Bout of Books 23 - Day 7

Today's Bout of Books challenge - reassess the week's goals and decide whether I can stretch them.

So far, I've read 410 pages this week, and didn't finish a single book, but instead read bits of several.

So my stretch goal is to stay up another hour or so and finish at least one.  I'm almost done with two: Butler's Dawn and Ron Beiner, Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger and the Return of the Far Right an essay reconsidering the influence of Nietzsche and Heidegger in contemporary philosophy in light of the rise of the alt-right.

At the moment though, I'm listening to the last chapter of the audiobook of Sharp Objects, which I had listened to when the book first came out, but which explains a lot more than the ending of the TV show.  Although I did enjoy what the show did to create a creepy Southern Gothic atmosphere,  the book was better.


and here's your music

Bout of Books update Days 5 & 6

Yesterday I re-read about half of Octavia Butler's Dawn, which we'll be discussing in the SF book club on Monday.  This has been a heavy couple of Science-Fiction weeks.  Last weekend was WorldCon. Then we have our local SF book club, to be followed soon after by book club night at the movies to see 2001: Space Odyssey, and then it's Dragon Con.

My current academic reading is still pretty other-worldly. I am continuing to read about the eerily familiar tactics of the Lyndon LaRouche cult. These people have been "post-truth" left/right conspiracy wackos, both obsessed with the deep-state and partnering with various policing and state intelligence services to attack their enemies for decades. 


Page count so far: 270

Challenge, Day 6: for a book I learned about from another bout-of-bookser, I just added Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata to my Goodreads TBR. This one looks like fun.

Challenge Day 5 - I started this blog as a way to do music-reading mash-ups, but I didn't post yesterday because I couldn't think of any songs that reminded me of books. I'm more likely to think of a song because I'm reading a book than anything else.  So, since I'm a day late on this one anyway, here goes; I'm going to try to keep with the 'Con theme by choosing SF/F books that I've enjoyed this year.

Book: Jeff VanderMeer, Borne + The Talking Heads, "Stay Up Late". Borne doesn't sleep, he's not a plaything, but he's kind of like a baby, and he does stay up all night.

Book: Edgar Cantero, Meddling Kids + Split Enz,"I Got You".  I chose this one because pretty far into the book, people still don't know why sometimes they get frightened.

Book: Martha Wells,  All Systems Red    + the Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star" . Because Murderbot loves her shows.

Bout of Books Days 3 & 4

I knew it would happen: It's the second week of classes where I teach, so this is not my best reading time. I've had to prioritize re-reading things I'm teaching. That means I've been dipping back into Manoush Zomorodi's Bored and Brilliant, which I've assigned to my MA thesis students as a way to detach from social media and give themselves more time for "deep work." I highly, highly recommend this book, which in addition to being useful, actually does a good job summarizing more scholarly work on the impact of social media on attention, work and personal relationships.

Both this morning and yesterday, I spent the first part of the day reading Dennis King's Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism. While this book is relatively old, it covers a subject that is unfortunately relevant again as LaRouche-ism found a new home in Post-Soviet Russia, and elsewhere through the reign of "Post-Truth."  Remember those weird signs at the Obama healthcare town halls back in 2009? They were often being carried by LaRouchies.

Yesterday afternoon, I read a chunk of another book about earlier right wing politics, Nicole Hemmer's Messengers of the Right, which describes right wing media efforts going back to the 1950s, including many people I'd never heard of before. It's definitely worth reading for anyone interested in politics and media history. Much of what we think was new in the 1990s - such as right wing talk radio - had roots going back to much earlier media networks. This book is one of a few books going back to find linkages between the very far right and so-called "moderate" right prior to the rise of Reagan, and is similar to Edward Miller's excellent book on the Dallas GOP: Nut Country

In the evenings, I've been reading Edgar Canero's Meddling Kids which is so far not too horrifying, and pretty amusing. We'll see how dark it gets.

total pages read so far: about 140, I'd guess.

Day 4 Challenge: Book Trip

If I followed these books, I'd start in New York City, head to London,  go on to the Faroe Islands, then head for Berlin, followed by Sarajevo, and on to Japan before heading back to New York - this time in Queens.
Here's my   Book Trip Map

I'm doing the BOB photo challenge updates at rebnhill on instagram if you want to see them.

Bout of Books 23 Days 1 & 2

I just spent a long weekend thinking and talking about books because I went to WorldCon (The World Science Fiction Convention). While there, I accumulated way more books than was probably good for me. Maybe later this week, I'll post a loot picture.

On the plane back to Georgia on Monday, I read about half of Spider Robinson's Time Travellers Strictly Cash, which I had picked up at a used and rare book exhibit at the convention with the intention of getting a signature from Robinson before I left. I was charmed and moved by his performance at the Friday night WorldCon music event, and curious about Callahan's Saloon, which was the official name of the WorldCon bar/lounge where I wound up watching the Hugo Simulcast. I didn't get Robinson's signature because my schedule became too full, but I did enjoy reading his book and will likely finish it tonight if I can tear myself away from the real life crime-drama of American politics. It was a good choice for my flight, although I lost a lot of reading time to the woman sitting next to me who kept engaging me in conversation, and later on, I switched to an audiobook for a while when the turbulence got too unruly for me. Robinson represents that moment in SF in the late 70s and early 80s when I was first reading it, with all the good and bad elements of male hippie-dom and the sexual revolution of the era. Of what I read, I probably most enjoyed the story  "Dog Day Evening," full of ridiculous puns and good feeling. I also enjoyed what some reviewers describe as "filler"- Robinson's personal comments about various legendary SF publishers and writers, as well as some of his book reviews, which are witty, and in some cases, scathing.

Today, Tuesday, I got almost no reading done at all during the day, which seemed unlikely since I had a lot of catching up to do in the office.

BoB Page count so far: 93

And since this is a reading and listening blog, here's Spider Robinson singing at World Con this past weekend: 

Bout of Books 23- August 20-26, 2018. Oh, All Right I'm In!

On August 20th, the 23rd Bout of Books Readathon is starting, and runs through August 26th. I'll be partially traveling, and partially teaching the first weeks of the semester, but maybe I'll find some time for reading this time. "What is bout of books?"  you ask.

In the words of the organizers:

 The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01 am Monday, August 20th and runs through Sunday, August 26th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 23 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog 

 I've now done this readathon twice, and each time, I've gotten a little more savvy about how the social media challenge aspect of how the readathon works.  My biggest problem has been spending too much time writing blog posts instead of reading. 

This time, I'll try to be short but sweet with my check-ins. Since I know I probably won't be getting a lot of serious research done during the first weeks of school, I'm going to use the challenge to do some reading for the annual academic reading challenge that I run. Well, what's that you ask? Here's our facebook group