ITYSKA #7: The Books I Read on May 2022
I read plenty of books on May and I have a good amount to say on them
If you’ve read my last post, you’ll notice that I didn’t have a section on the books I’ve read. There’s a reason for that: I have been reading a lot more than usual. When reading books, I tend to complete two-three books per month. When it came to May, however, I had a lot more time to read more books and I ended up finishing six books this time around. An impressive achievement for me given my changing life circumstances. I could go over how I read books, how I make time for them, and my book preferences, but I’ll save that for a future post. For now, I want to go over what I did read, the stories of how I encountered these books, and what I think of them because I do have a fair amount to say when it comes to the books I read. Here are the books I’ve read in the month of May.
Perelandra by CS Lewis: This is the second book of the Space Trilogy, the first I’ve already heard through audiobook. Despite being the second book in a trilogy, you can easily listen to this without prior knowledge of the previous book. This is no doubt one of Lewis’s best works. It explores morality, good vs. evil, and religious allegory. Heck, the book is surprisingly ahead of its time when it comes to the topic of gender and how we define it. Combined with Lewis’s imagination, creativity, and depth, this is a book worth looking into, even if you’re not a religious person. A fantastic work from CS Lewis.
The Secret History of Donna Tartt: This is a book that I have finished rereading after first reading it last year. It was quite the interesting book to read again. I can see the hints of foreshadowing throughout the novel, the full glimpse and scope of the events that took place, the character motivations, and why certain characters (Bunny in particular) did the actions that they did and it was fun to see when the novel shifted from being super-detailed, giving us information that made the setting and characters more lively even if the details weren’t all that important in the grand scale of things, to switching gears and going all-in on the action, where things happen and the plot moves forward. It’s an incredibly well-paced book as well and I could not stop reading it, I was compelled from beginning to end. I can see the full brilliance of Tartt. I could reread The Goldfinch as well, but that would take me ages to get through. Maybe another time.
How Music Works by David Byrne: David Byrne was the frontman of the Talking Heads, one of the most acclaimed bands of the late 70s-mid 80s. Known for mixing their art school sensibilities with punk, funk, and world music, they are one of the most influential bands out there, with several of their albums ranking high on the greatest albums of all time lists. One of the reasons for their acclaim is their unique and creative David Byrne. If you watch their beloved concert film Stop Making Sense, you’ll see how much of a vibrant, active personality Byrne is on stage. I can’t stress this enough, watch Stop Making Sense if you have not had the chance already, you can see how much of a tour de force Talking Heads were at their prime.
I could go on about Talking Heads, but I’m talking about books. The story with this book is that I randomly found it in the library during one of my long shifts in one of my jobs. I picked up the book and finished it in the span of just a few days. It’s a fascinating look at the creation of music and has a little bit of everything for everyone. It tackles how music shapes culture, how technology shapes music (and culture to a major extent), how artists make money off their creations, and some autobiographical moments where Byrne goes behind the scenes and talks about his time with Talking Heads and his solo work. There’s so much useful information in this book, especially for aspiring musicians and audiophiles. The book is almost a decade old and while he got some predictions in the book wrong (his prediction that the selling of music products, vinyl records, in particular, will be a thing of the past and will never come back is woefully outdated), he did get some predictions right (“Our musical landscape is indeed broadening, as length doesn’t matter anymore: short, long and in-between all coexist”). There are a lot of takeaways to be had from this book and I have to write a summary of this book at some point. It’s a great book for anyone who loves music and wants to learn more about the creative process.
The Essential Ken Wilbur by Ken Wilbur: This is one of two books I found at a local used book store and as soon as I saw it, I immediately snagged it up. I have heard of Ken Wilbur and his work associated with Integral Theory but I have never read any of his works in depth. If you’ve never heard of Integral Theory, well, it’s a philosophy. A philosophy of what, you may ask? *looks directly at the viewer.* Everything! And when I say everything, I do mean everything. He talks about Buddhism, Taoism, Zen Koans, Christianity, Jung, Einstein, metaphysics, neurobiology, consciousness, and so many other ideas. The Essential Ken Wilbur is meant to be an introduction to his ideas, a distillation of his work that takes passages of what he’s written over the years and gives you the main ideas. Reading it feels like I was only seeing the tip of the iceberg. It’s less than 200 pages, yet the subjects discussed are worth dedicating to a thousand pages, perhaps even more. There is so much worth discussing and I feel like I’m only scratching the surface when it comes to Ken Wilbur. I will have to read more of his work in the future. If you’ve got the time and have the brain muscles to do it, you should read along with me, but only if you dare.
Ancient Greece by Thomas R. Martin: This is the other book I got at the local used bookstore. Similar to the Essential Ken Wilbur, it also feels like a distillation of big ideas that fits a whole lot of ideas in around 200 pages. Unlike that book, however, this book takes a broad overview of the civilization of ancient Greece that takes us from the Stone Age all the way to the early Hellenistic Period. The book feels designed for people who are new to Ancient Greece, especially college students, and every word written in this book feels like it has important information about the Ancient Greeks, where they came from, how they were able to build their culture, how they built their economy, how important their beliefs in the Greek Gods came when it came to their civilization, their customs, traditions, art and so much more. It summarizes the key features of Ancient Greece while giving you the opportunity to explore further into this world that feels foreign yet strangely familiar. If you want a crash course into this part of history, this book serves as the perfect gateway.
The Easy Life in Kamusari by Shion Miura: Given how a lot of the books I’ve read above deal with a lot of information and complex topics, I needed what I like to call a “comfort read:” a book that’s not too hard to read and something you read in between the complex, challenging books that wrestle with your mind. I purposefully wanted to read a lightweight book, and this was the perfect kind of lightweight book. This was a book that was available for free online through a sale on Kindle and I immediately downloaded this ebook as soon as I saw the deal. You know those animes where it’s a slice of life and the entire story is meant to focus on the rural parts of Japan? Think that, but in book form and that’s the best way to describe The Easy Life in Kamusari. The story is about a boy named Yuki Hirano who is forced by his parents to go to a forestry training program in a remote mountain village. The stakes are low and the story focuses more on nature and living in an idyllic village untouched by modernism. The story is also pretty knowledgeable when it comes to the forestry industry and how they actually take care of trees there. If you’re looking for a warm, cozy book that’s easy to read but has a lot of depth when it comes to nature, mysticism, and ancient Japanese traditions, this is a great book!
That’s it for all the books that I read in the month of May. As you can imagine, that’s a lot of material that I’ve read. I will talk more about my reading habits in a future post. If you’re interested in following what I’m reading and other interesting content out there online, just subscribe to my Substack. All you have to do is put in your email and press the subscribe button. It costs nothing to subscribe. If you found this post useful, share it with others through all your socials. I also have a Twitter account you can follow right here. Thank you all for reading this, and, as always, stay interesting!