- Lem Stanislaw: Solaris
Lem's 1961 novel about mankind's - and one man's - contact with a sentient ocean on an alien planet is rightly regarded as a masterpiece: moving, funny and, by the end, truly creepy. I read the 1970 translation by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox.
M. John Harrison: Viriconium
Neglected for years by the SF mainstream, Harrison is a giant of British speculative fiction and is enjoying a renaissance, partly thanks to props from Mieville, it should be said. This is arguably his masterpiece: a collection of Gothic tales set in the distant post-apocalyptic future.
Timothy Ferriss: The 4-Hour Work Week
Feriss’ first book is also a call-to-arms, but this time for the would be ‘New Rich’ – not those rich in cash – or stuff – but in time, and life. Nothing less than a challenge to re-think our lives from the ground up.
Timothy Ferriss: The 4-Hour Body
For all the cerebral lit I put in this sidebar, the truth is that the “4HB” has had a more profound effect on me than any book since “Straw Dogs”, albeit for very different reasons! Part health guide, part call-to-arms for the self-testing movement, it’s formidably wide-ranging, immensely well researched and, well, life-changing.
William Gibson: Distrust That Particular Flavor
This is the first anthology of Gibson’s non-fiction, and is the equal of his best fiction (for that matter better than much of it). Essential reading for anyone fascinated by the brilliant weirdness that happen at the intercises of human culture and technology.
Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book)
Early Stephenson, Stephenson finding his feet and it's all here: the brilliantly (and darkly) comic turn of phrase, the astonishing, violent set pieces and yes, the tendency to show off just a tad. Personally I love it, although I maintain that The Diamond Age is his masterpiece.
China Mieville: Embassytown
Mieville's qualified return to form is pure SF; set on a vastly distant planet in a vastly different time, it explores the relationship between human settlers and a host species so alien that it calls into question the nature of language, thought and identity. I have a few minor quibbles, but really, this is virtuoso stuff and I enjoyed every page.
Marguerite Duras: Destroy, She Said
Barely a novel, but not quite a play - although later a film directed by Duras herself - this is an exquisitely lean, constantly threatening portrait of a few days in the life of a quartet of characters who might of might not be insane, in what might or might not be an asylum. Dark, erotic and surreal: a minimalist masterpiece.
M. J. McGrath: White Heat: A Novel
Melanie McGrath's first foray into "genre" - specifically into the thriller - is a triumph. Read my brief review here:
http://tinyurl.com/69zlgzq
Ian McDonald: Brasyl
McDonald's multiversal physics-meets-cyberpunk romp spans three timezones in Brazil, features characters as diverse as a dimension-hopping priest and a disgraced TV producer-turned-capoeira freedom fighter, and a secret cabal controlling... well, I can't tell you, it would spoil things. While not entirely original (Stephenson is a heavy influence), Brasyl is very enjoyable - and captures its milieu beautifully.
Paolo Bacigalupi: The Windup Girl
A much more worthy joint-winner of the Hugo than Mieville's, I felt: a complex, dystopian and darkly violent story of personal and societal desperation and arcane politics set in Bangkok in a post-oil, bio-plague-ravaged world - a context revealed slowly and artfully rather than through clumsy exposition. Plus: my favourite literary codas since Houllbecq's Atomised.
Lewis Hyde: Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership
A history of Intellectual Property law set against the context of the creation of the US Constitution, which somehow avoids the pitfalls of dogmatic side-taking which characterises so much of the debate in this arena, Hyde's latest is essential reading not only for anyone such as me working in the "content industries", but for anyone interested in the place - and value - of ideas and ingenuity in human culture.
Iain M. Banks: Surface Detail
Latest in the "Culture" universe from Banks, and yes, more of the same to some extent: extremely dark violence, a mistreated protagonist caught up in events much bigger than themselves, and of course the internally disputatious, mercurial, contingent but always truly liberal anarchist utopia that is the Culture. But, as ever, it's a tale virtuosically told and for that alone, hugely enjoyable.
Greg Milner: Perfecting Sound Forever
Milner's history of recorded music is absolutely fascinating, tracing not only the straight facts but also the philosophical arguments around phonography's development; engagingly written, deeply researched and convincingly argued.
Steven D. Levitt: SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
More brainy holiday reading from Levitt (and Dubner); doesn't really advance the thesis of its precursor, but it's a rattling read, overturning shibboleths and challenging orthodoxies at every turn. Because, of course, it's all in the data...
China Mieville: Kraken
Further disappointment from Mieville, sad to say. Set in a an alt.London, Kraken has all the problems you'd expect from that: an obsession with pop culture trivia, a certainty that London is the greatest/weirdest city in the world (oh, please) and a need, at every turn, to show off local arcana.
Iain Sinclair-meets-Paul Morley, and I mean that in a bad way.
Joel McIver: The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists
I don't concur with all of McIver's choices, of course, but my metal tastes aren't your standard ones, I guess (Thordendal should be Number 1!!!) But this thoroughly-researched work is essential reading for anyone interested in the hyper-craft of metal guitar playing.
Barry Miles: Zappa: A Biography
I didn't always feel aligned with Miles' take on the genius composer and guitarist while reading this: I think he's coming from something of a 60s rock journo perspective, and he seems out of his depth when it comes to the classical work. Still, it's beautifully researched, nicely written and provides real insight into Zappa's personality, motivations and working methods.
China Mieville: City & the City
Joint winner of the Hugo, I believe, but not sure why. This is Mieville's most disappointing to date, a sloppily-plotted melange of Kafka, Chandler and M. John Harrison, which starts with a great, surreal idea and squanders it. Shades of Banks' equally unsuccessful Transition.
Jaron Lanier: You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto
Why this isn't one of the most talked about books of 2010 I really don't know. I think their are flaws in some of Lanier's thinking - but then he's upfront that he's being a provocatueur here - but his central thesis that Web 2.0 and the increasing flatness of social media is a betrayal of the early web's possibilities is a supremely important one.
Robert Scoble: Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers
A bit "file under work reading" for me this one, but nonetheless an interesting and highly readable account of the impact that blogging is making on business culture.
JARED DIAMOND: COLLAPSE: HOW SOCIETIES CHOOSE TO FAIL OR SURVIVE
Diamon'd survey of the interplay between human activity and ecology and the impact it had on both collapsing (and sometimes surviving) pre-modern modern and contemporary societies is essential reading fro Greens and climate sceptics alike.
DeLillo Don: White Noise
What a funny book. As in laughing-funny. I'm not sure how, not least as this 1984 DL book takes in death-obsession, experimental pharmacology, psychological breakdown, farcical university "teaching", environmental threat, familial dysfunction... and wraps it in DeLillo's usual breathtakingly weird dialogue and beyond-surrealist plotting and mise en scene. And yet, yet... it is genuinely funny, profoundly so. Does anyone understand the sheer weirdness of contemporary society more deeply than DeLillo?
Dan Gardner: Risk: The science of politics and fear
A really important book, I feel. Why are we the safest, longest-living, healthiest human beings in history, but shit scared of everything? In a deeply researched book, journalist Gardner sites our inability to examine risk rationally in evolutionary psychology, then goes on to look at how this is exploited by the media, politicians, the security industry and advertisers. Essential stuff.
Don DeLillo: Falling Man: A Novel
In my recent glut of DeLillo I'd say this is the least successful, especially coming as it did after the shattering Cosmopolis. An examination of the effect of 9/11 on the lives of people wrapped up in it directly, it has the usual virtuosic hallmarks but somehow left me a little cold, and feeling ever so slightly none-the-wiser.
Don DeLillo: Americana
DeLillo's 1971 follows a disillusioned TV exec's travels across middle America and it's all there: the insistence on looking under the surface of quotidian realty, the breath-taking metaphor, the not-quite-surrealism, the casual sex - and casual violence - and that extraordinary dialogue. Boy, was he ever destined for greatness...
Iain Banks: Transition
Marketed with the "M" in the US, Banks' return to the fantastical in his "literary" guise is a real disappointment. Full of the usual righteous anger and brave explorations of violence and belief, but a real mess of a plot, nothing truly original in the alt universes theme and in the end a terrible shaggy dog story. Feels like it needed *a lot* more work.
Steve Knopper: Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age
Interesting and informative, but ultimately little more than an extended article. Read my lengthier review here: http://tiny.cc/YLNKg
Don DeLillo: Great Jones Street
Truly vintage DeLillo (his second?). A burned-out rock star holes up in ravaged downtown New York; the cast of characters who subsequently drift in and out of his life take in drub barons, ultra-violent cultists, entertainment moguls and a brilliant but fucked-up ex-girlfriend. It's a pretty bleak indictment of early 70s pop culture, but at times as funny as hell.
Don DeLillo: The Names
Fairly early DeLillo, but already showing the DeLillo hallmarks: the extraordinary, free-wheeling, poetic prose, the brilliant dialogue, the obsession with language's relationship with reality, all embedded into some kind of thriller: Lawrence Durrell with added murderous cult action.
