2018 FAVORITES

As life continues to happen, this year’s posting ratio again slowed down a bit, but still the reader base keeps expanding if I have to believe WordPress stats. As always, a genuine thank you to everyone who has read, liked, linked or commented. My best wishes for 2019!

I’ve started 31 titles in 2018, a bit more than last year, but I DNFed 4 of those – a bit more than usual as well. I added more art books into the mix, and that trend will probably continue. I tend to read books on art a bit differently than regular fiction, more in small doses, a few pages each time, so it takes me a lot longer to finish them. I’m reading 2 at the moment: the treasure trove that is Nico Dockx Talks To Dennis Tyfus and Metzger & Walther’s Van Gogh, The Complete Paintings – which includes a detailed artistic biography drawing heavily from the letters. I would included both of those in my best of list below if I had finished them this year. Books on James Turrell, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Cy Twombly and Picasso are in the queue.

Anyhow, below are the books I gave a 5-star rating on Goodreads in 2018 – only 5 in total – in no particular order. For starters Blindsight though – which I gave 4 stars, yet I feel it still belongs in my year-end list. Click on the covers for the review.

After the books, music and some television.

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4 SHORT REVIEWS

After I finished the fantastic Version Control, I read the excellent Keith Rowe biography by Brian Olewnick. I might still review that, but it’s a hard review to write for an audience unfamiliar with Rowe’s particular branch of experimental music.

Sadly, after those 2 great books, I’ve hit three I did not even finish. That and the relentless summer heat didn’t really urge me to start writing the reviews. Fortunately, that streak of bad reading luck came to an end, as I’ve also read a great, recent SF novella by Peter Watts, and finished yet another book on Rembrandt.

As the summer drought is still not over, I’ve decided I simply won’t bother trying to write longer, in-depth reviews for these books. I won’t even try to write up Hard To Be A God, the 1964 political allegory by the Strugatsky brothers, and the first book in that row of DNFs. I stopped after only 40 pages, not enough to write something meaningful, except that it was all too obviously allegorical for my tastes. Anyhow, without further ado, here’s those 4 mini-reviews…

2017 FAVORITES

My 2017 posting ratio is about half of what it was last year, as life continues to happen, but the number of readers on Weighing A Pig keeps rising slowly but steadily. A big thank you to everyone who has read, liked, linked or commented. My best wishes for 2018!

I’ve read 29 titles in 2017, and reviewed 26. Below are the ones I gave a 5-star rating on Goodreads, 8 in total, in no particular order. Click on the covers for the review. After the books, music & art.