{"id":1483,"date":"2014-12-30T23:07:06","date_gmt":"2014-12-31T07:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=1483"},"modified":"2014-12-30T23:08:36","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T07:08:36","slug":"books-read-in-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=1483","title":{"rendered":"“Where lies the strangling fruit”: Books Read in 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’m currently just cracking the spine on\u00a0The Last Projector<\/em><\/a>, there’s a day left in 2014, and it’s time for the reckoning. And so, as with the past five years, I offer my annual rundown of books I read this year:<\/p>\n

Books read in 2014: 157<\/strong>
\nComics and graphic novels included in reading total: 26
\nBooks of poetry included in reading total: 3
\nBooks reread included in reading total: 3
\nAcademic & Education related books included in reading total: 18
\nYA and Junior Fiction books included in reading total: 10
\nRoleplaying Game-related books (rules, modules, settings … because research<\/a>): 25<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A few thoughts (As usual, here are my posts on books read in 2013<\/a>,\u00a02012<\/a>,\u00a02011<\/a>,\u00a02010<\/a>, and\u00a02009<\/a>):<\/p>\n

I don’t think I had more fun reading this year than the solid 1-2-3 punch of Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation<\/em><\/a>, Authority<\/em><\/a>, and Acceptance<\/em><\/a>). There’s heaps of praise for the trilogy and now packaged as a single volume<\/a> for the holidays, it’s a great way to get lost for a week or two.<\/p>\n

I read a handful of music-related books. Some highlights include the slim volume about Dangerous<\/em> that\u00a0I previously blogged<\/a> about,\u00a0this<\/a> look at techno-pranksters the KLF, a Q&A for getting\u00a0lost in the mythos of Will Oldham\u00a0and Bonnie “Prince” Billy<\/a>, and a book length work<\/a>\u00a0about the greatest album\/film\/musician of all time.<\/p>\n

Though this year was pretty light on poetry for me, Claudia Rankine’s\u00a0Citizen<\/em><\/a> felt like one of the most timely, necessary reads of the year.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0I only picked it up\u00a0in the past two weeks, Richard McGuire’s\u00a0Here<\/em><\/a> is the best graphic novel I read. Following the thousands+ history of a single room, generations of families, prehistoric animals, and futuristic guesses are offered in windowed comic panels, like the pop-up windows of ’90s era online browsing. The premise sounds like (and occasionally literally is) watching paint dry on a wall. It’s unlike anything else you’ll read.<\/p>\n

The two best academic books I read are accessible and I heartily recommend them for a general readership. danah boyd’s\u00a0It’s Complicated<\/em><\/a> takes more than a decade of research on the digital lives of youth and makes it clear how young people are communicating, learning, and sharing today; danah’s work here has been foundational in my own research and\u00a0It’s Complicated<\/em>\u00a0offers necessary perspective on a larger conversation about technology, learning, privacy, and socialization.\u00a0On The Run<\/em><\/a> is an equally-long-in-the-making ethnography about\u00a0young men trying to avoid the U.S. legal system. It’s a compelling book with vibrant characters, Wire-<\/em>like escapades,\u00a0haunting scenes, and the troubling fact that this is all real and\u00a0experienced daily by urban youth across the country.<\/p>\n

I finished Isaacson’s\u00a0The Innovators<\/em><\/a>\u00a0earlier this month. It was fun and exactly what I expected. If you can’t remember why Jim Henson is such an amazing and generous innovator in his own right, the biography<\/a> that came out a few years ago will remind you. The lessons that Henson’s life illustrate have stayed with me throughout the year.<\/p>\n

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My year of other media consumption was pretty\u00a0predictable. D’Angelo’s Black Messiah<\/em><\/a> and St. Vincent’s self titled<\/a> record are constantly on rotation. Serial<\/em><\/a> is eating my brain. Boyhood<\/em> made me cry while watching it on an airplane. I saw Future Islands<\/a>\u00a0in concert twice this year and the singer terrified me both times.<\/p>\n

I listened to this cover of “Johnny and Mary” more times than is probably healthy:<\/p>\n