Tag: lists

Books I’ve read in 2018

Goodreads tells me I’ve read 48 books in 2018. I set myself the goal of 36 so it looks like I beat it handily. But included in that count are quite a few roleplaying game books and comics. If I discard those I’m left with 28 titles. Still a decent amount but nothing particularly remarkable. Below are a few lists and some notes to go with them.

Most of the non-fiction is somewhere on the intersection of design, technology and Left politics. A lot of this reading was driven by my desire to develop some kind of mental framework for the work we were doing with Tech Solidarity NL. More recently—since I started my PhD—I’ve mostly been reading textbooks on research methodology. Hidden from this list is the academic papers I’ve started consuming as part of this new job. I should figure out a way of sharing some of that here or elsewhere as well.

I took a break from technology and indulged in a deep dive into the history of the thirty year’s war with a massive non-fiction treatment as well as a classic picaresque set in the same time period. While reading these I was transitioning into my new role as a father of twin boys. Somewhat related was a brief history of The Netherlands, which I’ve started recommending to foreigners who are struggling to understand our idiosyncratic little nation and go beyond superficialities.

Then there’s the fiction, which in the beginning of the year consisted of highbrow weird and historical novels but then ventured into classic fantasy and (utopian) sci-fi territory. Again, mostly because of a justifiable desire for some escapism in the sleep deprived evenings and nights.

Having mentioned the arrival of our boys a few times it should come as no surprise that I also read a couple of parenting books. These were more than enough for me and really to be honest I think parenting is a thing best learned through practice. Especially if you’re raising two babies at once.

So that’s it. I’ve set myself the modest goal of 24 books for this year because I’m quite sure most of my reading will be papers and such. Here’s to a year of what I expect will be many more late night and early morning reading sessions of escapist weird fiction.

Previous years: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2011, 2009.

Books I’ve read in 2017

Returning to what is something of an annual tradition, these are the books I’ve read in 2017. I set myself the goal of getting to 36 and managed 38 in the end. They’re listed below with some commentary on particularly memorable or otherwise noteworthy reads. To make things a bit more user friendly I’ve gone with four broad buckets although as you’ll see within each the picks range across genres and subjects.

Fiction

I always have one piece of fiction or narrative non-fiction going. I have a long-standing ‘project’ of reading cult classics. I can’t settle on a top pick for the first category so it’s going to have to be a tie between Lowry’s alcohol-drenched tale of lost love in pre-WWII Mexico, and Salter’s unmatched lyrical prose treatment of a young couple’s liaisons as imagined by a lecherous recluse in post-WWII France.

When I feel like something lighter I tend to seek out sci-fi written from before I was born. (Contemporary sci-fi more often than not disappoints me with its lack of imagination, or worse, nostalgia for futures past. I’m looking at you, Cline.) My top pick here would be the Strugatsky brothers, who blew me away with their weird tale of a world forever changed by the inexplicable visit by something truly alien.

I’ve also continued to seek out works by women, although I’ve been less strict with myself in this department than previous years. Here I’m ashamed to admit it took me this long to finally read anything by Woolf because Mrs Dalloway is every bit as good as they say it is. I recommend seeking out the annotated Penguin addition for additional insights into the many things she references.

I’ve also sometimes picked up a newer book because it popped up on my radar and I was just really excited about reading it. Most notably Dolan’s retelling of the Iliad in all its glorious, sad and gory detail, updated for today’s sensibilities.

Literary non-fiction

Each time I read a narrative treatment of history or current affairs I feel like I should be doing more of it. All of these are recommended but Kapuściński towers over all with his heart-wrenching first-person account of the Iranian revolution.

Non-fiction

A few books on design and technology here, although most of my ‘professional’ reading was confined to academic papers this year. I find those to be a more effective way of getting a handle on a particular subject. Books published on my métier are notoriously fluffy. I’ll point out Löwgren for a tough but rewarding read on how to do interaction design in a non-dogmatic but reflective way.

I got into leftist politics quite heavily this year and tried to educate myself a bit on contemporary anti-capitalist thinking. Fisher’s book is a most interesting and also amusing diagnosis of the current political and economic world system through a cultural lens. It’s a shame he’s no longer with us, I wonder what he would have made of recent events.

Game books

I decided to work my way through a bunch of roleplaying game books all ‘powered by the apocalypse’ – a family of games which I have been aware of for quite a while but haven’t had the opportunity to play myself. I like reading these because I find them oddly inspirational for professional purposes. But I will point to the original Apocalypse World as the one must-read as Baker remains one of the designers I am absolutely in awe of for the ways in which he manages to combine system and fiction in truly inventive ways.

  • The Perilous Wilds, Jason Lutes
  • Urban Shadows: Political Urban Fantasy Powered by the Apocalypse, Andrew Medeiros
  • Dungeon World, Sage LaTorra
  • Apocalypse World, D. Vincent Baker

Poetry

I don’t usually read poetry for reasons similar to how I basically stopped reading comics earlier: I can’t seem to find a good way of discovering worthwhile things to read. The collection below was a gift, and a delightful one.

As always, I welcome suggestions for what to read next. I’m shooting for 36 again this year and plan to proceed roughly as I’ve been doing lately—just meander from book to book with a bias towards works that are non-anglo, at least as old as I am, and preferably weird or inventive.

Previous years: 2016, 2015, 2011, 2009.

Books I’ve read in 2016

I’ve read 32 books, which is four short of my goal and also four less than the previous year. It’s still not a bad score though and quality wise the list below contains many gems.

I resolved to read mostly books by women and minority authors. This lead to quite a few surprising experiences which I am certainly grateful for. I think I’ll continue to push myself to seek out such books in the year to come.

There are only a few comics in the list. I sort of fell off the comics bandwagon this year mainly because I just can’t seem to find a good place to discover things to read.

Anyway, here’s the list, with links to my reviews on Goodreads. A * denotes a particular favourite.

Favourite music albums of 2016

I guess this year finally marked the end of my album listening behaviour. Spotify’s Discover and Daily Mix features were the one-two punch that knocked it out. In addition I somehow stopped scrobbling to Last.fm in March. It’s switched back on now but the damage is done.

So the data I do have is incomplete. I did still deliberately put on a number of albums this year. But I won’t post them in order of listens like I did last year. This is subjective, unsorted and hand-picked. I will even sneak in a few albums that were published towards the end of 2015.

My sources included Pitchfork’s list of best new albums which used to be how I discovered new music and still wields some influence. I cross-referenced with Spotify’s top songs of 2016.

So first Spotify tells me what to listen to and then it gives me a list of things I actually listened to. This is getting weird…

Anyway, here they are. A * marks a particular favourite.

  • A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here… *
  • Solange – A Seat At the Table
  • Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam – I Had A Dream That You Were Mine
  • The Avalanches – Wildflower *
  • Blood Orange – Freetown Sound
  • Whitney – Light Upon the Lake
  • Car Seat Headrest – Teens Of Denial *
  • Chance The Rapper – Coloring Book *
  • ANOHNI – HOPELESSNESS
  • Moodymann – DJ-Kicks *
  • Grimes – Art Angels *
  • Floating Points – Elaenia
  • The Range – Potential *
  • Sepalcure – Folding Time
  • Jamila Woods – HEAVN

Here’s a playlist which includes a couple of more albums if you want to have a listen.

Books I’ve read in 2015

On this final day of the year let’s do some more looking back. The last time I posted books read was in 2011. But that doesn’t mean I stopped reading. On the contrary.

Goodreads tells me I read 36 books in 2015, which was the goal I set myself for this year. I will admit not all of these are big reads. Some are short pamphlets and there is also a comic or two thrown in.

I think I am going to stick with this target for next year and I will also stick with reading widely. A few books were read because of a project at Hubbub for which I felt the need to delve more deeply in the subject matter. This is a good way to stretch intellectually. I also started experimenting with asking people who know me personally what novel I should read next which has led to some delightful discoveries. So I will continue to do that too.

Anyway, here they are in order of date read. Particular favourites are marked with a ❤️. I’ve written short reviews for most of these so I’ve provided links to those too.

Favourite music albums of 2015

Well what do you know, a blog post. Because looking back is the thing people do this time of year and I actually have the luxury of time to look back for a change, I thought I’d compile a list of albums I enjoyed listening to in 2015 that were also released in 2015.

There were quite a few albums I listened to this year that weren’t released in 2015. Those don’t show up here. If you’re curious, there is always Last.fm. Most notably, I discovered The Hold Steady through BEE and got seriously hooked on ‘Boys And Girls In America’. Some of the best rock music made this side of ‘Born in the U.S.A.’, if you ask me.

Anyway, here is a list of the 15 albums from 2015 that I listened to the most, in order of number of plays. A ❤️ denotes a particular favourite. If you want to have a listen, here’s a Spotify playlist.

  1. DJ Koze – DJ Kicks ❤️ (Just a flawless mix of delightful tunes that lift the spirit.)
  2. Blur – The Magic Whip ❤️ (Lyrically interesting, sonically a kind of review or repetition of their whole oeuvre. Atmospherically I think they captured the spirit of the times quite well.)
  3. Tame Impala – Currents (The falsetto gets on my nerves some times, but the opening tracks have an irresistible groove to them.)
  4. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit ❤️ (Strong contender for album of the year. Funny, imaginative lyrics and music that simply rocks.)
  5. Kurt Vile – b’lieve i’m goin down… ❤️ (It is kind of amazing to me how Vile keeps churning out one great record after an other. This is his most optimistic to date.)
  6. Jamie XX – In Colour (There are a few letdowns on this one preventing it to be the kind of dance music album you play on repeat.)
  7. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly (All over the place. I dig the nods to P-Funk.)
  8. Everything Everything – Get To Heaven (I binged on this in July and have hardly listened to it since because of the love hate relationship with the singer’s voice. But this remains delightfully eclectic and energetic.)
  9. Dr. Dre – Compton (Not available on Spotify but I mention it here because I enjoyed the return to uncomplicated west side hiphop it offers.)
  10. Carly Rae Jepsen – Emotion (Obligatory guilty pleasure. Each year I get hooked on one of these female pop stars. This was Carly Rae’s year.)
  11. Miguel – Wildheart (Easily the best R&B album of the year. Versatile, sexy, musically interesting.)
  12. Royal Headache – High (Great throwback to punk that sounds fresh at the same time. Great lyrics.)
  13. Destroyer – Poison Season (Wasn’t so sure about this one until seeing them live (again) at Le Guess Who? and now that I’ve heard the songs live I understand what they’re trying to do here. These songs are meant to sound BIG.)
  14. Deerhunter – Fading Frontier ❤️ (Another album of the year hopeful. Most accessible album of a band that continues to fascinate. Musically and lyrically imaginative and exciting.)
  15. Majical Cloudz – Are You Alone? (I return to this for its intimate atmosphere.)

Honorary mentions:

I should have listened to these more but somehow didn’t. Here they are in no particular order.

  • Lower Dens – Escape From Evil
  • Ought – Sun Coming Down
  • Beach House – Depression Cherry
  • Kelela – Hallucinogen
  • FKA twigs – M3LL155X
  • Ratking – 700 Fill

Books I’ve read in 2009

This is the last list I’ll be posting on stuff from 2009, I promise. After this it’s all about looking forward. I’ve been tracking my reading on aNobii for some time. Here’s a list of the books I’ve found particularly worthwhile, ordered chronologically. My three absolute favorites are marked in bold.

  • Faith in Fakes, Umberto Eco
  • Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
  • Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
  • What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami
  • Black Dogs, Ian McEwan
  • Out of Control, Kevin Kelly
  • Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
  • Game Design Workshop (2nd edition), Tracy Fullerton
  • The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster
  • Fight Club, Chuck Paluhniuk
  • A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
  • The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch
  • Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
  • Underworld, Don DeLillo
  • Rum Punch, Elmore Leonard
  • Digital Ground, Malcolm McCullough
  • The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler

Common themes: cities, complexity, society & the individual, inner & outer space, design.

I’ve been quite picky with what I read last year and will probably continue to do so this year. Many of these have heaps of dog ears and margin notes and its a wonderful feeling to have them sitting in my studio bookshelf, ready to be picked up and used when required.

My year in cities 2009

Last year was thankfully much lower on travel than previous ones. We’re almost a week into 2010, I know, but I still thought it would be worth posting these.1

  • Vancouver
  • Saint Augustine
  • Kuala Lumpur
  • London

One or more nights were spent in each place. All of these were lovely in their own way, but KL’s my favorite of the bunch. Best city for food anywhere on the planet. In case you’re interested, I keep track of these on Dopplr.

  1. As per Kottke and many others. [↩]

Four Things Meme

It’s all Peter’s fault, who in turn was ‘tagged’ by Thomas. At least I’m in good company. :-) Here’s a few silly top four lists (not necessarily definite):

Four Jobs I’ve Had

  1. Second rate paper boy (delivering folders and such) in De Bilt, the Netherlands
  2. Summer job preparing orders of computer hardware in Hilversum, the Netherlands
  3. Freelance interaction designer for Leapfrog, my own company
  4. Interaction designer at Bright Alley Interactive Communication