Ben Crowder

Blog: #books

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Two quick thoughts on reading:

Over the last few years I’ve wanted to get back into reading classics (“back into” referring to high school and college lit classes), but…it’s a struggle. I’ve DNFed pretty much all the classic novels I’ve tried to read — Oliver Twist, Madame Bovary, War & Peace, and Scaramouche, among others. What I suspect is probably at fault here: my fiction tastes skew heavily toward genre (primarily sf&f with occasional forays into mystery and thrillers), with realistic/literary fiction (basically all those aforementioned classics falling into this category) usually boring me out of my mind. Not entirely sure what to do about it yet, other than to try reading something like Dracula to see if the same thing happens.

Also, from the flip side of the coin: I’ve been reading a fair amount of more contemporary sf&f lately (the last several years) and goodness, there’s a lot of great fantasy and science fiction being published these days.

I love this quote from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos:

What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

Back at the beginning of the year I had a few days of reading over a hundred pages a day, and I liked it so much I decided to make it a loose goal going forward. While some days it hasn’t panned out, by and large I’ve managed to pull it off. I love it. At roughly two books each week, I’m finally making a semi-decent dent in my gargantuan Mount TBR (which keeps growing at a much-faster-than-geological rate).

Recent reads:

Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut. My first time reading Vonnegut. Not really what I expected — I don’t know what on earth I was expecting — but I think I liked it. Weird book, though. Looking forward to reading more of him.

Ultralearning, by Scott Young. As I got into this book, I realized I was mainly mining it for ideas to help me get better at writing. And it did deliver, though there’s certainly a lot of the book that wasn’t as useful in that regard.

Educated, by Tara Westover. Whew, that was intense. And maddening. Couldn’t put it down.

The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Not my usual reading fare, but I really, really liked it. Thoughtful and bittersweet and slow, in a good way.

A Craftsman’s Legacy, by Eric Gorges. Made me want to make things with my hands. Which is why I read it.

How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method, by Randy Ingermanson. Framed as a story, which ended up not being my thing, but I do think the snowflake method has a lot of value and I’m currently trying out some variations on it in my own fiction.

Brothers in Arms, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Good as usual. I love the Vorkosigan books. Great comfort reading, kind of like Discworld for me.

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. A bit of a slow start for me but then it got good — and darker than I’d expected, which in this case I liked.

Becoming Superman, by J. Michael Straczynski. What an amazing, inspiring story. Plenty of content warnings, though — what a messed-up family.

The Worlds of Medieval Europe, by Clifford R. Backman. Surprisingly readable for a textbook. (Is that bad to say? Any offended textbook authors in the audience?) Learned a ton, particularly about the parts that were blanks in my mental chronology (800s, 900s, etc.).

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, by Caitlin Doughty. Great book — at least if you think about death all the time like I do. I honestly have no idea what normal people would think of it. Right after I read this book, I got an ad from a local mortuary that offers free tours, and you better believe I’m going to go check it out once the semester’s over.

Recent reads:

Good to Great, by Jim Collins. I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would (having previously had a bit of an aversion to business books). Recommended.

Atomic Habits, by James Clear. Some good ideas here, particularly the push to focus on systems and processes and identity instead of goals.

Quiet, by Susan Cain. Changed how I think about myself and others.

The Light Between Worlds, by Laura E. Weymouth. A lovely, wonderful novel. One of my favorite books ever.

Dark Money, by Jane Mayer. Fascinating book, though the material was disheartening and frustrating.

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. My first time reading this. Definitely darker than I expected (I hadn’t heard about the ending). Not really sure what I think about it.

Recent reads:

Digital Minimalism, by Cal Newport. My favorite parts were the bits on solitude and on analog hobbies and strenuous leisure.

The Revenge of Analog, by David Sax. After reading this, I was ready to shrug off all my digital hobbies and go full analog. Still working on finding the right balance.

Range, by David Epstein. I’m cheating a little by including this since I’m still in the middle of it, but it’s good and right up my alley. The part about premodern villagers being incapable of abstract thought was fascinating.

The World as It Is, by Ben Rhodes. I didn’t vote for Obama, but now I wish I had. A good on-the-ground look at those eight years.

Isaac’s Storm, by Erik Larson. Whew.

12 Strong, by Doug Stanton. Also whew.

The Tiger, by John Vaillant. The hunt for a man-eating tiger in eastern Russia. Eye-opening.

Recent reads:

Prisoners of Geography, by Tim Marshall. This was my first foray into geopolitics, and I really liked it. Looking forward to Robert Kaplan’s Revenge of Geography as well.

Tubes, by Andrew Blum. A look into the infrastructure of the Internet. It’s easy to forget about all the wires when we live in a somewhat wireless age, so I appreciated the reminder.

Moon Shot, by Jay Barbree. The story of the early American space program, running through the end of the Apollo missions and a bit beyond. I loved it.

Word by Word, by Kory Stamper. A delightful book about lexicography at Merriam-Webster.

I’m reading Daniella Martin’s Edible, on how eating insects is good for humanity, and I’m pretty close to ordering some wax worms for eating (both live and fried, because I may as well). The thought of it all makes me somewhat squeamish, but that squeam is obviously learned — there are other cultures that don’t have the same hangups — and it’ll be interesting to see if I can unsqueam myself in this regard.
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