The Year in Reading: 2022

 

Although this blog is about the books I read, what can often happen is the things going on in your life can have a strong influence on what you end up reading. This year was eventful and life changing. I began it pretty much crippled by a right hip that needed replacing. I ended up having nine weeks off of work and had the surgery in May. This meant that I've read less book club books this year, which also meant I got around to reading some books I had been meaning to read for a while, such as The Little Friend by Donna Tartt (2002), which is my book of the year. I read Mars by 1980 by David Stubbs (2018) during this period as well, which meant that I had time to listen to the weird early electronic music referenced by the book. It really helped me get through the recovery period, as did reading Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman (2020), which, for obvious reasons, was really appropriate. 

Donna Tartt - responsible for the read of the year

I'm pleased to have finally read some Philip Roth (Sabbath's Theater  - 1995), and the Alan Garner novel I'd been carrying around from move to move since 1980 (Red Shift - 1973). Some of these were fitted around and during two great holidays post hip replacement, including a cruise off the Kimberley coast, which was a life-changing experience. Weirdly this was were I finished reading Sabbath's Theater! Reading is also somewhere you can take solace, and it helped enormously during the aftermath of my mother's death at the end of October. Appropriately by the time that had happened I'd finished Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (2021), which thematically was mainly about her mother's death. Strangely even reading The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart (1971) helped in this regard, perhaps because it was so irreverent. As usual I wished that I'd read more, but there was a lot going on. As always there's the worst book of the year, and that prize goes to Something to Hide by Elizabeth George (2022), which I could not even get half way through. By default it was also the worst book club book, the best being Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen (2021), which featured the usual Franzen qualities we know and love. So, onto next year, onwards and upwards - ever upwards forever in fact!

Mars by 1980: The Story of Electronic Music - David Stubbs (2018)

 

Rating: Excellent

Mars by 1980 has been my book to read as I've been recovering from a hip replacement, and it's been exactly the right choice (you get good at this as you get older...). It's fascinating and well written, but not too demanding when the ability to concentrate is compromised. I do know and love a reasonable amount of electronic music, but this book has filled in many gaps in an engaging and interesting manner. In the preface Stubbs admits that the book is not an exhaustive history of the genre, which is just as well as it would have to have been an encyclopaedia, such is the genre's lengthy history and ubiquitous twenty first century presence. The genre's history begins in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, with the invention of such machines as the pianola (1895), and then the exotically named Telharmonium (1906) and the Intonarumori (1910). Part one was perhaps the most fascinating for me, going from the above mentioned inventions through to the pre WWI Futurists and then onto avant-garde electronic composers such as Edgard Varese, Pierre Schaffer, Stockhausen and John Cage. It was rewarding to read about these innovators and at the same time listen to their compositions via You Tube, a recommended approach for anyone wanting to read this book. Although overall the book is a linear history, Stubbs does jump back and forth in time a bit, which is fine. Stubbs also offers a somewhat personal and subjective perspective, recounting his initial exposure to electronic musical works, which proves to be an effective and engaging approach throughout.

Perhaps the real strength of Mars by 1980 is the quality of Stubbs' writing, which is witty, erudite and perceptive. There are never lulls or boring sections to contend with and Stubbs' subjective opinions are never intrusive or excessive in tone. Stubbs evades any criticism of not even trying to be comprehensive by making what he does cover really count. He gives in depth attention to black musical artists who were trailblazers, such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis and Stevie Wonder, as well as female artists, such as Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram, who worked at the BBC in the 1960's. Derbyshire produced the Dr Who theme, which became one of the most famous electronic works within mainstream awareness for quite a while. Perhaps the most enjoyable chapters for me personally were 'The Art of the Duo' and 'Substance', both of which covered electronic music in the 1980's when I was a teenager. So, a nice glow of nostalgia for me as I contended with getting my new hip into gear. Stubbs also examines ambient music, 1990's rave culture, the dominance of sampling and then EDM (electronic dance music) in the twenty first century. Along the way he deftly examines the push and pull between black and white music and the associated question of authenticity, such as when white artists become funky by sampling the work of black artists (hello Moby). Mars by 1980 is much more than just a selective overview of electronic music, it also stands as an almost anthropological examination of twentieth century culture, which, in doing so, strongly gives the impression that the invention of machines that allowed humans to compose electronic music was a highly significant development in human artistic endeavour. Recommended for music lovers who are both curious and adventurous, and really, why not be both?