Bout of Books 38 Wrap-Up

 I had a lot of other things going on this week, so didn't even really do the photo challenges the way I normally do. I did make progress on things I was reading. 

I finished The Pallbearers Club which I liked a lot. I saw on Goodreads that it was very polarizing, and I was definitely on the side of the enjoyers. As a Gen-Xer who was into punk when I was in junior high and highschool, I'm the target audience for it. 

I am almost finished with Winant's The Next Shift, which is excellent, and I made progress in the audiobook of Sara Gran's Claire DeWitt and the City of The Dead which got off to a slow start, but has become more appealing in the most recent chapters. I wonder if I would have liked this book better to read than to listen to. 

I didn't get much further in A Death on W Street. I think I already learned most of what interested me about this book by hearing the author interviewed by David Isikoff for one of his podcasts. 

I started reading one new book, in honor of Trump's Fulton County indictment and booking: Mark Leibovich's Thank you for your Servitude. I read a significant portion of it while preparing for my first colonoscopy, and I've gotta say that it was the perfect pairing.  

If anyone ever creates a listicle of recommended books for a variety of medical procedures and their respective recoveries, books about Trump and his sycophantic supporters are appropriate for any procedure involving hours on the toilet. 

In honor of the Next Shift, which I hope to finish over the next hour, here's the Replacements 'Take Me Down to the Hospital." Bob Stinson, who would be kicked out of the band later that year because of his out of control drug addiction, sounds amazing on this live recording from Maxwell's from Feb 1986. I remember that I missed a chance to see the 'Mats at the Pier in Raleigh the following year. It's one of the great regrets of my life since they were one of my favorite bands, and I didn't finally see them live until they were doing one of those reunion tours and played Shaky Knees in Atlanta. I did meet Bob Stinson in Minneapolis in the early 1990s, a few years before he died of a heroin overdose. What a sad fuckin' story. I remember that period in the late 80s-early 90s when so many people in the alt-rock scene were doing heroin - it was terrible, nothing romantic about it.

Bout of Books Day Two -update

 On my first day of BOB 38, I did manage to read quite a bit of the Pallbearer's Club which I'd started while in Chicago in July, but put aside because I needed to get my last bits of summer of work done and had some things to read for the two book clubs that I'm in. I've got just slightly over 100 pages to go, so I'm pretty sure I'll be done with it in the next couple of days. I'm liking it so far, though I did start to get annoyed by the writing style that Tremblay has invented for his narrator. I'm also wondering when this book will really get scary, and in what way. It's a long build-up so far. Of course I'm enjoying all the Husker Du references. This seems like a good song for the characters so far.

Another Week of Bout of Books - It's BoB 38

This year, Bout of Books' fall readathon falls during my second week of classes, so I'm hoping that it will be easier for me to do at least some reading. 

Yes, I'm again joining Bout Of Books. What's Bout of Books? 

The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 21st and runs through Sunday, August 27th in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, daily Discord questions, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 38 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

I'll mostly be posting instagram photo challenges. My goal this year is to finish a bunch of books I've started and am half way through: 

Paul Tremblay's The Pallbearer's Club

Gabriel Winant, The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America

Andy Kroll, A Death on W Street: The Murder of Seth Rich and the Age of Conspiracy

Stuart Jeffries, The Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School

Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (on audio)

and then maybe if I finish those, I'll have time to start something new. 

Bout of Books 37 May 8-14

I'm almost finished with grading, and now it's time for Bout of Books and this is my official sign-up post.

This week should be a good one for me to read, though I've been having trouble concentrating on research for the last couple of weeks, which I think is mostly related to my job. I'm not sure how I'll divide my serious reading and leisure reading this summer, but I'm going to use this week's readathon to develop a good regular routine. I'll probably be doing a couple of updates on this blog and posting a little on instagram. 

If you're not sure what the Bout of Books readathon is, here's a description: 

The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 8th and runs through Sunday, May 14th in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, daily Discord questions, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 37 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team