award tour

I wrote a post one year ago this week called books in 2006 which included brief reviews of all the books I read (or tried to read) in 2006. Here’s the same thing but for 2007 and, again, in the order that I actually read the books.

The Blind Side - Michael Lewis. This is the fourth book by Lewis that I’ve read. The book intertwines two stories. One, about the evolution of football over the last 30 years which led to the left tackle (the guy who protects the quarterback’s blind side) being the second highest paid position. And two, the remarkable story of Michael Oher, an orphaned teen who became a high school All-American left tackle. I absolutely devoured this book and I don’t even like football. Every person I recommended this book to also read it in record time. Lewis is a born storyteller.

Way of the Peaceful Warrior - Dan Millman. This is essentially a primer on Buddhism but told through a fictional tale. I found the book to be very similar to “Ishmael”. It features an old and wise teacher with special powers and a hapless student who asks far too many questions. Unfortunately, also like “Ishmael”, much of the writing is second rate and reads like incredibly forced dialogue. That said, I still enjoyed the book.

Mavericks At Work - William Taylor & Polly Labarre. Includes some really great case studies in how bucking trends and valuing people can lead to business success. The book still struck me as verbose at times and a little too “cheerleader” in others. No real concrete advise.

Thinking with Type - Ellen Lupton. A fantastic primer on typography. It was exactly the overview on fonts that I was looking for. Also a very quick read at 176 graphic filled pages.

Making and Breaking the Grid - Timothy Samara. Cool book on the history and theory of page setting and grid systems. Lots of interesting and inspiring examples. I was hoping for more web-related content but it was still a useful read.

The Seven Day Weekend - Ricardo Semler. Probably the most interesting business book I’ve ever read. Semler is the CEO of the Brazillian conglomerate Semco which has lines of business in industrial machinery, inventory control, HR management, internet ventures, etc, etc, etc. The company has no defined roles or work hours, no planning longer than a few months, no mandatory meetings, and a whole slew of other ideas which fly in the face of accepted thinking. If you’re interested in the topic, I highly recommend checking out this lecture Semler gave about some of his ideas or check out this summary of the video over on the 37 signals blog. Oddly enough, the book doesn’t seem to be in print and Amazon only offers the book through used-book sellers (or on the Kindle if you have on).

Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond. This book made my 2006 did-not-finish list and, holy crap, did it take a long time for me to finish in 2007. The book, which attempts to explain why western societies came to become so dominant. Essentially, “those who domesticated plants and animals early got a head start on developing writing, government, technology, weapons of war, and immunity to deadly germs.” The book is very long in some parts which, in retrospect, I wish I had just moved on to the chapter summary. I found the chapter on the development of writing systems to be especially interesting. I’d definitely recommend the book to anyone but would also advice you just skipping sections that you don’t find interesting.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Jared Diamond. I starting reading this within days of finishing Guns, Germs, and Steel. The book profiles societies which have collapsed and provides a terrifying allegory for where our globalized society could be heading. The single biggest thing I took away from the book was a quote about the fallen society on Easter Island, which used to have lush forests but is now a barren dustbowl: “What were Easter Islanders saying as they cut down the last tree on their island?”

Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment - David Swensen. Great book on long term portfolio management. Talks heavily about the virtues of working with core asset classes & rebalancing and talks very extensively about the failures of the mutual fund industry. I’d recommend just reading the summaries of the last two chapters about the extensive failures of the mutual fund industry. I also just started reading The Four Pillars of Investing which seems to be a better intro to portfolio theory and appears to include real world examples of a portfolio (which I found Swensen’s book lacked).

Books I didn’t finish

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning - Chris Hedges. One part uber-depressing and one part terrifying. Couldn’t get that into it.

Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Got through most of it but just couldn’t get it done. Some interesting arguments about our tendencies to under account for the impact of randomness. This is probably the first book I’ve read where the author’s arrogance shown through so clearly that it seemed he was annoyed that you were reading his book. I’m hoping to take a look at Taleb’s latest book, The Black Swan, sometime in 2008.

The Elements of Typographic Style - Robert Bringhurst. More than I cared to read about typography. Might be useful if you were actually going to be designing a typeface.

Maverick - Ricardo Semler. Semler’s first book about what was going on at Semco. Originally published in 1988, it’s more autobiographical and not nearly as interesting as his aforementioned book.

Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise - Ray Anderson. I first heard about this book and Anderson when I watched the The Corporation earlier this year. This is also how I found out about The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken. I didn’t have a chance to really get into either of the books but I’m hoping to in 2008 as I’ve been really interested in the topic since reading my favorite book of 2006, Cradle to Cradle. I’m sure that not a week goes by where I don’t wonder how I might be able to pursue a corporate endeavor which can create a positive environmental impact by design.

Have your own opinion on one of the books mentioned? Read any books in 2007 that you’d highly recommend? Then add your comment below.

Feist’s The Reminder is a great album. But first…

Usually when a great song is used in a carpet bomb ad campaign which results in the nuclear fallout of mainstream radio saturation, a music snob, such as I, would write the song off as trash. This is not the case for Feist’s 1-2-3-4. Maybe this is because I’m softening with age. Or maybe it’s because I don’t own a television (so no carpet bombing) or ever have to listen to radio (so no fallout). Don’t get me wrong, this song (like any other) could hit a tipping point which could ruin it. For example, being used in the trailer of a feature film starring Amanda Bynes. On a side note, I once took a flight which played Bynes’ She’s The Man. Although I didn’t watch it, I did catch one scene which probably set a brand new low for slapstick comedy. Luckily, plane seats are equipped with barf bags which prevented me from having to vomit in my own mouth. Now back to the album at hand…

I wasn’t very big on Feist’s previous work but this one is definitely a winner. I don’t know too many artists who pull off the super depressing ultra minimal stuff (like The Park) and also feature a track like Sealion (maybe Sufjan, that’s the only person that comes to mind). Several of the tracks, especially The Limit To Your Love and Brandy Alexandar, remind me quite a bit of the arrangements and vocals of Joni Mitchell’s Blue. Though the meloy stuff on the album is great, the stuff I love are upbeat tracks like 1-2-3-4, Past In Present, and my personal fav I Feel It All.

If for some crazy reason you still haven’t heard this album, you can sample the whole thing here on Amazon and pick it up from the mp3 store for measly 8 bucks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was named Time’s Person of the Year. Time also points out that Person of the Year doesn’t mean the best person of the year but frankly the opposite in the case of Mr. Putin. As I was heading home last night from work with Anton, there was a piece on NPR’s Marketplace about Putin’s power (and money) grab. Here’s the part I liked…

Things have a way of working out like this for Vladimir Putin. Consider the maneuvers that brought him to power in the first place. In 1998, Putin was named to head the Russian security police, the successors to the KGB. Soon, a series of humiliating or scandalous leaks disgraced leading Russian politicians, from President Yeltsin down. Then, in August 1999, Putin rose from control of the secret police to control of the whole Russian state.

One morning, President Yeltsin named Putin as one of three deputy prime ministers. The government of the moment that same day abruptly resigned, leaving Putin as sole acting prime minister. Later on that same day, Yeltsin declared that he wished to see Putin succeed him. Before nightfall, Putin unveiled his own presidential campaign.

Six months later, Putin became acting president. Putin granted Yeltsin and his family immunity from prosecution.

These guys just consistently put out great records. Though probably not as memorable as their previous albums (I love Twin Cinema and Electronic Version, there is some awesome stuff on Challengers and the whole thing is very enjoyable. Stand out tracks include My Rights Versus Yours, All the Old Showstoppers, and my personal favorite Unguided. There’s also two gorgeous songs which Neko Case solo’s entitled Go Places and the title track, Challengers.

Though I already named an album of the year, I also have a list of albums which I think are worth pointing out. It might reach 4 in total and they are in no particular order…

So I’m a big fan of the Weakerthans. And, I must admit, on first listen I wasn’t really that impressed with Reunion Tour. Then, while driving up to Vancouver for Canadian Thanksgiving I found myself listening to KEXP and the band showed up to do an in-studio session. The performance was top-shelf and John Samson had some really interesting things to say about the songwriting on the album. Sadly, for some insane reason, it’s the only KEXP performance I know of that isn’t available on their website. This, is a terrible shame.

In the interview Kevin Cole asked Samson about some of the odd topics that come up on the album. Samson explained that he wanted to challenge himself and only write songs from the perspective of another person. This explains the odd mix of topics and the first person narratives. There’s a song entitled Bigfoot came about when a friend of his was making a documentary about a man from Norway House, Manitoba who said he saw bigfoot and produced a blurry home recording of the event. The song points out how he was exploited by tv tabloids and ridiculed by the media and his friends while trying to comprehend a traumatic sight which he genuinely believes he saw.

There’s also a song about the story of David Reimer, a man who got a very raw deal in life and was profiled in just about every medical journal because of it: “and if they remember me at all, make them remember me as more than a queer experiment, more than a diagram in their quarterly”. The album even features the return of Virtue the run-away cat coming back home to explain why she ran away.

There really is something about the Weakerthans music that makes it truly satisfying. It’s like a solid meal that leaves you quite content once it’s finished. Several of the songs of the album have some great rock guitar riffs, drums which command me to bob my head, and build-ups which always seem to make the last minute of their songs so enjoyable. These include Civil Twilight, Tournament of Hearts, and Relative Surplus Value. There’s also a couple songs that feature some sweet keys and great harmonizing such as Sun in an Empty Room and Night Windows.

Again, you can sample the whole album off Amazon and even pick it up for 9 bucks on the mp3 store.

Not only is Band of Horses’ Cease To Begin one of the best albums of the year and Is There a Ghost one of the best songs of the year, but the album also easily features the best album cover of the year. It’s simple, stunning, and fitting.

Grand National’s Kicking the National Habit originally came out in 2004 but I completely missed it. Oddly enough, the band actually did put out an album in 2007 called Drink and a Quick Decision. It’s good, but it’s no Kicking. The band released a limited edition version last year which features 4 bonus tracks and a couple remixes. The bonus tracks are good (i enjoy the remixes probably more than the bonus tracks) but don’t compare to the brilliant stuff that makes up the original album.

I’ve listened to this album a ton this year. This is quite surprising since I listen to almost no other music which sounds similar to this album. It’s one part rock, one part digital, one part 80s, and one part fucking awesome. I think if I was asked to DJ at a place on College street in Toronto I’d just put on this album. It has something for everyone who could be in a College Street bar (minus the Cloak & Dagger). Some of the tracks could be played in a house club (Playing in the Distance), some seem fit for the lounge at the W (Peanut Dreams), whereas others could be used in the closing credits of a Michael Mann film (Talk Amongst Yourselves).

This wasn’t even close. Why? Because every single song on The National’s Boxer is a fucking masterpiece. I don’t have many albums which I can listen from start to finish without fail. I’ll be listening to this album from start to finish when I’m 80 years old. Any song on this album is probably better than the single on half of the records I listened to this year. Hell, it seems foolish to point the “highlights” of this album as it’s that damn good. The musical arrangements are varied and gorgeous and although Matt Berninger puts his pants on just like the rest of us, when he does, he makes writes genius and haunts people with his voice. Honestly, someone name that guy Poet Laureate or something. Go sample the whole album on Amazon and if you don’t have it just use Amazon’s mp3 store and immediately download it for $9 (unless you’re in Canada, then just order a spinning disk or pirate it).

Bryan over at herohill has several “top ten” lists for 2007. This includes top ten EPs, LPs, Canadian LPs, etc, etc. Bryan has lots of lists cause he listens to a horrible about of music and seems to enjoy writing about it. I, on the other hand, rarely found the urge to write about music in 2007. I think this occured because of three reasons. One, my music snobbery has caught up with me and I don’t enjoy listening to random stuff or going to concerts nearly as much as I used to. Two, oink got shut down. And three, since I have no musical talent nor training I have a good bit of trouble describing the music I like short of saying “This album/song/etc is stupidly good. You’d be a fool to not love it”.

So in the coming days I’m just going to point out stuff that I loved this year and for which you’d be a fucking fool to disagree.