Gotta say, these past two months have been pretty good for reading. From the most recent to the more distant in time: 1. Why Mahler?. This might be better for people who already care at least a little bit about Mahler, one of those characters that lends to incompleteness. Like talking about his music. Too vast, too contradictory, too universal, too personal. Still, it's a breezy, rangy biography mixed with some memoir, and it's a good read.
2. Listen to This. Alex Ross is one of my favorite writers. This book is mostly a collection of stuff he's written for The New Yorker. The essays I dog-eared most heavily were Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues, Infernal Machines, The Storm of Style, Song of the Earth, Verdi's Grip, and his writings on tour with Radiohead and Bob Dylan were interesting, too. He's also got a great audio guide for Listen to This like the one for The Rest is Noise (which is awesome).
3. The Art of Non-Conformity. Got curious about this one because I recognized the brand. The blog is better.
4. The Music Instinct. Author Philip Ball struck me first and foremost as a very fair writer. It seems like he doesn't have very many bones to pick, aside from the fact that we should stay open-minded and open-eared. The first 60-70% of the book, the best part, is nerdy stuff about music theory---the science of pitch, scales, harmony, timbre, rhythm, etc. He's glad to branch out across the world and not just focus on Western tradition. I found it quite good.
5. The Substance of Style. Couldn't finish. Seemed sort of argument-by-anecdote-y, which is fine, but not what I wanted at the time.
6. The Art of Travel. This is mostly worthwhile, the first half in particular. Each section centers around a topic (Anticipation, Curiosity, the Exotic, the Sublime, etc.), a tour guide of sorts (e.g. Huysmans, Humboldt, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Van Gogh), and de Botton's own observations and musings. It's a good, quick read.
7. The Book of Basketball. I thought it was awesome. Rare to find any book, nonfiction or otherwise, that keeps you up late a few nights in a row.
8. On Kindness. Another one that I really, really liked and shared a bunch of quotes from. Great brain food here.
9. Steppenwolf. I read this one right after "The Moviegoer", below. They both deal with existential angst, but this one is much more over-the-top, orotund, and, um, German. I think you could get your time's worth just reading the first 40 pages or so.
10. The Moviegoer. I liked this one alright. Nothing much happens in the story, but the narrator's struggles---with his own ambivalence, with relating to people, with finding satisfaction outside of passive distractions, etc.---were good food for thought.
11. Jane Eyre. This was a bit of a drag. Either I'm a curmudgeon with no heart or it's kind of boring. This was, however, the first book I read mostly on my iPad, so it was nice to have that experience. I would have shared a bunch of quotes and bon mots, but, alas, as of now there's no way to export highlights from iBooks other than tedious cut and paste. Maybe get to that later...
I think I'm due for some more fiction soon. More of what I've read lately can be found in volumes one, two, and three.
