Vincennes Review of Books 2019

2019 was not my most stellar year of reading, as indicated but not entirely encapsulated by this graph:

The above is quite a simple representation of how I think about my year’s reading, and part of the joy of the Vincennes Review of Books is sharing some of the more demented ways I think about my cultural throughput over a 12 month period. This year, I’d like to introduce you to the Finchy Line. So named for Chris Finch (bloody good rep) of The Office (UK), who famously read a book a week, the Finchy Line measures exactly what you have just guessed; did I read more than, or less than, a book a week in any given year?

In 2019, I came close to, but did not breach, the Finchy Line. Note 2005, when I achieved the elusive Double Finchy at very slightly over two books per week.

Something that kept me from reading this year was that several of the books I did read, I really disliked, and one of them was over 1,000 pages long. That one, by the way, was Peter Ackroyd’s London, this extract of which should indicate something of what I went through:

I know what you are thinking and yes I am aware that it is called the sunk cost fallacy and not the sunk cost awesome decision making process.

The real point here is that I read books I dislike much, much slower than books I like because I have a wide and trusted list of excuses not to read a book I don’t like. Here are some of the big ones I deployed this year:

1. Train to full to really open a book in the morning
2. Too tired to really concentrate in the evening
3. Just feeling too Catholic to read anything other than The End of the Affair or Brideshead Revisited

Note that the first two of these stop me from reading any books, including ones I might like. Naturally none of these things stop me when I’m reading a book I actually enjoy. Anyway, disliking the book I was reading did cause me to reread The End of the Affair! It’s really so good, if you haven’t read it yet or recently consider this a strong recommendation.

While I’m on the topic of rereads, you might have noticed that I didn’t read anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald this year. Me and Scotty are doing fine, thanks for asking. I did have some interactions with his works as I both listened to a Gatsby audiobook and played the videogame.

There was, this year, a long book that I read and wished was longer; for my money, Alex Ross’ The Rest is Noise could have been twice as long. Newsletter subscribers will already know about this, but I’ve always thought of music theory as something closed off to me forever. It took reading Alex Ross’ incredible view of twentieth century classical music to open this amazing world out to me. Immediately after it I did an OU OpenLearn course on music theory, and now I know, amongst other things, which notes are which on both clefs and how to identify time signatures. I learned new things from The Rest is Noise, and it made me want to learn more new things. I hope you read and enjoy it too.

Here are some other books that I recommend, in thematic twos:

Novellas

I talk, almost every Vincennes Review of Books, about how much I love novellas, how they are short and ramp your total for the year while being a fun, zippy read. 2019 is no exception to this rule, here are two novellas that I enjoyed a great deal:

1. Convenience Store Woman — Sayaka Murata

This is a book I’d heard of, and I expect you have too, but I didn’t have any kind of priority assigned to reading it. Then a colleague lent it to me saying “I want to know what you think of this,” and predictably what happened was I loved it. I don’t want to say anything about what it’s about so I don’t spoil it for you, but if you are reading this I’m pretty sure you’ll love it.

2. The Prick — Mazin Saleem

You probably won’t have heard of this, but you will enjoy it at least as much as Convenience Store Woman. This is a story about… not friendship, probably, but it’s a story about the people we hang out with, and why, and how we feel about them. It’s extremely funny and incredibly vivid — I spent half a day trying to work out in which television show I’d seen one of its setpiece scenes. It’s on pre-order on Amazon right now (I am not sure why, obviously I have a copy and have read it), order it now and give future you a fun treat.

Linguistics

1. Because Internet — Gretchen McCulloch

In the past I enjoyed Gretchen McCulloch’s writing on internet linguistics on the toast dot net, and you’ll be pleased to hear that her writing works at book length as well. I got a lot out of the chapter on emojis as gesture, which is supported by data from SwiftKey.

2. Language Unlimited — David Adger

Something that I got out of Gretchen McCulloch’s book was the linguistics behind the general drift towards everything being the best or the worst thing ever. This is something I am very much on my guard against as I write about David Adger’s Language Unlimited, which introduced me to an area of linguistics previously totally unknown to me (syntax) and the most incredible stream of examples that I would either have not known to be possible, or not known how to phrase if I’d known they happened, or just that I plain didn’t understand. It is an astonishing book. The chapter on sign language (including extensive discussion of home sign) is worth the cover price alone. Mind-blowing. The word I am trying not to use is mind-blowing.

Let’s look at my stated aims for 2019 and how I fared against them:

In the same way that I read books about consciousness last year, this year I’d like to read books about what we use stories for. To these ends, I have Maria Konnikova’s The Confidence Game and volume 1 of the 1001 Nights. Let me know if you have more recommendations for this one!

I did not really do this, although I read both of the books mentioned above. I lost enthusiasm for this project as a project some time before I wrote this sentence and it resulted in my absolutely cramming The Arabian Nights Vol 1 in the last six weeks of the year. I was 300ish pages down from Q1 and the sunk cost powerful magic was at work on me. Anyway, the Arabian Nights are fun, and now I can state opinions like “They are drunk all the time in the Arabian Nights!” and “There’s tons of cross-dressing in the Arabian Nights!” and “The Arabian Nights are pretty sexy!” and feel confident in those opinions. On the other hand, this information is readily available also in the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition, and maybe a good online primer like Wikipedia. You, too, should feel free to help yourself to these opinions if they prove useful to you. It’s unlikely anyone will ask you to cite examples.

Pepys Diary for 1663 — Pepys had some serious beef with his pals in 1662, how will things develop in 1663!

I did this. Pepys was particularly prolix in 1663, and still beefing with Sir Williams Batten and Penn.

Read the Bible — sticking with the NIV again this year, and as usual, let me know if you want in. It’s always nice to have friends in a reading project.

I did this!

Here are my reading aims for next year:

1. Easy books
2. Books by, about or relevant to F. Scott Fitzgerald not covered by the above rubric
3. The Bible (as ever, let me know if you want to join me)
4. Pepys’ Diary for 1664

Previously: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2007, 2006