Jordan Mattox

1. Daniel Barenboim, Music Quickens Time Barenboim is one of our great living conductors and pianists. Recently, he’s come out with some amazing recordings of Beethoven’s piano sonatas that have been on repeat in my home. Really anything he does is worth paying attention to. This book is a philosophical treatise of sorts about how he understands music’s power and how to listen with purposefulness.  Fascinating throughout. 

2. Tim Harford, The Data Detective I generally read most things that Tim Harford writes. For me, he writes more research heavy versions of Malcolm Gladwell books. This book gives you 10 rules for how to approach data and ways to avoid misuse of data. Some of these chapters didn’t need to be chapters (maybe a couple pages instead), but overall the book was a good overview of how to deconstruct data and interrogate suspicious data. 

3. Caroline Criado Perez, Invisible Women This will be on my best and most impactful books of the year. Perez does an amazing job of elucidating how the lack of data on women harms women every day. The anecdotes are fascinating and convicting, and if you are not a feminist after reading this book, you might just not be listening.  

4. Alison Bechdel, The Secret to Superhuman Strength Alison Bechdel I loved, loved, loved Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home which came out a while ago and was made into a broadway show. This graphic novel explores Bechdel’s relationship with physical activity, exercise, the body, and much more. There is so much here and so many moments of beauty. A little hard to describe as it seems to wind around a few topic. The body stands at the center. Recommended. 

5. Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples, Saga Vol. 1  I loved Vaughan’s series Y: The Last Man, which is a Hulu series now, and this series was on my list to read. Anything that Brian K. Vaughn does is worth picking up and this is more of the same. It follows two “aliens” of different species who are at war with each who also happen to fall in love in a prison facility. I’m only through the first volume, but I love it so far. 

6. Edwidge Danticat, Everything Inside  Danticat is a writer that I recently discovered, but I should have been aware of. Most of her stories involve her ancestral Haiti or Haitian immigrants to the US. This was a wonderful collection of stories that explore gender, trauma revolved around natural disasters, and complicated socio-economic experience of these people. I loved this collection and will be reading more of her stuff. 

7. William Maxwell, So Long, See you Tomorrow Maxwell is one of those great American writers whose name is little known.  His name had come up in A.O. Scott’s wonderful essay series on American writers, and so I went headlong into his work. He is more known as an editor of some of our great writers. He was the fiction editor at The New Yorker from 1936 to 1975. This slim novel has a kind of mundane premise: a murder in a small town, but it’s so much more than that. He has a turn of phrase that when its encountered you know you are in the hands of a master.