I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN (JANUARY 2013 EDITION)

I came up with the title for this series because I don’t consider myself a fast reader – especially when some of you are racking up something like 80 to 100+ books a year. And my “to read” pile never seems to get any smaller, though I do take into account the fact that I buy a lot of books on the road, and I am a fool for book sales and book fairs.

So I tallied up this series to see just how fast I am reading.

Apparently I read 61 books in 2012. If you don’t count graphic novels, I read 55.

Including these!

JUST FINISHED 

Faking It: The Quest For Authenticity In Popular Music, by Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor

I don't often take book recommendations from Jack White. But when he name-dropped this book (which explores the importance that music fans place on authenticity in music, be it punk, indie, blues, country or world music) in a recent interview, I decided to check it out. The book’s basic thesis is this: the demand by fans for music artists to be "authentic" – write yr own songs, keep it real, no fake plastic corporate rock, etc – is at odds with the fact that most music we think of as authentic started as anything but. In reality, a lot of “authentic” music is the creation of major-label target marketing, many “authentic” artists didn’t write their own songs, and authenticity is not always synonymous with quality.

The argument gets muddled in places, and one big hole for me is the authors’ assumed definition of authenticity – one thing they miss is that for many music fans, authenticity isn’t about writing yr own music or literally singing yr life about so much as staying true to yr own artistic vision, whatever it may be, and not changing it for the sake of selling more records. Still, even though I disagreed with some of their reasoning, other parts are dead on. I’d recommend this for any music fan – especially the ones hung up on authenticity as a mandatory criteria for good music – just to challenge their assumptions of what “authentic” music is or is not.

JUST STARTED

The Quantum Thief, by Hannu Rajaniemi

High-concept hard SF and the debut novel from Hannu Rajaniemi. The basic pitch seems to be: It’s Lupin The Gentleman Thief vs Schrodinger’s Cat. Charles Stross is a fan, so I figured I’d give it a try.

( RECENT TITLES: Deighton! Greene! Spinrad! Kurkov! )

PRODUCTION NOTE: By the way, I’ve recently joined Good Reads, which looks like a potentially good way to track and rate books, as well as come up with an organized way to queue up books for future reading. If yr on there as well, feel free to ping me.

Pedaling faster,

This is dF