Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters by David Hockney

This entry is part 11 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag, meaning I read this a while ago. More recently than usual, though. This was something I got access to through work.  The idea of “secret knowledge” has an allure that sells itself, so much so that I had to be cautious as I read this book not to be seduced by that idea, to allow Hockney’s arguments and reasoning to work rather than to be taken as proof without examination. Of course, I’m so unfamiliar with the history of visual art that in the end, I …

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The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

This entry is part 12 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag, meaning I read this a while back—though in this case, a while back is just last week.  Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time is a book that I’ve noticed on the shelf at the local library a few times. Because that particularly library jumbles together all of its English language books in a single room—kids’ books, comics, YA novels, and adult fiction and nonfiction—it’s always seemed a little out of place, and caught my eye each time I’ve been there.  Having finally signed out a copy, …

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The All-American by Joe Milan

This entry is part 13 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag, meaning I read this a while back—in this case, last month.  First, a disclaimer: Joe’s a good friend of mine. With that out of the way: imagine waking up one day to discover that you’re not a citizen of the only country you can remember living in; imagine being deported to a place where you don’t speak the language, know nothing of the culture, where social customs and rules and even the food is a barrage of the bewildering and unfamiliar. And then, imagine being drafted …

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The Tulip by Anna Pavord

This entry is part 14 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag, meaning I read this a while back—in this case, last week.  So, I stumbled onto this book at a used bookstore in Cheongju, and bought it hoping it would discuss the tulipomania—the tulip craze that swept the Netherlands (and other parts of Europe) centuries ago. It does, but… not in the way I expected. There’s a lot of detail in this book, and a great deal of it involves what could fairly be called “inside baseball” information: who cultivated what kinds of tulips and sold them …

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Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein

This entry is part 16 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag, meaning I read this a while back—though in this case, a while back is just last week.  I used to be a listener of Ezra Klein’s podcast. He often had (and has) interesting guests on… but as a non-American and a progressive, I find him sometimes very frustrating. I won’t get into why I don’t listen to the podcast anymore (though if you know me, you might be able to guess by listening to this episode. ).  I mention this to say that when I picked …

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Harrow County Library Edition, Vols. 1-4, by Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook

This entry is part 17 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this four-volume set of enormous hardback graphic novels appaears here on my blog at a slight lag, meaning I read this a while back. Not much of one, oin this case, though: I finished this yesterday.  I was completely unfamiliar with this comic series, but it was in the holdings at the local branch of the National Library, so I figured I’d give it a shot. The books were heavy—which is to say, really nice quality, large, durable hardbacks with very thick pages, and they’re striking-looking books.  The stories are fun and …

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Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone by Richard Lloyd Parry

This entry is part 18 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag, meaning I read this a while back—though in this case, a while back is just last week.  Richard Lloyd Parry had lived in Japan for a few decades by the time that the tsunami in March 2011 hit the country. Ghosts of the Tsunami is one of those books you hear about mainly because of what the title literally alludes to: the epidemic of reported ghost sightings following the 2011 tsunami that hit Japan and ultimately led to the Fukushima meltdown. That’s certainly what interested me …

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Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

This entry is part 20 of 23 in the series 2023 Reads

Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag. Quite a lag, as it’s 2024, but hey, that’s how it is.  Ducks is a sizeable autobiographical graphic novel about Kate Beaton’s time working at the Alberta oil sands projects, and what she learned living and working there. What she did learn living and working there is… well, it’s pretty heavy going, as you will intuit if you know about the ducks to which the title refers. In 2017, a judge ruled that Syncrude (one of Beaton’s employers in the book) was responsible for the deaths …

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