{"id":4846,"date":"2016-09-13T21:42:11","date_gmt":"2016-09-13T21:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelwagstaff.com\/?p=4846"},"modified":"2016-10-14T20:23:10","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T20:23:10","slug":"reading-recommendations-friends-september-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/reading-recommendations-friends-september-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Recommendations from Friends [September 2016]"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been on a reading kick lately and I decided to crowdsource some recommendations to some friends on social media earlier this week. The question I posed was simple: “Knowing me as you do, what would you recommend I read next? One rule: no fiction, unless it’s life changing or the best thing you’ve ever read.” I got all kinds of great suggestions, so I thought I’d put a semi-permanent post up here to keep track of them all, and to have a place for interested friends from the thread to see all of them in one place.<\/p>\n

Reading Recommendations from Friends<\/h3>\n

Here’s the list of suggestions I got\u00a0from friends\u00a0(last names removed for privacy):<\/p>\n

Charly<\/strong>: Social<\/em><\/a> by Matthew Lieberman was accessible but not dumbed down. Breakthroughs in social neuroscience.<\/p>\n

Christina:<\/strong> Unconditional Parenting<\/em><\/a> by Alfie Kohn and Dumbing Us Down:\u00a0<\/a>The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling\u00a0<\/span><\/em>by John Taylor Gatto [my response:<\/span>\u00a0The other book I’m excited to read on this topic is Alison Gopnik’s brand new book about children and parents, The Gardner and the Carpenter<\/em><\/a>]<\/p>\n

Keith:<\/strong>\u00a0Three I’ve loved lately: Tough Trip Through Paradise<\/em><\/a> by Andrew\u00a0Garcia, Northern Seas,\u00a0Hardy Sailors<\/em> <\/a>by George\u00a0Whitely and Journal of a Trapper<\/em><\/a> by Osborne\u00a0Russell. Travels in Alaska<\/em><\/a> by John Muir is an all time favorite–good luck!<\/p>\n

Brendon:<\/strong> Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory<\/em><\/a> by Caitlin Doughty
\nMargene<\/strong>: OOOH I love this one as well. If you haven’t read Stiff<\/em><\/a> by Mary Roach you’ll like it.<\/p>\n

Monika:<\/strong> The Warmth of Other Suns<\/em><\/a> by Isabel Wilkerson was at times shocking, occasionally repetitive, but completely fascinating. When Breath Becomes Air<\/em><\/a> by Paul Kalanithi was sad and hopeful. It’s a quick read and worth the sadness.<\/p>\n

Kevin:<\/strong> 1) Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic<\/a><\/em> and 2) The Anthropology of Childhood<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Alex:<\/strong> You up for a music biography? Nick Cave:\u00a0Bad Seed<\/em><\/a> is just wonderful<\/p>\n

Jim: <\/strong>Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City<\/em><\/a> by Matthew Desmond.\u00a0It’s a masterpiece, Steel. Outstanding research and insights. It turns the traditional notion that poverty causes homelessness on its head. The author argues and documents quite persuasively that homelessness, especially when forced through eviction, actually causes poverty. I strongly recommend it.
\nDee<\/strong>: That’s what I was going to recommend, Steel. Eviction<\/em> is both from the heart and from the head. Brilliant read.<\/p>\n

Margene:<\/strong>\u00a0I really like White Trash: The 400-year untold history of class in America<\/em><\/a>; Stoned: Jewelry, Obsession, and how Desire shapes the world<\/em><\/a>; Breasts: A natural and unnatural history<\/em><\/a>; The Disappearing Spoon<\/em><\/a>; Better: A surgeon’s notes on performance<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Justin:<\/strong> Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune<\/em><\/a>, Kristin Ross. Really cool reassessment of the commune in the light of 2011’s uprisings.<\/p>\n

Laura:<\/strong> Anand Gopal’s No Good Men Among the Living<\/em><\/a> stands for me as one of the most devastating, beautiful and important pieces of nonfiction of our time. I’ve read other extraordinary things lately, but nothing touches it. It is painful to know how illuminating this book is and how few people will read it.<\/p>\n

Lauren:<\/strong> Far From the Tree<\/em><\/a> by Andrew Solomon. I love this book, it’s amazing and I can’t recommend it enough (also a good value at almost 1000 pages!)<\/p>\n

Courtney:<\/strong>\u00a0I started reading Black Skin, White Masks<\/em><\/a> last week and have been wondering where I would find a forum for bragging about that fact since.<\/p>\n

Jacquelyn:<\/strong> H is for Hawk<\/em><\/a>, by Helen MacDonald. I am enjoying Ed Yong’s I Contain Multitudes<\/em><\/a> right now.<\/p>\n

Beth:<\/strong> Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter<\/em><\/a>. And…\u00a0Voluntary Madness: Lost and Found in the Mental Healthcare System<\/em><\/a>. Excellent reads.<\/p>\n

Sarah:<\/strong> Reread The\u00a0Year of Magical Thinking<\/em><\/a> three weeks ago — think I’ve almost recovered. Also liked The\u00a0Emperor of All Maladies<\/em><\/a>, a history of cancer.<\/p>\n

\n

What I’ve Read Most Recently<\/h3>\n

For those who are curious, here’s a list of what I’ve read so far this month:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Yuval Noah Harari’s\u00a0Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Michael Lewis’s\u00a0The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Maggie Nelson’s\u00a0The Argonauts<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Rebecca Solnit’s\u00a0Men Explain Things to<\/a> Me<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n
  5. Lawrence Wright’s\u00a0Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n
  6. Howard Norman’s\u00a0I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n
  7. David Winner’s\u00a0Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n
  8. Roy Fisher’s The Long and Short of It: Poems 1955-2010<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(not all of it, yet, but a fair chunk of the book)<\/li>\n
  9. Don Share’s new edition of The Poems of Basil Bunting<\/a><\/em>)<\/li>\n
  10. Calvin Trillin’s\u00a0Jackson, 1964: and Other Dispatches from Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Featured image:\u00a0Detroit Public Library<\/a> by Jason Mrachina<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’ve been on a reading kick lately and I decided to crowdsource some recommendations to some friends on social media earlier this week. The question I posed was simple: “Knowing me as you do, what would you recommend I read next? One rule: no fiction, unless it’s life changing or the best thing you’ve ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Reading Recommendations from Friends [September 2016]","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[16,17,18],"class_list":["post-4846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reading","tag-books","tag-literature","tag-reading"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/7318346230_e81850a5a6_k-1.jpg?resize=600%2C400&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Steel Wagstaff","author_link":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/author\/steel\/"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/7318346230_e81850a5a6_k-1.jpg?fit=1000%2C845&ssl=1","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/7318346230_e81850a5a6_k-1.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd6z5D-1ga","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6078,"url":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/my-november-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":4846,"position":0},"title":"My November 2016 Reading","author":"Steel Wagstaff","date":"December 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Books My reading pace slowed a bit in November (the US elections and their sad aftermath have provided me with lots of avenues for distraction and worry), but I still managed to keep up my love affair with books, though I picked a fair amount of duds this month. 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It's a small group, just 14 male students, and most of the group are football players. For their second writing assignment, I gave them an essay that I wrote was I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6188,"url":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/my-april-2017-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":4846,"position":4},"title":"My April 2017 Reading","author":"Steel Wagstaff","date":"May 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Books My leisure reading of books slowed down a bit in April, as I continued getting sucked into lots more longform than I had intended and, on a happier note, did a lot more reading for my dissertation (good news!!!). 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