Re: Books I’m reading at the moment
Published by Nick atIn reply to Books I’m Reading at the Moment by Pablo Morales.
I think we all need to retrain to connnect with physical things. We’re so connected to our devices. I feel so disconnected with technology around us. I’d like to invite a few people to share their thoughts and what they are reading or planning on reading.
First of all, thanks for the invitation to reply to your current reading list, Pablo. I’m always happy to talk about books, and like you, I have several I’m working on at the moment:
The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War is by Jeff Sharlet and came out this year. I have an electronic copy on loan from the Albuquerque Public Library. It is a pretty dark one since he is interviewing Trump supporters, Men’s Rights activists, QAnon believers, militia types, Christian fascists, etc. I’ll probably read Doppelganger by Naomi Klein next, which also explores some similar territory.
Killing the Buddha is also by Jeff Sharlet, co-written with Peter Manseau. I found my copy at a used book store for 25 cents! This is billed as a “Heretic’s Bible” and features a travelogue across the U.S. post-9/11 and in the early years of the “War on Terror,” meeting with seekers and zealots along the way. The followup to this is called Believer Beware, which I plan to read next, borrowed from the library.
Not Alms But Opportunity is a history of the Urban League in NYC and Chicago from 1910-1950 by Touré Reed. Reed, a historian at Illinois State University, is one of the most insightful scholars exploring class and race in the U.S. today. This is a very academic book from a university press, and the most affordable way for me to access it was to purchase a Kindle copy.
I’m listening to Robin D. G. Kelley’s Thelonius Monk, a great biography of a brilliant jazz musician. Kelley’s writing really takes you into the Harlem neighborhoods in the early 20th century where Monk was starting his trajectory. The next music history book I’m interested in picking up is Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion, by Robert Gordon.
Also listening to Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. I started this one on loan from the library, but Michael Boatman’s voice in the audiobook version is stellar. It gives me incredible hope to learn about justice prevailing in the darkest of times, and reading Mandela’s story in his own words is just inspiring.
You might have noticed I am reading a lot through electronic formats. I personally do not have a preference of hardcover, paperback, eBook, or audio, it just depends on availability, convenience, and ocassionally, cost. I like to have at least one book in print and one in electronic or audio formats to read at a time. Audiobooks are great for walking the dog, doing the dishes, longer drives…anything where a physical format can be hazardous.
For what its worth, I do use technology to stay connected to what I’m reading, and my website is a big part of how I do this. I have a third-party widget on my Now page that is kept up to date with my currently reading list, powered by Literal, a social network for books (and Goodreads alternative).
I keep track of what I read throughout the year using the Books category on my website, and I just started using indiebookclub to post reading statuses to my site with Micropub, too. I’ve been keeping track of all the books (and the formats, page counts, etc.) in a year-end list published on my website since 2016. Here’s the books I finished in 2022, for example. Its easy for me to forget everything I read in a year without good notes!
I also have a Library page, where my favorite books from each year and all-time are catalogued in a small collection. A few of the websites that inspire me are A Working Library by Mandy Brown, Highlights by Melanie Richards, and Winston Hearn’s personal site. In addition to maintaining beautifully designed websites , I can usually get good recommendations from these active readers.
Book and website-related, I have also been earning a pretty small amount of money through the affiliate program with Bookshop.org, which I am using to pay for my website hosting costs. It’s kind of fun to see what strangers end up buying. I decided to drop some affiliate links in this post, too.
One last thing. I didn’t include any children’s books or picture books, but since I’m raising a child, I do consume a lot of those, too. Whenever my daughter says “Book, book”, requesting another story, I feel like I might be doing something right with her.