Hallgeir’s 2016 part 2: Best Music Books and other readings

 

These are some of the things I’ve read in 2016, it’s been a very busy reading-year. More novels than usual, less music books and less graphic novels. A lot of classics and a few photography books.

Here are my favourites.

The Best music books 2016:

1: Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen

2: Testimony by Robbie Robertson

I haven’t read many books about music in 2016, but these two are both fantastic books in their own right. Good reads, great writing! Springsteen’s book feels more personal and has great prose, it often feels like his songs being written down. Robertson’s book is a fun recollection of an important musical period, and very detailed. Together with Levon Helm’s book, This Wheel’s On Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of The Band, it will probably give us a good picture on The Band (and Bob Dylan). …and Robbie is very gentle with Levon.

Another one that I’ve just started reading is Den store sangen. kapitler av en bok om Bob Dylan by Gisle Selnes. The English title will be something like, The Great Song, chapters in a book about Bob Dylan. So far fantastic, and I feel sorry for all our english-only readers. Academic but not a hard read, on the contrary. It has some very interesting and new analytical views on the lyrics of Dylan.

The 5 Best Novels I’ve read in 2016:

I’ve read around 40 novels in 2016 (I challenged myself to read 50…) many so and so and a few very very good ones. I’ll say a few words on some of these novels. Child of God is a hard read, I haven’t seen the movie and not sure I will, the pictures I get in my head is enough for now. McCormac makes the most beautiful sentences while describing the most horrible stories.

Michael Chabon is a very different writer, he is a storyteller in the best sense of the word. He really knows how to transport us to another reality. It is so much fun.

Shirley Jackson is new to me, well, I’ve known about her books but never read anything before, what a revelation. Will go deeper into her world.

Tom Sawyer was a re-read and it holds up!

Annihilation was different, it was tough to get into, but after reading it I couldn’t stop thinking about it. This is, for me, an important part of good literature. I will read the rest of the trilogy.

1: Child of God by Cormac McCarthy

2: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

3: We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson

4: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

5: Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

 

The Best Graphic Novels I’ve read in 2016:

All these three just begs to be made into tv-series. Great art and wonderful writing, Southern Bastards is like a mix between Justified, Friday Night Lights and the music of Drive-by Truckers. Saga is just as good as Moebius but with a better sense of humor and more raunchy sex. Paper Girls are local storytelling beginning to grow epic in scope, I’m rellay looking forward to see where the writer/artists will take us.

1: Southern Bastards

 

2: Saga

3: Paper Girls

Check out part one here

• Hallgeir (next up are the movies)