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mrjeremydylan · 6 years

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What I read in 2017

After spending my friendless teen years devouring paperback novels at a rate of six or seven a week, the encroachment of my social life (and the accompanying hangovers) and my self-inflicted relentless work schedule all but killed my book reading. Last year I maybe read three or four books in the entire year - another ingredient in the melange of bad life choices and mental health decline that made 2016 my low point.

One of the lies I told myself was that I didn’t have time to read books - once I awoke, checked my emails and dived into the day’s busy work, taking time out to read was not a practical idea. Part of my resolutions for this year was establishing a morning routine to give my life some stability, and to solve my reading problem. If I didn’t have time during the meat of my day, I would simply create more time. So now I wake up half an hour earlier, and before I do anything else - eat breakfast, brush my teeth, shower, check Instagram, etc - I read for thirty minutes.

These are the books I read this year, in chronological order. I’m averaging a bit under two books a month, which feels like a good pace to maintain.

Note: I read the Franken and Halperin books in the first half of the year...

She Bop: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop & Soul by Lucy O’Brien

Sound Man by Glyn Johns

The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

Supergods by Grant Morrison

Panic by David Marr

Al Franken: Giant of the Senate by Al Franken

The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Wheldon

Double Down: Game Change 2012 by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann

Love Me Do: The Beatles Progress by Michael Braun

Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman

Chronicle by Bob Dylan

Your Favorite Band is Killing Me by Steven Hyden

Johnny’s Cash and Charley’s Pride by Peter Cooper

Petty: the Biography by Warren Zanes

33 & 1/3: Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces by Franklin Bruno

Set the Boy Free by Johnny Marr

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

The Many Lives of Bob Dylan by Ian Bell

Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss

How Music Works by David Byrne (reread)

Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine by Joe Hagan

Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss

Currently reading - Morrissey’s Autobiography, which is gorgeously written but the prose is so rich it’s like eating an endless cheesecake.

Tweet me your book recommendations for the new year. I have a vast ‘to read’ list, but I’m always eager to add to it.

#books #books i've read #rock books #mental health

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bethofbells · 7 years

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I saw your post about binge listening podcasts. What kind of podcast do you listen to? I love podcasts put I don't know many, can you recommend some? What app do you use? I use Sticher and Soundcloud.

I use iTunes (although most of these are available on other podcast apps like stitcher I believe)

The Moth - live storytelling recorded at moth events (which are hugely popular). People who go to moth events and want to tell a story put their name in a drawing and anyone whose name is drawn gets to tell their story on stage. The producers collect the ones they like for the podcast. Occasionally famous people attend the events. Very Good.

Snap Judgement - story telling with a beat. The host is funny (although I tend to ff through his mini stories at the beginning of each episode bc he’s soooo dramatic) highly produced with a cool score for each story, fascinating stories from all kinds of people.

RIsk! - mostly not safe for work stories, coming from a super diverse bevy of storytellers. It’s kind of like the moth with stories told in stage at live shows, only frequently the stories are filthy (in a good way) usually funny although sometimes heartbreaking. Again, very good.

Invisibilia - it’s an interesting one although there aren’t that many episodes, it’s sort of a (little) sister podcast for This American Life

Serial - well I’m sure you’ve heard of these one. There are two separate seasons so far, each season combing through the most minute details of a legal case making an honest effort to figure out what is the truth. First season is about the Hae Min Lee (Adnan Syed) murder case and the second season is about the Bo Berghdal military desertion case. Fascinating but it’s not one you can listen to half heartedly, they take a lot of focus.

Radiolab - one of my FAVES. Two charming hosts who have been in radio forever (Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich) take recent discoveries in science and dive into them, testing theories and talking to leading researchers with an infectious lilt of joy and amusement. (“La Mancha Screwjob” is a good episode)

This American Life - HIGHLY produced NPR podcast that is basically just a really good radio show. Great episode is “Abdi and the Golden Ticket.”

TED radio hour - various TED talks with connecting themes are compiled into episodes, and expounded upon with further interviews. “Extrasensory” is a great episode.

Ask me another - weekly competitive quiz show, lots of wordplay, fun to play alongWait wait don’t tell me - sort of like a quiz show, with various NPR level comedians (does that make sense?) playing, only the questions mostly have to do with news stories from the past week. Mo Rocca and Alonso Boden used to be on it a lot but I haven’t listened in a while.)

Fresh Air - terry gross interviews people who have books or movies or whatever to promote. She is a veeeeery good interviewer.

Love and Radio - odd stories that leave you feeling like you need to know more, occasionally nsfw. The Living Room is a great introductory episode.

Harmontown - Dan Harmon rants and is funny and tries to learn from his frequent social faux pas… there is an unfortunate amount of impromptu comedy rapping as he progressively gets more drunk throughout the show. It’s in front of a live audience at Meltdown comics (so it’s usually a small crowd of people who frequently attend tapings) and he has two usual cohosts and frequently pulls people from the audience and has real sincere conversations with them. He used to play shadowrun with his cohosts at the end of each episode but I think he’s stopped doing that (I usually just skipped it)

WTF (Marc maron) - Marc is such an engaging interviewer. If I were you I would go through his available podcast list and listen to any that have people you like as guests

You Made It Weird (Pete Holmes) - interview show, frequently with comedians etc. However Pete is VERY into philosophy and eastern religions and anything and everything that could expand the mind. So the conversations often go places that you wouldn’t expect. It’s kind of hit or miss for me sometimes, but there have been a good number of episodes that I’ve enjoyed. Bo Burnham’s episode is very good.

My Favorite Murder - Might as well be called “Beth’s favorite podcast” because it is. Georgia and Karen are sooooo funny and relatable to me. They each pick a murder and tell the other one all about it, without telling each other what the murder is beforehand. They are EXTREMELY sensitive when talking about the victims etc and they do not romanticize murder at all. Occasionally they say things that are unwittingly offensive but almost always apologize in the following episodes. I suggest listening from the beginning. I’m so sad now that I have to wait for episodes to post 😭

Unsolved Murders (radio theater) - kind of cheesy sometimes, the actors are a little campy and the stories sometimes seem too short, but I like to listen to it now and then.

True Crime Garage - two guys sit in a garage and drink beer and talk about crime cases that they have thoroughly researched. It’s kind of a Heart and Head duo, with “The Captain” as the heart and Nic as the head, they compliment each other. The captain occasionally says dumb things but Nic usually reigns him in, and there’s one episode that actually made me a little annoyed with the captain, but he literally took the time to apologize in the next episode and talk about all the emails he got, and he gained a lot of perspective. I respect people who are able to admit when they are wrong.

Criminal - soothing-voiced host talks about various criminal cases from over the years, and not necessarily in the way you would imagine. Shorter episodes. Highly recommend.

The Mortified Podcast - people read their often hilarious childhood journals on stage in front of a lot of other people. Amusing.

Doug Loves Movies (only the episodes Jacob Sirof is NOT on) - live podcast, movie quiz show hosted by Doug Benson, very amusing. I suggest any episodes that have Geoff Tate as a guest.

I was there too - some guy interviews people who had lesser or bit parts in classic movies. Kind of cool.

How did this get made? - three comedians (and sometimes a guest) all watch an awful movie and then walk you through all of the most ridiculous parts of said movie (Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas)

Pop Rocket - Comedian Guy Brannum hosts a weekly podcast about pop culture, light listen, Guy is charming and funny)

Pop Culture Happy Hour - not as much of a fan as I used to be (burned out) but Glen Wheldon is one of the panel and he’s one of the funniest people ever and he adores comics and is pithy and scathingly hilarious)

Getting Doug with High (only the live episodes bc the regular ones seem line one loooong commercial for his sponsors, but basically people get high together and hang out)

Honesty I’m looking for interesting true crime podcasts or unique comedy podcasts. I would LOVE to listen to more that have only female hosts (most comedy podcasts are a total boy’s club and it gets REEEEEAL old). I used to love story telling ones but I burnt myself out on them listening to three a week. I need something I can binge, so podcasts that only make a certain number of episodes available at a time are not my cup of tea.

#beth listens to podcasts

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recentanimenews · 6 years

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Manga Maven Gets the Eisner Blues

Bookmark this! Morgana Santilli, a.k.a. The Manga Maven, recently launched her own website, a place where she posts book reviews and reflections on the state of manga retail. Her latest article focuses on the 2018 Eisner nominations, which she aptly characterizes as “appealing to people who can’t figure out manga.” Though the nominees “are all very deserving,” she argues that the Eisner committee favors books that are “high-brow” or “packaged as prestige books, many from publishers that don’t deal exclusively with manga” over titles that appeal to manga readers. From her point of view — as someone who manages a comic book store — this bias presents a unique problem: she can’t convert an Eisner nod into sales, even for historically important or truly deserving artists:

My quarrel is that the Eisner committee continually ignores what the manga-reading community cares most about, and it tries to frame the more “worthy” manga as being literary, or by a creator who is so far removed from what the majority of readers are enjoying. Jiro Taniguchi is great, but he’s dead now, and his work is almost impossible for me to sell to the kids coming in for the latest volume of My Hero Academia. There is an implication here that manga is only worthwhile if it meets certain criteria; it’s much the same attitude that people who insist on a difference between “comics” and “graphic novels” have. It’s pretension.

She also points out that female creators have been largely overlooked this year, with only Moto Hagio’s Otherworld Barbara getting a nod from the judges — an astonishing oversight, considering the phenomenal success of Nagata Kabi’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, a rare example of a manga that made bank and garnered praise from critics around the web.

COMICS AND MANGA LINKS

Manga lovers aren’t the only ones who are disappointed in this year’s Eisner nominees. C.P. Hoffman argues that it’s time for the Eisners to recognize that the comics journalism landscape has changed dramatically in the internet era, and make some meaningful changes to the way the category is conceptualized. “It’s not that the nominees are bad,” she observes, noting that each has “a history of publishing excellent work.” The problem, as she sees it, is that “the nominees all represented a single strain of comics writing, a strain that all-too-often has been presented as the only legitimate, the only serious comics criticism.” [Women Write About Comics]

Jason Guerrisano interviews Robert Rodriguez (director) and Jon Landau (producer) about their forthcoming adaptation of Battle Angel Alita, which arrives in movie theaters just before Christmas. [Business Insider]

Brigid Alverson sifts through May’s new manga, declaring The Bride Was a Boy and Golosseum among the month’s most promising debuts. [B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog]

The March 2018 NPD Bookscan numbers are in, and VIZ’s Shonen Jump is king — at least at bookstores around the country. My Hero Academia, One-Punch Man, Tokyo Ghoul, and Boruto: Naruto Next Generations all posted strong sales in March, as did perennial favorites such as The Legend of Zelda. Only two other publishers were represented in the top twenty: Seven Seas, with volume 13 of Monster Masume, and Kodansha Comics, with volume 2 of Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card. [ICv2]

Psssst… Saturday is Free Comic Book Day 2018. NPR’s Glen Wheldon has posted a hilarious and helpful guide to all the giveaways, from Sparks to My Hero Academia. As an added bonus, he’s organized his list by rating, making it easier for parents to steer younger readers towards age-appropriate content. [Monkey See]

By: Katherine Dacey

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

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meltingpotpopculture-blog · 7 years

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#OnlyDiverseBooks2016

The books I read in 2016 were

“Fledgling” by Octavia E. Butler

“Maya’s Notebook” by Isbelle Allende

“Carry On” by Rainbow Rowell

“Modern Romance” by Aziz Ansari

“The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture” by Glen Wheldon

“Changing Faces” by Kimberla Lawson Roby

“Reboot” and “Rebel” by Amy Tintera

The Agency Series by Y.S. Lee

“I am an Executioner: Love Stories” by Rajesh Parameswaran

“The Wordy Shipmates” by Sarah Vowell

#OnlyDiverseBooks2016 MeltingPotPopCulture WeNeedDiverseBooks

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recentanimenews · 7 years

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“It Gets Good in Volume Two”

New York Times critic James Poniewozik recently posted an essay on a quintessential problem facing television viewers: the show that takes 10 or 20 episodes to find its footing. Should you start watching from the beginning — as some critics would urge you to do — or is it OK to skip ahead to the section where the characters, premise, and plot finally gel into something compelling?

This question has obvious implications for manga readers, since many series’ debut volumes are plodding, incoherent, or so focused on laying the groundwork for developments in chapter 30 that they’re a chore to read. Poniewozik gives his blessing to folks who want to get to the good stuff, noting the degree to which television shows evolve in response to viewer and critical feedback. “TV is an improvisatory art,” he notes, arguing that it’s “misleading to treat most series, even the greats, like fully formed wholes set down according to careful design.” So if you’ve heard that the first volume of From Eroica With Love is a dud, you have a Times critic’s blessing to start with volume two ad skip over the storyline about telepathic teens with terrible names.

MANGA, ANIME, AND JAPANESE POP CULTURE

Tokyo Ghoul, The Legend of Zelda, My Hero Academia, and My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness all made strong showings on the June 2017 BookScan Top 20 Adult Graphic Fiction chart, as did Rep. John Lewis’ March: Book One and Greg Rucka’s Wonder Woman. [ICv2]

Alex Wong interviews cartoonist Hellen Jo about translating Yeon-sik Hong’s Uncomfortably Happily for Drawn & Quarterly. “Each language is a system of words, connotations, innuendo, context, unspoken intentions, and none of it is exactly equal to its foreign counterparts,” she explains. “I think a good translation is mindful of that fact, and tries to re-interpret the intent behind the words for the new audience. I may not have been able to provide an exact translation, because an exact translation cannot truly exist, but I did my best to bring the intention and meaning and context of each and every page to the English reader.” [The Comics Journal]

Why do local comic stores have so much difficulty connecting with manga readers? That’s the question Deb Aoki asked Twitter users last week. She then compiled her conversations with fans, critics, creators, and shop owners into a lengthy, fascinating article. [Manga Comics Manga]

VIZ revealed its publishing plans for early 2018. Joining the company’s roster are Fire Punch, a fantasy series set during an ice age, and Kenka Bancho Otome: Girl Beat Boys, a gender-bending shojo comedy based on a popular video game. VIZ will also be publishing a new, deluxe edition of perennial fave Fullmetal Alchemist. [VIZ Media]

Not to be outdone, Seven Seas announced the acquisition of 10 new manga and light novel titles, including the latest chapter in the orange saga. [Seven Seas]

Erica Friedman tackles volume two of CLAMP’s latest work, Card Captor Sakura, Clear Card Arc. [Okazu]

Hey, Yen Press, why not license Ryoko Kui’s Seven Little Songs of the Dragon? That cover is gorgeous! [Twitter]

In case you missed it: Zac Bertschy and Dawn (hostess of the Anime Nostalgia Podcast) devote the latest ANNCast to “titan of manga” Rumiko Takahashi. [Anime News Network]

Here’s a list of seven manga characters with heterochromia. [Women Write About Comics]

Martin de la Iglesia dives into the world of anime voice acting with a look at voice actors who became idols in their own right. [The 650-Cent Plague]

Speaking of anime, the writers of Anime Feminist have just compiled their list of the spring’s best TV series, from “problematic favorites” like Attack on Titan to “feminist friendly favorites” like The Eccentric Family. [Anime Feminist]

COMICS

These images of Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira have vaulted Black Panther to the top of my 2018 must-see movie list. [Geeks of Color]

Over at NPR, Glen Wheldon and Petra Mayer compile a list of the 100 Best Comics and Graphic Novels. On the whole, their taste is pretty catholic; it’s hard to argue with the inclusion of Watchmen and One Piece. My only complaint is that the categories are a little reductive. I’m not sure why The Color of Earth trilogy is a “graphic novel” and AKIRA isn’t, or why none of the manga titles are listed under “serialized comics.” Still, the list offers something for everyone — a welcome acknowledgment of just how diverse comic readership really is. [NPR]

Wheldon also compiled a list of 10 Comics That Changed the Game, a decade-by-decade survey of influential titles from Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy to Will Eisner’s A Contract with God. [NPR]

Noah Berlatsky explores the fraught issue of representation in pop culture, using recent controversies over Wonder Woman and Iron Fist as a jumping-off point. [Los Angeles Times]

By: Katherine Dacey

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

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