dean drove into the ground.

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge?
75%. This had been on my radar as a Thing I Should Have Read By Now for some time, and I'm glad I can cross it off, even if my feelings about the book are mixed.

What's Next?
About halfway through Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes for Challenge #3. I'll probably pick up Olaudah Equiano for #4 on my way home from work on Friday. I've also walked past the library's display of multiple copies of Beastie Boys Book the last couple times I've been in there, which seems like an ideal candidate for #13.

D’oh! You’re right. I’m gonna do Borges. Jacob’s Room is a good suggestion too but I’ve already read it.

Update 2! I have completed But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz by Geoff Dyer for "Jimmy Jazz"

Basically this is a series of biographical vignettes about key jazz musicians, including Lester Young, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Chet Baker, and Art Pepper. These are really moving, warts-and-all portraits that show compassion toward their subjects, rather than the pure hagiography I would expect from a music writer. I also think Dyer did a good job of addressing racism and the profound affect it had on both the men and their art form. 

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge? 75%? Most of the events take place well after the 20s, but there are references to the jazz age and, um, it is entirely about jazz.

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge? This was on my reading list because I liked Geoff Dyer's book about D.H. Lawrence, Out of Sheer Rage. I was trying to get my music book club to select it, but who knows if/when I would have gotten around to it. 

What's Next? Ascent of the Rum Doodle has arrived and I think I can knock it out in a couple commuting days. I'm also taking Villette on my work trip next week. 

I am finally getting my entire "To be read" list organized. I may try to do this challenge once I am done. Don't hold me to this though, as I completely bombed my Goodreads challenge last year.

"Hateful" (Read a book you were assigned and never finished)
I had been good about reading everything assigned up until The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano in my junior year of high school. I don't know if it was just a struggle with Equiano's 18th century prose- all of the other books I can think of that we read were 20th or occasionally 19th century works, with the exception of Shakespeare. Anyway, coming back to it as a more experienced reader, I was able to finish it. Equiano's history lives up to its billing as an interesting narrative- some episodes like a failed polar expedition might have been fascinating to hear about at greater length and in more detail. He benefits greatly from a few kind white people he meets, including his final master Robert King who lets him buy his own freedom after he amasses some money- King is described as a Quaker, and while his religion might lead him to treat his slaves better than others, I thought they were forbidden from owning slaves altogether. Other white people treat him with varying levels of shitiness, cheating him out of money knowing that he will be able to get no redress from the courts. And yet some people try to tell him once he has his freedom, he is no worse off than any white person and he has no right to complain. (Yes, there are ways in which this seems familiar today.) I also found it interesting that, while there were a few references to the hand of divine providence in his life, it was only when he reached the point in his history that he was describing his religious conversion that his writing became more focused on the sins of other sailors, and on the hand of god in his life. I suppose to that point he had been recording what his recollections were of events as they appeared to him at the time, instead of retroactively framing them in terms of his beliefs at the time he was writing. Which is a fine way to tell your story, but seemed at odds with the fervor of his later convictions.

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge?
This fist the literal requirements, but Equiano's story has little to do with the drug use of the Clash song.

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge?
40-50%. I had felt this was something I should get back to and complete at some point, but I don't know how much longer I would have kept putting it off.

What's Next?
I checked out both People Funny Boy and Karen Lord's The Galaxy Game for "Rudie Can't Fail". I started the first one, but I had to travel for work last week and made the tactical decision to just bring The Galaxy Game because it fit more easily in my suitcase. We'll see if I have time for both before they're due back at the library, as I think I'm a little ahead of schedule- I should be doing one book every 19 days to get through it in a year.

Jimmy James , People Funny Boy is certainly a trial. As you realised, Katz did a lot of research. I wager it would be a more interesting book if he were to divulge how the research was accomplished. Did he simply have a recorder out when he was talking to the cousins and various relations of Peter Tosh, the Marley clan, and family Perry, or did he have a sativa-sharpened mind after a chalice full of charas during each encounter that allowed him total concentration during each braindump he received? Either way, this is not a book that is easy on the brain. Good try.

"Spanish Bombs"

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge?
It certainly fits the letter of the challenge, as a book translated from Spanish. As I'm writing this out, it occurs that the information overload of "The Book of Sand" could be a humorous commentary on prior challenge People Funny Boy. 

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge?
What's Next?
Wishful Drinking, and Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential for my book about food.

"The Right Profile"
I opted for Carrie Fisher's memoir Wishful Drinking. This was a pretty quick read- it has a fairly light, conversational tone to the prose, which fits its origins as a stage show. There's some humorous moments in between her various travails, both in terms of amusing quips, and the inherent absurdity of situations like her mother asking Cary Grant to give her a stern lecture about drug use. I also liked her account of how pretty much everyone but George Lucas knew Star Wars was going to be a hit.

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge?
Very well, with Fisher not only a star in her own right, but connected to a lot of old Hollywood figures via her parents.

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge?
20%. I liked Fisher, and she always seemed smart and witty in interviews, but celebrity memoir isn't a genre I tend to read.

What's Next?
Working through Kitchen Confidential, and my curiosity is piqued about Jack London's The Iron Heel for challenge #9.

I opted for Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. There was some good stuff in the early going detailing the ins and outs of operating a restaurant, but I felt like that information got sparser as the book went on. I also think the first half of the book fit together better as a narrative, chronicling his journey from the bottom of the culinary world on up. In later chapters, I had trouble keeping track of the various restaurants he bounced between after become an established chef. While his television shows were still a few years in his future when it was written, I felt like you could see the gears turning toward making the world-hopping adventures of A Cook's Tour and No Reservations in the chapter at the end where he took his trip to Japan and it sort of reinvigorated his love for food.

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge?
I don't recall the Clash getting name-checked alongside the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, but Bourdain's memoir is about as punk rock of a food book as you're going to find. While there are better books for talking about the food in your local supermarket, I think it's also appropriate with Bourdain's quest to establish an identity, find somewhere he can cook his own food- a guaranteed personality.

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge?
30%. I had seen a few episodes of Bourdain's programs and I liked him, but I don't read a lot of non-fiction without getting a bit of a push towards it.

What's Next?
Jack London's The Iron Heel for my dystopian challenge. "Does he write about dogs in this one?" my girlfriend asks. "There aren't any dogs yet." "Is that why it's a dystopia?"

I'm actually doing fairly well at  FINISHED this one, which surprises me.

"London Calling" – Read a book set in London
John le Carré -- Call For The Dead


"Brand New Cadillac" -Read a book about a road trip or journey.
Herman Melville -- Moby Dick


"Jimmy Jazz" – Read a book written or set in the Jazz age
Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece -- Incognegro: Renaissance




"Rudie Can’t Fail" - Read something written by a Caribbean author or set in the Caribbean (alternately, read the memoir of someone successful?)
Sonia Sotomayor -- My Beloved World
(fits all the criteria!)

"Spanish Bombs" – Read a book translated from Spanish
Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- Love In The Time Of Cholera


"The Right Profile" – Read a Hollywood biography or memoir
Jackie Chan -- Never Grow Up


"Lost in the Supermarket" – Read a book about food
Jenny Linford -- The Missing Ingredient


"Clampdown" – Read a dystopian novel
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky -- Roadside Picnic


"Guns of Brixton" – Read a crime novel
John Carreyrou -- Bad Blood (It's non-fiction, but crimes happened. Lots of crimes.)


"Wrong ‘Em Boyo" – Read a book about ethics
Steve Dublianica -- Keep The Change




"Koka Kola" – Read a book about pop culture
L.E. Hall -- Katamari Damacy (Boss Fight Books)


"The Card Cheat" – Read a book where the protagonist dies at the end
Alex de Campi and Fernando Ruiz -- Archie Vs. Predator


"Lover’s Rock" – Read a romance or love story
Lauren Oliver -- Delirium


"Four Horsemen" - Read a western (Post-apocalypse is another option, but might overlap with "Clampdown"/ dystopia?)
Tarah Benner -- Recon


"I’m Not Down" - Read a book set in outer space
Tillie Walden -- On A Sunbeam


"Revolution Rock" – Read a book set during a war
Elizabeth R. Varon -- Armies Of Deliverance


"Train in Vain" - Read a book about trains
Jacques Lob, Jean-Marc Rochette, Virginie Selavy (tr.) -- Snowpiercer

I don't have any plans for the bold ones, and am willing to accept suggestions. ALL DONE

"Clampdown"
How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge?
Pretty darn well.

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge?
15%. I think I first heard of this as an outlier in London's canon, relative to the wilderness stories he's famous for, on the AV Club ages ago. But I had forgotten about it until I was looking for something to fill this challenge.

Update 8! I have completed A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick for "Clampdown"

This classic of 'junkie lit' involves an undercover cop/addict tracking down dealers of Substance D, a deadly hallucinogen that has disrupted society much in the way opiates have IRL. The book is very entertaining, funny, and prescient. I highly recommend.  

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge? 100%

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge? I've been getting into Philip K. Dick lately, so this was on my list for commuter reading.

What's Next? The Bloomsbury Cookbook at the allergist and Brighton Rock on the train.