Series: 2023 Reads

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

gordsellar0 Comments
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 …

Continue Reading

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

gordsellar0 Comments
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, …

Continue Reading

The All-American by Joe Milan

gordsellar0 Comments
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 …

Continue Reading

The Tulip by Anna Pavord

gordsellar0 Comments
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 …

Continue Reading