{"id":6155,"date":"2017-03-01T08:00:49","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T08:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/?p=6155"},"modified":"2017-02-26T21:06:51","modified_gmt":"2017-02-26T21:06:51","slug":"my-january-and-february-2017-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/my-january-and-february-2017-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"My January and February 2017 Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Books<\/h2>\n<p>My leisure &#8216;book&#8217; reading continued to slow over the past couple months, and I haven&#8217;t had as much time for this blog, so I&#8217;m going to roll my January and February reading recap into a single post. Here&#8217;s what I read for pleasure (i.e. not for work or for my dissertation) in January and February of 2017.<\/p>\n<h3>Fiction<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Michel Faber&#8217;s\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Book-Strange-New-Things-Novel\/dp\/0553418866\">The Book of Strange New Things<\/a><\/em>. It was pretty engrossing and I tore through it, but I didn&#8217;t find it much more than a fun, quick, thoughtful read. The big reveal at the end of the book felt a bit too much like a big, fundamental idea that the rest of the book ultimately served as a\u00a0vehicle for. The effect was that the book almost felt as though it had a main\/central idea which could be summarized in a single sentence (I won&#8217;t share it here, because I don&#8217;t want to be a spoiler). This is not typically a good sign for enduring works of fiction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Nonfiction<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Kenneth Cox,\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.floodeditions.com\/cox-art-of-language\">The Art of Language<\/a>: Selected Essays<\/em>, edited by Jenny Penberthy. Great collection of literary criticism\/essays by an eccentric English critic. Excellent essays on Lorine Niedecker, Basil Bunting, Louis Zukofsky, and others.<\/li>\n<li>Pierre Bayard&#8217;s\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read\/dp\/1596915439\">How to Talk About Books You Haven&#8217;t Read<\/a><\/em>. Breezy, smart book that I really savored, until the final chapter and epilogue, when I couldn&#8217;t help writing furious disagreements in the margin. Probably would end up as an FB, + (using the author&#8217;s notational system<span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_6155_1('footnote_plugin_reference_6155_1_1');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_6155_1('footnote_plugin_reference_6155_1_1');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_6155_1_1\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">1<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_6155_1_1\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">UB: book unknown to me; SB: book I have skimmed; HB: book I have heard about; FB: book I have forgotten; ++: extremely positive opinion; +: positive opinion; -: negative opinion; &#8211;: extremely negative opinion<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_6155_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_6155_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script>.<\/li>\n<li>Michael Holt&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kansaspress.ku.edu\/978-0-7006-1787-6.html\"><em>By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876<\/em><\/a>. Nice review of the book <a href=\"https:\/\/allthepresidentsbooks.com\/2014\/01\/21\/by-one-vote-the-disputed-presidential-election-of-1876-by-michael-f-holt\/\">here<\/a>. I also skimmed former Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist&#8217;s\u00a0<em>The Centennial Crisis<\/em> and Roy Morris Jr.&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden and the Stolen Election of 1876<\/em>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/rr\/program\/bib\/elections\/election1876.html\">This election<\/a> was insane, and I knew almost nothing about it. <em>Wild<\/em> times in American electoral history.<\/li>\n<li>Rick Telander&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Heaven-Playground-4th-Rick-Telander\/dp\/1613213948\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Heaven is Playground<\/em><\/a>. Essentially an extended longform piece about a summer the author spent playing basketball and hanging around a city playground in Flatbush during the early\/mid 70s\u00a0featuring Fly Williams (just about to self-destruct) and Albert King (Bernard King&#8217;s little brother and future NBA player, then just about to start high school).<\/li>\n<li>David Bach&#8217;s\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Debt-Free-Life-Financial-Freedom-ebook\/dp\/B003WUYPM4\/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1459303372&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=Debt+Free+For+Life\">Debt Free for Life<\/a><\/em>. I&#8217;ve been helping some friends do some planning for their future, including managing debt, and making savings goals and spending plans. I picked this book up from the library and read it in an evening. The first several chapters are mostly a sales pitch for some credit monitoring product he&#8217;s all jazzed about, the book is largely rah-rah fluff type stuff, but Bach&#8217;s heart is in the right place overall, and there&#8217;s probably 10 pages of really solid content in the book. I did learn about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unclaimed.org\/\">unclaimed.org<\/a>, which is a pretty awesome site.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Poetry<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>George Seferis&#8217;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/titles\/1891.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Collected Poems: 1924-1955<\/em>.<\/a>\u00a0Seferis was a Greek diplomat and poet. I didn&#8217;t know much about him, but I saw him mentioned in an interview Carl Rakosi gave near the end of his life, and then saw the book on the shelf at the public library so picked it up.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Longform Journalism<\/h2>\n<p>I read a lot more journalism this month (slipping back into old habits) in place of books. I wish I would have kept up the book reading, but amidst the thousands of words I read in magazines and newspapers over the last two months, here&#8217;s what stood out to me most as worth reading:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/science-and-health\/2016\/12\/22\/14042506\/steven-pinker-optimistic-future-2016\">Stephen Pinker<\/a> in a Vox interview with Julia Belluz\u00a0addressing the importance of watching baseline trends instead of just spikes and variation (watch the signal, not the noise, basically).<\/li>\n<li>Sabine Heinlein (who wrote a <a href=\"http:\/\/sabineheinlein.org\/book\/\">terrific book<\/a> about men returning to free society after years in prison for murder that I can&#8217;t recommend highly enough) on <a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2016\/11\/29\/truther-love\/?mc_cid=9415904462&amp;mc_eid=9d683fb6e0\">dating among &#8216;Truthers&#8217;<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Connor Kilpatrick <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jacobinmag.com\/2016\/11\/everybody-hates-cornel-west\/\">writing about Cornel West<\/a>\u00a0in Jacobin.<\/li>\n<li>Jason Zweig&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/jasonzweig.com\/a-portrait-of-the-investing-columnist-as-a-very-young-man\/\">A Portrait of the Investing Columnist as a (Very) Young Man<\/a>.&#8221; Much better than you&#8217;d probably guess from the title.<\/li>\n<li>Amia Srinivasan&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lrb.co.uk\/blog\/2017\/01\/06\/amia-srinivasan\/remembering-derek-parfit\/\">Remembering Derek Parfit<\/a>,&#8221; written for the LRB&#8217;s blog shortly after Parfit&#8217;s death on January 1, 2017.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Homer and Harold,&#8221; Ken Armstrong&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarshallproject.org\/2016\/12\/20\/homer-and-harold#.k5hnOUiKb\">moving story of an honorable prosecutor in 1920s Connecticut<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>John Eligon piece on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/12\/22\/us\/chicago-gang-violence.html\">gang-related violence in Chicago<\/a> for the NYT.<\/li>\n<li>Gideon Lewis-Kraus&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/12\/14\/magazine\/the-great-ai-awakening.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">NYT magazine piece on machine learning, A.I.,\u00a0and Google Translate<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Mitch Prothero writing for Buzzfeed about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/mitchprothero\/why-europe-cant-find-the-jihadis-in-its-midst\" target=\"_blank\">the problems European police encounter in investigating IS-affiliated terror cells in Europe<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Christopher Solomon <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/2108066\/real-life-superhero-who-beats-cops-bike-thieves\" target=\"_blank\">writing in Outside Online about &#8220;BIKE BATMAN&#8221;<\/a> and other urban do-gooders trying to recover bikes from thieves.<\/li>\n<li>Carlo Rovelli writing about t<a href=\"https:\/\/aeon.co\/amp\/essays\/is-atomic-theory-the-most-important-idea-in-human-history\" target=\"_blank\">he importance of the idea of the atom<\/a> in <em>aeon<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Kevin Birmingham&#8217;s acceptance talk for the Truman Capote Award\u00a0excoriating<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chronicle.com\/article\/The-Great-Shame-of-Our\/239148\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0the current labor conditions for humanities graduate students and newly minted Ph.D.s<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Nathaniel Rich&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/02\/08\/magazine\/the-preacher-and-the-sheriff.html\" target=\"_blank\">sickening account of abuse and <\/a>racially-destructive policing in New Iberia, Louisiana.<\/li>\n<li>David Bradley&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/article\/2017\/03\/the-omni-american-blues\" target=\"_blank\">review of Albert Murrays&#8217; <em>Collected Essays &amp; Memoirs<\/em><\/a> in First Things.<\/li>\n<li>Evelyn Juers&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/sydneyreviewofbooks.com\/the-invention-of-nature-andrea-wulf-review\/\" target=\"_blank\">review of Andrea Wulf&#8217;s new Alexander von Humboldt biography<\/a> in the Sydnew Review of Books.<\/li>\n<li>Tim Layden <a href=\"http:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/2017\/02\/13\/gregg-popovich-coach-mentor-curt-tong-williams-pomona-pitzer\" target=\"_blank\">writing for Sports Illustrated about Curt Tong<\/a>, a coach and athletic director who had an outsized human impact on both the author and prominent NBA coach Gregg Popovich.<\/li>\n<li>Richard Grant writing in the Smithsonian on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/history\/deep-swamps-archaeologists-fugitive-slaves-kept-freedom-180960122\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Sayers&#8217; archaeological work shedding light on a mostly-hidden refuge for escaped slaves in the Great Dismal Swamp<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Amanda Petrusich&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxfordamerican.org\/magazine\/item\/1066-sweet-bitter-blues\" target=\"_blank\">extended reflections on Tokyo&#8217;s love affair with blues music<\/a>\u00a0in <em>Oxford American<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/14\/the-red-of-painters\/\" target=\"_blank\">excerpt from Michel Pastoureau&#8217;s latest book on color<\/a> (RED!!!) in\u00a0<em>The Paris Review<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><small>Featured image by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/65378423@N08\/14153958438\" target=\"_blank\">Rob Hurson<\/a> <a title=\"Attribution-ShareAlike License\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-inject\/images\/cc.png?ssl=1\" \/><\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<div class=\"speaker-mute footnotes_reference_container\"> <div class=\"footnote_container_prepare\"><p><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_label pointer\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_6155_1();\">References<\/span><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\" style=\"display: none;\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_6155_1();\">[<a id=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_6155_1\">+<\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/div> <div id=\"footnote_references_container_6155_1\" style=\"\"><table class=\"footnotes_table footnote-reference-container\"><caption class=\"accessibility\">References<\/caption> <tbody> \r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_6155_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_6155_1_1');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_6155_1_1\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>1<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">UB: book unknown to me; SB: book I have skimmed; HB: book I have heard about; FB: book I have forgotten; ++: extremely positive opinion; +: positive opinion; -: negative opinion; &#8211;: extremely negative opinion<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n <\/tbody> <\/table> <\/div><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function footnote_expand_reference_container_6155_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_6155_1').show(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_6155_1').text('\u2212'); } function footnote_collapse_reference_container_6155_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_6155_1').hide(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_6155_1').text('+'); } function footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_6155_1() { if (jQuery('#footnote_references_container_6155_1').is(':hidden')) { footnote_expand_reference_container_6155_1(); } else { footnote_collapse_reference_container_6155_1(); } } function footnote_moveToReference_6155_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_6155_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } } function footnote_moveToAnchor_6155_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_6155_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } }<\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Books My leisure &#8216;book&#8217; reading continued to slow over the past couple months, and I haven&#8217;t had as much time for this blog, so I&#8217;m going to roll my January and February reading recap into a single post. Here&#8217;s what I read for pleasure (i.e. not for work or for my dissertation) in January and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6162,"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New blog post: \"My January and February 2017 Reading\"","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}},"categories":[2,19],"tags":[16,17,18],"class_list":["post-6155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reading","tag-books","tag-literature","tag-reading"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/14153958438_d3b3869add_k.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\/2017\/03\/14153958438_d3b3869add_k.jpg?fit=1100%2C717&ssl=1","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/14153958438_d3b3869add_k.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd6z5D-1Bh","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6198,"url":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/my-june-2017-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":6155,"position":0},"title":"My June 2017 Reading","author":"Steel Wagstaff","date":"July 3, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Books The good news? I read a lot for my dissertation in June 2017. Even better news? Much of it was pleasurable (at least for me)--a lot of \"Objectivist\" poetry, biographical material on Williams and Zukofsky, and histories of late 1920s-early 1930s little magazines. I won't list any of it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;What I'm Reading&quot;","block_context":{"text":"What I'm Reading","link":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/category\/reading\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"boy reading in garden","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/8515538001_4a12feab52_k.jpg?fit=1022%2C688&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/8515538001_4a12feab52_k.jpg?fit=1022%2C688&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/8515538001_4a12feab52_k.jpg?fit=1022%2C688&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/8515538001_4a12feab52_k.jpg?fit=1022%2C688&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6188,"url":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/my-april-2017-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":6155,"position":1},"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!!!). Here's some of what I read last month for pleasure.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;What I'm Reading&quot;","block_context":{"text":"What I'm Reading","link":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/category\/reading\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Dead moles on a fence in Yorkshire.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2464682583_75238b8f03_b_moles-yorkshire.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2464682583_75238b8f03_b_moles-yorkshire.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2464682583_75238b8f03_b_moles-yorkshire.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2464682583_75238b8f03_b_moles-yorkshire.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6298,"url":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/my-october-and-november-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":6155,"position":2},"title":"My October and November Reading","author":"Steel Wagstaff","date":"November 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In my last reading update, I mentioned that I had read the first book in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. Since then, apart from reading for my dissertation, that's pretty much\u00a0all\u00a0I've read. I just finished\u00a0The Yellow Admiral, which means that I've read 18 of the 21 books (one left unfinished at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bollard, Photos by Clark","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/35332790134_ebb6938e70_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/35332790134_ebb6938e70_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/35332790134_ebb6938e70_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/35332790134_ebb6938e70_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/35332790134_ebb6938e70_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6078,"url":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/my-november-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":6155,"position":3},"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. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;What I'm Reading&quot;","block_context":{"text":"What I'm Reading","link":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/category\/reading\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Books","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/liwf2uhxs0q-annie-spratt.jpg?fit=1200%2C704&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/liwf2uhxs0q-annie-spratt.jpg?fit=1200%2C704&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/liwf2uhxs0q-annie-spratt.jpg?fit=1200%2C704&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/liwf2uhxs0q-annie-spratt.jpg?fit=1200%2C704&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/liwf2uhxs0q-annie-spratt.jpg?fit=1200%2C704&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6117,"url":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/my-december-2016-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":6155,"position":4},"title":"My December 2016 Reading","author":"Steel Wagstaff","date":"January 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Books As the year limped its way to a close, I tried to keep up my torrid reading pace. I slowed down considerably from my October\/November frenzy, and spent a lot more of my free time reading and writing on dissertation related topics (hi, Objectivist poets!) but still managed to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;What I'm Reading&quot;","block_context":{"text":"What I'm Reading","link":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/category\/reading\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6310,"url":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/2017-my-year-in-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":6155,"position":5},"title":"2017: My Year in Reading","author":"Steel Wagstaff","date":"January 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the first year that I've really made an effort to keep track of my leisure reading. One of my goals for the year was to read less internet-based news and more books, and I think I was more or less successful, though some months were better for reading\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/8703997248_274eea3496_k-e1515010915522.jpg?fit=1196%2C735&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/8703997248_274eea3496_k-e1515010915522.jpg?fit=1196%2C735&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/8703997248_274eea3496_k-e1515010915522.jpg?fit=1196%2C735&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/8703997248_274eea3496_k-e1515010915522.jpg?fit=1196%2C735&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/8703997248_274eea3496_k-e1515010915522.jpg?fit=1196%2C735&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6155"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6164,"href":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6155\/revisions\/6164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}