The *Louder Than Bombs Reading* Challenge

Updates & Thoughts:

I wanted to start with a bang, so during my weekly face mask regimen, I've cracked open the complete annotated Sandman. Each volume contains 20 issues and each issue takes about 15 minutes to read, so I'm going to try to make this my bedtime reading (especially since it's an unwieldy tome) from November - February. Starting in January, I will start the challenge proper with my commuter reading, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (since unfortunately, my friend Amber's publishing date has been pushed back to February).

Right now, I am in possession of 20 of the 24 books in this challenge. The only ones missing are TBDs, the as-yet-unreleased And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories & Other Revenges, and my gay white whale, The Naked Civil Servant - for which I've been scouring used bookstores here and abroad for about a decade. If you have a copy you can loan me, do please get in touch ;-) 

That means I'm not planning to do any audio books and if I substitute, I will try to grab something from my own collection before buying something new. The number of reading list books I'm attempting to get to is tentatively 6 - perhaps 8 with TBDs. The number of owned books (not purchased for the challenge) that I'll be tackling in this challenge is 8-10. The number of books I have purchased from Amazon thus far is currently 10, which is less than 50%, so I'm hoping that having more time to look in local shops will prove fruitful. The number of non-assigned books laying around my house is about 20, and I am determined to maintain/decrease that number by 1) reading as many as I can by January 1 and 2) NOT BUYING MORE BOOKS. 

I mention these things because, from my experience last year, I've found that a more mindful approach to reading has yielded time better spent. When I look back at the books I read back in my DC commuter days - when I routinely consumed the latest buzz titles with Borders discounts - I can hardly remember them. I kept very few of those paperbacks and I feel bad about the waste I contributed to. Now I spend more time cherishing my books instead of just amassing a collection. 

UPDATE!: Two weeks early (at least) and on the final day of my convalescence, I have finished The Complete Annotated Sandman, Volumes 1-4.

Per Amazon: "One of the most popular and critically acclaimed graphic novels of all time, Neil Gaiman's award-winning masterpiece The Sandman set the standard for mature, lyrical fantasy in the modern comics era. Illustrated by an exemplary selection of the medium's most gifted artists, the series is a rich blend of modern and ancient mythology in which contemporary fiction, historical drama, and legend are seamlessly interwoven."

Comics are not known for their consistency and this one was no exception. Some plotlines were stronger than others and there were patches of tedium (particularly the Worlds' End story-within-a-story-within-a-story ad nauseam). It started and finished strong, though. I loved the characters, much of the artwork, and the overall scope/ambition of the series.
I will probably read a couple of the spin-offs. 

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge/Why I Picked This: It don't get any stranger than the realm of Morpheus, King of Dreams. Though I'm not a literature geek (thus all the stuff with Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe mostly went over my head) I am a bit of a goth and I was really into the visuals. And since many of the characters were inspired by/inspiration for musicians, I could geek out on that.  

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge?
Again, not at all likely, given my lifelong aversion to actual comic books. My brother is/was an avid collector, with weekly trips to the comic store to pick up special orders, mylar sleeves, and the whole bit. Every time we watch a Marvel movie adaptation, he gives me the backstory and context, which I appreciate. Generally, I appreciate the creative character designs in conventional comics, but I find the actual plots simplistic. Even in Sandman, it bugged me how all these characters across continents were conveniently connected with each other. 

What's Next? While I'm waiting for my female author selection, I'm going to try to get through as much of The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism & Capitalism as bedside reading for "Shoplifters of the World Unite". Come January, I'll be taking all 470 pages on the daily commute. 

Tally ho!

I just found a wonderful resource in my attempt to stop buying (so many) books from Amazon!

www.indiebound.org/

Not only does it connect me with indie bookstores in my area, but I can order online as well!

UPDATE 3!: I have completed The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling for "Sweet and Tender Hooligan"

You know the story: boy is raised by wolves, learns about the Bear Necessities and captures the Red Flower to rid the jungle of a suave, villainous tiger. At least that's how I remember the story from the highly amusing Disney cartoon of my youth. The actual stories cover much more violent ground, which makes them kind of awesome. Really, I was expecting cliches and groan-worthy Eurocentrism, but this was just a really solid collection of writing. Aside from reflecting the mild anti-Muslim bias that was probably harbored by many of the Indians of Kipling's acquaintance, I didn't find anything offensive or condescending. On the contrary, I found the portrayal of Mowgli as an ethnically brown ubermensch (unlike that ripoff Tarzan, deliberately coded as white) again, kind of awesome. The non-Mowgli stories were pretty good too, including my best-beloved, Riki-tiki-tavi. Kipling's legacy - like colonialism itself - is a mixed bag of good and ill, but in any case, it's undeniable. 

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge/Why I Picked This: As a fan of Kipling from childhood (particularly the Just So Stories and the aforementioned rodent assassin) whose Asian Studies minor is informed by my experience as an Indian-American, I'm particularly interested in postcolonial critique of stuff like this. But perhaps I should have known Kipling's talents as a writer would get the best of me. "If" is one of my favorite poems to teach ESL students, in part because it's such an encapsulation (for better or worse) of the white-cis-male mentality that dominates Western culture. As for the theme, I was glad to get the rest of Mowgli's story, which is quite satisfying, rather than the very thin cartoon plot of the movie.

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge?: I picked up the Penguin edition at one of my top 3 bookstores in Chicago, The Dial, with the expressed purpose of reading this on my commute. It's a keeper.

What's Next? "Sheila Take a Bow" should be shipping next week. In the meantime, I'll knock out The Hairstyles of the Damned by local author Joe Meno for "Half a Person".

UPDATE 5!: I have completed And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories & Other Revenges by Amber Sparks for "Sheila Take a Bow"

This enchanting collection of microfiction/short stories is about women at their most chthonic, with many allusions to folklore, mythology, and fairy tales juxtaposed with modern feminist sensibilities. 

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge/Why I Picked This: Amber is a friend of mine from the DC days. She and her husband were regular guests at the bbqs we had every summer at the group house I shared with two of their grad school classmates. Her first book, May We Shed These Human Bodies, was published by the Chicago indie Curbside Splendor and I got her to sign my copy when she came through town on a book tour. Hopefully I can get her to sign this one too. I really enjoyed it. 

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge?: I missed her breakthough novel, The Unfinished World, but the premise of this one really intrigued me, so I definitely would have read it at some point. 

What's Next? I've started Fantomas for "Panic" and Chicago for "London". Exciting stuff! 

UPDATE 7!: I have completed Chicago by David Mamet for "London"

In the midst of writing all that 'chewy' dialogue, Mamet somehow forgot to write a story. Or rather, he remembered in the last 50 pages to unload 300 pages worth of plot exposition, which was about 250 pages too late. Ostensibly, this is a Prohibition-era story about a reporter who gets mixed up in gangland warfare between the North side Irish and South side Italians in Chicago. Both the dialogue and settings are picturesque, but the pacing is TERRIBLE. The first 100 pages are a complete slog where we are introduced to a couple interesting characters (not the main characters) and a whole lot of WWI flashbacks. The middle of the book is just maddeningly repetitive, as if the author forgot what wrote in the previous chapter. Then the last 100+ pages finally start unraveling the 'mystery' for anyone who cares, even though it wasn't really set up well in the first place. 

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge/Why I Picked This: It fits the theme to a tee, being a book about a city - the city I live in - by one of the foremost chroniclers of said city. I picked this up as a signed hardcover shortly after its release, when it curiously went on sale at Unabridged Books, an indie bookstore on the North side notable for its extensive gay pornography room. As a fan of all things gangster, I had high hopes for this, but it was rather a letdown. I'm now debating if I want to keep it for guestroom reading (I mean, it is signed by Mamet) or regift it in our office white elephant exchange at Christmas. 

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge? I definitely wanted to read it, being set in one of my favorite settings and eras. I'm glad it didn't take long, though. I was able to finish most of it while my internet was on the fritz. 

What's Next? The Elegance of the Hedgehog will accompany me to work and Under Milk Wood will be my leisure reading at home. 

So how does the ordering from this site work?  Is the book delivered to a local store of your choice and, if so, do they get a cut of the profit from the sale?

UPDATE 8!: I have completed Under Milk Wood: a Play for Voices by Dylan Thomas for "Shakespeare's Sister"

A lilting, lyrical, and lurid litany of verse dramatizing the lives and loves of Llareggub, a fictional Welsh fishing village dripping with dreamy atmosphere and colorful characters. This was a fun read and it's worth seeking out performances headed up by the likes of Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, and Michael Sheen. 

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge/Why I Picked This: Whenever faced with the drudgery of daily life, I dream of escaping to a Welsh fishing village. I think this is because of something I saw on a British home renovation show I streamed once, combined with my general affinity for the Welsh. Welsh is my all-time favorite accent - rather like if white people spoke with Indian accents - and there are a lot of pretty cool people from Wales: Super Furry Animals, John Cale, Rob Brydon, Tom Jones AND Shirley Bassey... I've only read a few poems by Dylan Thomas, but I was sufficiently impressed to seek this out, since there aren't many plays on my reading list. 

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge? This was a quick read, so likely, I think. 

What's Next? I was one commute away from finishing The Elegance of the Hedgehog, so expect me to post on that tomorrow. Since last year, I've been reading White Mughals at the allergist, but now that my commute is indefinitely on hold, I imagine I'll be doing more bedside reading. It's going to be a challenge maintaining a pace of 160-200 pages per week if I don't have a solid 5 hours per week to read, but I will try my best...

UPDATE 10!: I have completed White Mughals by William Dalyrample for "William It Was Really Nothing"

Per Wikipedia: "The book is a work of social history about the warm relations that existed between the British and some Indians in the 18th and early 19th century, when one in three British men in India was married to an Indian woman. On one level, the book tells the tragic love story of James Kirkpatrick, ‘the thoroughly orientalised’ British Resident in Hyderabad and Khair-un-Nissa, a beautiful young Muslim noblewoman. On another level, the story is about trade, military and political dealings, based on Dalrymple’s researches among letters, diaries, reports, and dispatches (much of it in cipher). Out of these sources he draws a fascinating picture of sexual attitudes and social etiquette, finding an 'increasingly racist and dismissive attitude' among the British ruling class towards mixed race offspring, after the rise of Evangelical Christianity. He paces the gradual revelations with a novelist's skills, leading us on, after the death of Kirkpatrick, to 'the saddest and most tragic part of the whole story.'"

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge/Why I Picked This: Lord Lucan recommended this book upon learning that my family is from Hyderabad. In fact, my parents both attended college on the site of the former British Residency, which is one of the key settings of this book.

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge? Considering I started this book last year, I was fairly committed to reading it - it was just a challenge finding the time.

What's Next? In an effort to maintain some healthy routine during this trying time, I will be devoting approximately 1 hour per night to reading and keeping pace with my challenge. Up next is the extremely relevant Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber .

UPDATE 11!: I have completed Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber for "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby"

Anarchist/Anthropologist Graeber expands upon his provocative 2013 Strike! essay to present a unified theory of why the modern economy proliferates with meaningless employment, who benefits from it (I'll give you three guesses), and what alternatives might look like - including advocacy for social/economic equalization through Universal Basic Income. Although the social scientist in me doesn't love the anthropological focus on anecdotal evidence - of which about 50-100 pages could have been cut - there are some really fresh insights in this book. I very much appreciate his consideration of 'women's work' and the value of caring jobs as opposed to the 'productive' labor that has historically driven the labor movement (despite not being the majority of work in which the majority of people have ever been engaged). I also think he makes a good case that there is no real institutional reason why the economy needs to be set up this way. His call to realign "value" with "values" and direct energies to creating a better society than the one in which we currently toil is inspiring and reaffirms my plan to return to teaching after retiring from the Fed. 

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge/Why I Picked This: I read something by David Graeber in The Guardian and, being that I am a career civil servant currently on full-time telework, this could not have been more timely or relevant.

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge? Very likely, but perhaps not now. This would have made great commuter reading, but alas...

What's Next? I want to save the next two books on the list for an eventual return to commuting and take on a bulkier tome instead. So next I'll be plowing through the 450-page The Rise, The Fall, and the Rise by icon and legend Brix Smith Start!

UPDATE 13!: I have completed Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande for "Oscillate Wildly"

This one hit close to home, since I've been taking care of my widower father for the past 15 years. I'm not even sure what to say about it, except that I think everyone who worries about their parents should read it. It made me feel better about 'that which I hope and that which I fear.' 

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge/Why I Picked This: It doesn't really get into the science of dying - which was more of what I expected - so much as the philosophical implications of how medical practitioners approach death and how that can conflict with a dying person's wishes. It gets into a lot of public policy/public health concerns about the medical system and lack of supports for aging in place. 

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge? I have a couple books like this in my reading list, but it has been hard to conjure up the emotional strength to read them. This was a quick and easy read, though, and widely available, so I'm glad I got around to it. 

What's Next? I'm taking on The Master & Margarita for "These Things Take Time"

UPDATE 15!: Back in the saddle, I have completed A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh for "Back to the Old House"

Is there any modern author more sadistic and misanthropic toward his own characters than Evelyn Waugh? A horror story disguised as drawing room comedy, I wouldn't say this is his best book (I prefer Brideshead Revisited for drama and Decline and Fall for comedy) but it might be his most provocative. It has a lot of Waugh tropes (full disclosure, this is the 5th of his books I've read), including: unlikable characters, multiple protagonists, mother fixation, and pitch black comedy combined with straight up bleakness. The characterizations are sketchy, but then the story doesn't require much; you know exactly who these people are from what they say. Waugh's hatred of women is much more apparent than it was when I was in my teens reading Brideshead, along with some unsurprisingly casual racism. And yet somehow, I found myself emotionally engaged and gutted by the end of it. I'm glad I read it, but I wouldn't want to read it again, if you know what I mean. I might recommended it for a particularly wild book club. 

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge/Why I Picked This: All of Waugh's books are about poshers, being some kind of super-Tory himself, so it was going to be him or Wodehouse. I couldn't find any Wodehouse at my beloved Dial Bookstore (or indeed, in any American bookstore), but I did find a lovely hardcover edition of this, and since I've read so much Waugh already, it was the natural choice. Plus an estate figures prominently in the narrative.  

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge? I'm kind of surprised I didn't read it earlier. I went through quite a tear after falling in love with Brideshead (and Sebastian Flyte in particular) as a youth, taking on The Loved One, Vile Bodies, and Decline & Fall. Handful of Dust is about being middle-aged and complacent, though, so perhaps that's why it resonates with me now. 

What's Next? Lord help me, I am attempting Virginia Woolf's obscure second novel Night and Day for "Hand in Glove"

UPDATE 16!: Right on schedule (for the month of June I'm keeping a schedule) I have completed Night and Day by Virginia Woolf for "Hand In Glove"

According to the book jacket, this is Woolf's early attempt at a Victorian novel in the tradition of a Bronte sister. It revolves around a handful of prospective young(ish) lovers and their various pairings within the milieu of turn-of-the-century London. We are first introduced to Ralph Denham, an angsty barrister with a heartwarming home life and Katherine Hilbury, scion of a literary family who is a cipher for the first half of the book, after which she unfortunately becomes the protagonist. Next, we meet Mary Datchet, a wholesome country girl who moves to the city to work on suffrage and host literary salons - just an all-around cool chick who this book does so dirty... We also meet Katherine's poet fiance William Rodney (never trust a man with two first names) who is actually a pretty decent bloke and her charming cousins Henry and Cassandra Otway, who both belong in a better book. Finally, there's Katherine's parents - her silly, doddering mother and her stern but reasonable father. 

The first half of the book starts out strong. Woolf is a master of description and her prose is impeccable. The picture she paints of Edwardian London - strolling down the Strand, visiting Kew Gardens, sitting around flats at all hours reading and discussing ideas - is tantalizing. Unfortunately, she literally loses the plot in the second half. Ralph is infatuated with Katherine and has a strong platonic friendship with Mary, who carries a torch for him. Katherine envies Mary's independence because her family expects her to be a literary hostess and all she really wants is to be alone and study math. Now, one way to write this story is for Ralph's infatuation to dissipate once he understands that Katherine isn't interested and for him to realize Mary's the one. This would also allow Katherine to accomplish her own self-realization outside her family by breaking her engagement to Rodney and letting the world know she's a pioneer in STEM, thus reaffirming the early feminist themes of the book. The other story might be Katherine settling for Rodney and Ralph settling for Mary, with everyone unrequited and unfulfilled. This would be the true-to-life, non-Victorian ending to the Victorian set-up - unsatisfyingly satisfying in its modernism.

Maddeningly, Woolf takes neither approach, having Ralph callously and half-heartedly propose to Mary to 'get Katherine out of his system'. Mary intelligently has to turn him down and spends the rest of the book enduring repeated visits from Ralph and Katherine as they fret about how they've wronged her and how conflicted and not-in-love they are. Seriously, fuck these people. Ralph shows no concern for the large family who depends on him or for the important work Mary is doing. As the 'heroine' Katherine is just a complete fucking drip: passively attentive to her family, with no personal drive or ambition, and no interest in art or love. I seriously wonder if this character is supposed to be on the spectrum, since the only thing that stimulates her mind is math and science and she can neither interpret nor express human emotion (I'm really not exaggerating). She manages to pair Rodney up with her cousin Cassandra, a much more realistically human young woman while she, despite knowing Mary is in love with him, keeps Ralph at arms length and insists she does not love him. Finally, after having done nothing to earn Katherine's affections beyond hanging out in front of her house a lot, Katherine decides that she maybe kinda likes Ralph, but not enough to marry him. She changes her mind immediately when her mother finds out and tells her to give up math so she can be a wife. Fuck. 

E.M. Forster told Woolf that he didn't like this book because the characters were unlikable. I don't think all the characters are unlikable, she just picked the wrong one on which to center the story. The chapters at the beginning that focus on Mary are great and on his own, Ralph is likable too. Their relationship is real and touching. Cassandra is a Victorian-style waif, but also an injection of fun halfway into the story. The gaping void at the center is Katherine and the inexplicable way she treats Rodney - a classic Baxter. I do not want her to be happy; I want her to walk in on Mary having a loud threesome in her flat and then curse her pointless existence. 

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge/Why I Picked This: Virginia Woolf is my favorite author and I've read most of her major works. This was a new, illustrated edition that I spotted at my local indie bookstore on Roscoe and I'm tempted to keep it just because it's so pretty. It definitely fits the theme of the song, covering the vicissitudes of romance and complexities of the heart.

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge? I bought the book because it was pretty, but it's also pretty bulky. This might have sat on the shelf indefinitely. 

What's Next? I've started a new tape flagging system to mark my progress and stay on track with some of these bigger books, so my goal is to complete all three volumes of I Am a Cat by the end of the month. 

UPDATE 18!: I have completed I Am A Cat by Natsume Soseki for "Stretch Out and Wait"

For about two years, Natsume Soseki (or Soseki Natsume in the Western fashion) the most important Japanese novelist of the 20th century, wrote a serialized novel presenting a cat's-eye-view of the country's changing mores. Unfortunately, it appears Natsume got paid by the word, since there is a lot of chaff amidst the grains of humor and philosophy in this 600+ page collection. The translation is generally clever, aside from some weird Anglicization, and the characters are all pretty fun. The lack of narrative drive and frequent digressions into half-baked philosophy (a la Ayn Rand) are a real problem, though. If only an editor had taken a crack at abridging this - I bet there's an absolutely charming 300-400 page novel in there somewhere. The passages about the cat's drives and its observations of children are hilarious. 

How Well Did It Fit the Theme of the Challenge/Why I Picked This: I bought this at Kinokuniya bookstore because I had been assigned Kokoro in college and it was life-changingly good.  Since I allowed myself some leeway, it fit my theme quite nicely. 

How likely would you have been to read the book without the challenge? This was a classic folly in that it's the kind of book I would like to have read, but would be unlikely to commit several weeks to reading.  

What's Next? I'm excited to start the very timely Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, which centers around the WTO protests, for "This Night Has Opened My Eyes". After that, I have to take a break to read the as-yet-unannounced selection for One Book, One Chicago so I can work on a CPL-commissioned playlist and blog post...