Books I read in 2016

Here are the books I read in 2016. Plus the comics every day. Thank goodness for the funny pages! I re-read Gibson's Neuromancer series - his vision of data and society are still vital after 30 years….amazing. 

A more perfect heaven : how Copernicus revolutionized the cosmos / Dava Sobel (2011)

A passion for leadership : lessons on change and reform from fifty years of public service/ Robert M. Gates (2016)

"Black man, white house : an oral history of the Obama years / D.L Hughley (2016)"

Born To Run / Bruce Springsteen (2016) 

Count Zero / William Gibson (1986)

Countdown to Zero Day - Stuxnet and the launch of the world’s first digital weapon/  Kim Zetter (2014)

It's a long story : my life / Willie Nelson (2015)

Mona Lisa Overdrive / William Gibson (1988)

Neuromancer/ William Gibson (1984)

"Paths Less Travelled of a Scholar, Warrior, Spy, Teacher, Healer/ Hon K Lee (2013)"

Razor girl / Carl Hiaasen (2016)

Self-healing with sound & music: revitalize your body & mind with proven sound healing tools / Andrew Weil & Kimba Arem (2004)

Start with why : how great leaders inspire everyone to take action / Simon Sinek (2009)

Taijiquan Hand & Sword / Ren Guangyi & Stephan Berwick (2007)

"Team of teams : new rules of engagement for a complex world, General Stanley McChrystal (2015)"

"Thai stick : surfers, scammers, and the untold story of the marijuana trade / Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter (2014)"

The BFG / Roald Dahl (1982)

The heart-led leader : how living and leading from the heart will change your organization and your life / Thomas Spaulding (2015)

The killer angels / Michael Shaara (1993)

The listening book : discovering your own music / W.A. Mathieu (1991)

The Road to Character/ David Brooks (2015)

The underground railroad : a novel / Colson Whitehead (2016)

The view from the cheap seats : selected nonfiction / Neil Gaiman (2016)

Uprooted / Naomi Novik (2015)

Your brain at work : strategies for overcoming distraction, regaining focus, and working smarter all day long / David Rock (2009)

Zero K : a novel / Don DeLillo (2016)

Books I read in 2015 (not including work, travel guides, piano lessons or TaiChi practice)

2015 books

1Q84, Hiruki Murakami (2009)

A Carlin Home Companion - Growing up with George Carlin, Kelly Carlin (2015)

Brainweb:  Douglas E Richards (2015)

Cry for a Nickel, Die for a Dime: Woody Haut (2014)

Deal - My three decades of Drumming, Dreams and Drugs with the Grateful Dead, Bill Kreutzmann (2015)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,  Hunter S. Thompson

No Simple Highway - a Cultural History of the Grateful Dead, Peter Richardson (2014

Predator: the secret origins of the drone revolution, Richard Whittle (2014)

Reckless - My Life as a Pretender, Chrissy Hynde (2015)

Refire Don't Retire, Blanchard + Shaevitz (2015)

Seveneves, Neal Stephenson (2015)

Skink - No Surrender, Carl Hiaasen (2014)

Special deluxe : [a memoir of life & cars] , Neil Young (2014)

The Caryatids, Bruce Sterling (2009)

The Musical Life: Reflections on what it is and how to live it., W.A. Mathieu (1994)

The Peripheral:, William Gibson (2015)

The Waterworks, E.L. Doctorow (1994)

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Hiruki Murakami (1997)

Tomorrow War, J.L Bourne, (2015)

Ultimate Tone:  Bringing my Story to Light  - Carlos Santana (2014)

Books I read in 2014 (not counting work)

2014 Book List:

The album : a guide to pop music's most provocative, influential, and important creations / James E. Perone, editor.

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho 

The art of the map : an illustrated history of map elements and embellishments / Dennis Reinhartz.  

Be love now : the path of the heart / Ram Dass with Rameshwar Das.  

Cataloging the world : Paul Otlet and the birth of the information age / Alex Wright.  

Clemente : the true legacy of an undying hero / the Clemente Family.  

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Year of Pilgrimage: Haruki Murakami

Emerald city : stories / Jennifer Egan.  

Flash boys : a Wall Street revolt / Michael Lewis.  

God save The Kinks : a biography / Rob Jovanovic.  

Hammer of the gods : the Led Zeppelin saga / Stephen Davis.  

Herbie Hancock : possibilities / with Lisa Dickey.  

The hippest trip in America : Soul Train and the evolution of culture and style / Nelson George.  

Infographic guide to music / Graham Betts.  

The Invisible Circus / Jennifer Egan

The Keep / Jennifer Egan  

Look at Me / Jennifer Egan

MaddAddam : a novel / Margaret Atwood.  

The Martian / Andy Weir

Measuring the World/ Daniel Kehlmann, Vermessung der Welt. English  

One good turn / by Kate Atkinson.  

Polishing the mirror : how to live from your spiritual heart / Ram Dass, with Rameshwar Das ; conceived by Janaki Sandy Gaal.  

Robert Plant : a life / Paul Rees.  

Rose Gold : an Easy Rawlins mystery / Walter Mosley.  

Secrets of Silicon Valley : what everyone else can learn from the innovation capital of the world / Deborah Perry Piscione.  

Simple dreams : a musical memoir / Linda Ronstadt.  

Sting of the drone / Richard A. Clarke.  

Stonemouth / Iain Banks.  

This town : two parties and a funeral--plus, plenty of valet parking!--in America's gilded capital / Mark Leibovich. (Had to quit after a 1.5 chapters)

A visit from the Goon Squad / Jennifer Egan.  

The way of the knife : the CIA, a secret army, and a war at the ends of the Earth / Mark Mazzetti.

Wingnuts : extremism in the age of Obama / John Avlon.  

Work done for hire / Joe Haldeman.  

The year of living biblically : one man's humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible / A.J. Jacobs.  

You are here : from the compass to GPS, the history and future of how we find ourselves / Hiawatha Bray.

The books I read in 2013 (not counting work stuff)

2013 book list:
 A geography of secrets - Frederick Reuss.
A renaissance globemaker's toolbox : Johannes Schöner and the revolution of modern science, 1475-1550 - John W. Hessler.
Bad Monkey - Carl Hiaasen
Be here now, remember - Ram Dass
Blonde faith - Walter Mosley.
Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
Coltrane : the story of a sound - Ben Ratliff.
Complicity - Iain Banks.
Consider Phlebas - Iain M. Banks.
High price : a neuroscientist's journey of self-discovery that challenges everything you know about drugs and society - Carl Hart.
I got a name : the Jim Croce story - Ingrid Croce & Jimmy Rock.
Inversions - Iain M. Banks.
Jazz - A history of America’s Music
Jimi Hendrix : a brother's story - Leon Hendrix with Adam Mitchell.
Light and shade : conversations with Jimmy Page - Brad Tolinski.
Little green : an Easy Rawlins mystery - Walter Mosley.
Metallica death. Volume 1 - Paul Brannigan & Ian Winwood.
Mingus speaks - [interviews by] John F Goodman ; with photos by Sy Johnson.
Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour bookstore - Robin Sloan.
My beloved world - Sonia Sotomayor.
Oryx and Crake : a novel-Margaret Atwood.
Telegraph Avenue : a novel - Michael Chabon.
The business : a novel - Iain Banks.
The Dude and the Zen master - Jeff Bridges & Bernie Glassman.
The handmaid's tale - Margaret Atwood.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel - Neil Gaiman
The shadow factory : the ultra-secret NSA from 9-11 to the eavesdropping on America - James Bamford.
The wasp factory - Iain Banks.
The sax and brass book - Brian Priestly
The year of the flood : a novel - Margaret Atwood
Things fall apart- Chinua Achebe
Transition - Iain M. Banks.
When Buddhists attack : the curious relationship between Zen and the martial arts - by Jeffrey K.Mann.
When I left home : my story -- Buddy Guy with David Ritz.

Busy evening, 12/1/2011

The rock crusher didn't get me, i didn't drink the Kool aid, the china flight dancers prayed around the pilot, didn't get booted from the whitehouse and the broken guitar didn't belong to me. My old kung fu training area looked better, the Turkish dude gave me food even after I made it clear I didn't speak Arabic but was still hungry and something about a power transformer at the house where the gals were hanging out.

Some music to listen to...

Charles Mingus
Count Basie
Duke Ellington
Stan Getz
Bob Brookmeyer
Woody Herman
Paul Desmond
Dave Brubeck
Gerry Mulligan
Chet Baker
Jackie McLean
Gigi Gryce
Sonny Rollins
Thelonious Monk
Miles and Coltrane
Cannonball Adderley
Bill Evans
Gil Evan
Clifford Brown
Max Roach
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
Horace Silver
Ray Charles
Muddy Waters
Little Walter
Howlin' Wolf
Big Mama Thornton
Billy Ward
All these from a paragraph in Mingus Mingus by Janet Coleman and Al Young

Sweating Sheets

Can’t eat an ice chip
Can’t take a sip
Can’t walk
Losing breath
Blood
I should call emergency
Dr, I’m broken

I shuffled to a taxi
“please take me to a cure”
Once again I’ll sign these forms
yes of my own volition
but also not my choice

the sharpshooter finds the vein
the dread not followed by pain
iv drip with a powerful steroid push
first liquids in days
come on kidneys
three times a night sweat through the sheets
a gasp of breath between words
stuttering starts days pass
alone

NPO - nothing per oral
Kickoff painkiller brings absolute relaxation
Torso without the acute response
i remember sleeping
steroids battle morphines
Up down awake out
draw the curtains
Is it bright
it is night
I’m confused
On my birthday

A couple meals
Try taking pills
pull each leg forward to resemble walking
20 pounds down
Calves, thighs shoulders gone
Time to go
information is presented but
far from understood
struggle out the door
no float to get up the stairs
no recollection of my return

the orders I follow don’t make sense
leave the house the day after this?
An hour and 1/2 to prepare
drive the truck to the clinic
no record of an appointment
I’m lost, where should I be?
So i stand, barely leaning
old man quiver
confused by the destination
I see myself in eyes of others
grey and swollen
disoriented and shaking
What am i doing here?
Can i please go home?

These dreams aren’t in color
The medications create
Sharp primary pixels with my eyes closed
my right eye shut
hot spot of red, green, purple
where do these come from?
What trigger was pulled to burn them into my night sight?

One cup of water
concentrate on the grip
don’t drop it, focus, focus,
no chance to get off the couch
not even strength no internal motivation
drained completely as day becomes night becomes day
sleep never comes, when it does for 83 minutes
hungry shaking sweating stumbling napping
Am I well? Am I sick? How tired? I can’t tell.
I can’t tell.

Days of sitting quietly
Dust floats through sun beams
when did I cross my legs?
how long have I been here?
no reading even with glasses
watch tv vegetate try to eat

Is this fear? Am I scared?
To go outside? To walk down?
I am.
Take stairs up I can’t catch my breath
Sit down for 30 minutes from one basic move
Walk on a Monday, shattered on a Tuesday
48 hour recovery from a walk around the block.
Baritone to tenor, profundo to a wisp

weeks pass
motionless quiet
an idea forms
but the action can’t be performed
Slow eight brocade
find a stretch expand a muscle
leave, return, breathe
panicky moments
be double careful mantra
shower or cooking or driving
pray no accidents
no accidents

Swimming pool session every three days
float in the corner, moving my limbs
Muscles want to reform
not quickly not of youth
strength recovers
slowly & not complete
many walks before the stride reforms
skin thins cuts unexplained
face expands poisoned hair
buffalo hump eyes tearing pounds lost
back stings internal pain
exertion forces reevaluation
sit again let time pass

Early summer I existed
Mid summer i disappeared into
weeks of couch bed bathroom
hospital noise nightmares
A hot washcloth of humid air
week after week after week
blur through recovery
a haze still exists
fog of frustration
broken dreams
suffering this fool
one more step