Zen Sounds 037: The Reading List 2022

Book recommendations from my favorite readings of this year

Dec 24, 2022

Zen Sounds is mainly a music newsletter, but I’ve mentioned my findings in literature, film and philosophy from the very beginning – so I figured some of you might be interested in my favorite reads of 2022. And yes, I also really do love lists, and I plan to do this every year from now on.

On average, I read around 50 books per year – that’s one per week. People often ask me where I find the time to read that much. Well, I haven’t owned a tv in many years and have long since canceled my Netflix subscription, so music and books are my main sources of entertainment. I also don’t really have hobbies.

»Entertainment« is not exactly the right word though. Reading, at least to me, is a spiritual activity. It’s something I’ve done since my early childhood – retreating into my inner world and deeply connecting with the ideas and thoughts of other human beings across time and space. When I stop reading, that’s usually one of the certain signs of a serious depressive episode.

Reading that much, you automatically amass a huge quantity of books over the decades. In the early 2010s, I bought into the philosophy of minimalism and in 2015/16, I got rid of a big chunk of my personal belongings. In that period, I sold and donated most of my paper books, and to be honest, I never looked back. Since those days, I’ve been reading a lot on my Kindle, but also kept a library card.

My Kindle is handy and I love the integrated screen light, but in 2022, I made a decision: I want to go back to reading more paper books. In one of the books listed below, author Franklin Foer rightfully makes the case that a withdrawal to paper might work as a subtle act of rebellion against big tech surveillance – as they can’t extract any data from us and can’t track our reading behavior on paper.

»The Kindle doesn’t fully provide respite from the Web. The Kindle may tamp down the noise, but it still doesn’t provide a state of isolation. (…) It remains a fortress of big tech, umbilically connected to an exclusive store. (…) A good portion of the reading public wants an escape from the intense flow of the Internet; they want silent reading, private contemplation – and there’s a nagging sense that paper, and only paper, can induce such a state. (…) [We] should take regular refuge in the sanctuary of paper. It is our respite from the ever-encroaching system, a haven we should self-consciously occupy.«
Franklin Foer, »World Without Mind«

My favorite reads of 2022

Eula Biss – »Having And Being Had« (2020)

Starting with this one, as it was the first book I read this year, and it made such an impact that I went back later to re-read it.

Here’s the plot: As a member of the creative class, writer Eula Biss never made much money. Landing a full-time position as a professor at a private university in Chicago, she can suddenly afford to buy a house. She and her husband opt for a bungalow in one of Chicago’s predominantly African-American neighborhoods. But as a liberal-leaning artist, she also has many doubts and concerns about this decision.

»What I wanted, more than anything, was the illusion of permanence the house provided. The solid foundation, the bricks that wouldn’t blow away, the sense of security. That was a fantasy, I knew, but it felt real.«

While thinking about how to furnish the house, Biss considers the relationship between art creation and capitalism, consumption and gentrification. She asks laconic questions about the system she lives in, without taking herself out of the equation. I found her brutal transparency and her intellectual ingenuity quite fascinating.

I recommend this book to anyone who’s ever asked themselves the question if it’s actually possible to live a righteous life in a rotten system.

Please don’t expect any easy answers though.

Maggie Nelson – »On Freedom« (2021)

A few years ago, I devoured Maggie Nelsons »The Argonauts«, an autobiographical novel about the formation of the author’s queer family, including a detailed description of her in-vitro fertilization and her husband’s hormone replacement therapy.

In her new essay, Nelson discusses the unfashionable idea of freedom, which in recent years has been captured by the alt-right. In discussing this idea, the book moves through four layers: Arts, sex, drugs, and climate politics.

Nelson clearly bases her work on decades of feminist theory and identity politics. She cites Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh in one chapter, and in the next one drops a quip by queer literature theorist Leo Bersani (»there is a big secret about sex: most people don’t like it«).

This clever essay impressed me. Definitely not an easy read, as Nelson tends to write sprawling sentences with long insertions, but a rewarding one.

Deborah Levy –
»Things I Don’t Want To Know« (2014)
»The Cost of Living« (2018)
»Real Estate« (2021)

An autobiographical trilogy by British writer Deborah Levy, now 62.

The first part is mainly set in the author’s childhood in South Africa, still under Apartheid, the second and the third part deal with the period after the collapse of her marriage, when the protagonist, then around 50, moves out of the family house in London into an apartment block, taking her two daughters with her.

In this dramatic period of her life, Levy has to piece her life and her identity back together. Urgent reading recommendation, kind of a middle ground between Tove Ditlevsen and Rachel Cusk.

»And then we talked about a line by the Bengali philosopher, poet and composer Rabindranath Tagore: It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple. I confessed to Vayu that I understood how it was difficult to be simple, every writer knows that to be true, but I did not really believe his line about happiness. She said, ‘Well, I’m happy to be sitting here beside you with a cup of hot water and a teabag.’ It occurred to me that I was happy, too.«

Rachel Cusk – »Coventry« (2019)

Speaking of Rachel Cusk – I am such a fan. My wife knows that, so she gifted me this essay collection which I devoured on a single weekend.

Cusk is a razor-sharp, hyper-aware thinker, and her superb »Outline« novel trilogy had proven that fact already. In her essays, she takes the opportunity to showcase that skill even more openly. Whether she writes about motherhood or driving a car, I’d follow her precise, lucid sentences anywhere she wants to go. I have nothing but respect for her style; I truly believe Cusk is the greatest living writer on the planet.

I am currently reading her latest novel »Second Place«. I only have the first few pages behind me, and I’m already hooked. So I’m recommending »Coventry« if you’re strictly into non-fiction, but if you haven’t read anything by this author, please start with the »Outline« trilogy. You won’t regret it.

Dan Charnas – »Dilla Time« (2022)

Music journalist and hip-hop business historian Dan Charnas researched the life of the late iconic producer James Dewitt Yancey alias J Dilla for many years.

Dilla is being seen as god-like by musicians and fans alike, although he never celebrated mainstream success. Charnas argues that Dillas beats established an entirely new form of rhythm; he theorizes that after the »straight time« of European classical music tradition and the African-American innovation of »swing time« in jazz, a third, stumbling hybrid emerged – »Dilla Time«.

Charnas goes deep into music history and musicology, describes the cultural legacy of Yanceys hometown Detroit, places his work into the broader scope of pop culture and explains his influence on other musicians.

Not stopping there, he also paints the portrait of a fallible human being with problematic character traits, which goes against the almost-religious glorification narrative predominant with Dilla heads. It’s a demystification, for sure, but it’s done in a respectful way, from the viewpoint of someone who truly admires his contributions to music and culture. Essential reading.

Olivia Laing – »The Lonely City« (2016)

Brillant memoir by British writer Olivia Laing, remembering a time when she moved to New York in her mid-thirties, knowing almost nobody, living alone in the city of eight million stories, drifting through the streets.

Like an intellectual flâneur, Laing touches upon the lives and works of lonely artists like Andy Warhol, Greta Garbo or David Wojnarowicz. She muses about the difference between »being alone« and »being lonely«, about how technology, social media and our urban lifestyle are supposed to bring us closer together, but often fail at facilitating true human connection.

»Imagine standing by a window at night, on the sixth or seventeenth or forty-third floor of a building. The city reveals itself as a set of cells, a hundred thousand windows, some darkened and some flooded with green or white or golden light. Inside, strangers swim to and fro, attending to the business of their private hours. You can see them, but you can’t reach them, and so this commonplace urban phenomenon, available in any city of the world on any night, conveys to even the most social a tremor of loneliness, its uneasy combination of separation and exposure.«

PS: Nowadays, Laing lives in a house in the British countryside.

Jonathan Taplin – »Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy« (2017)

Franklin Foer – »World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech« (2018)

John Markoff – »Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand« (2022)

Three books that lead the case about big tech truly being an »existential threat«, not only to journalism and democracy, but to our environment, our societies and communities, yes: our humanity.

A few years ago, I worked my way through Harvard psychologist Shoshana Zuboff’s standard work »The Age of Surveillance Capitalism«. As much as I agree with her, I can’t really recommend the 700 page book. It’s essentially unreadable.

Taplins and Foers books are a lot less heavy on scientific vocabulary, while essentially capturing the same facts and arguments why global tech companies are so dangerous and need to be regulated.

They lay down the foundations on why the Silicon Valley business model leads to the erosion of democratic values and any notion of individual privacy. Foer in particular provides strong arguments against the glorification of data in tech companies, as »data, like victims of torture, tells its interrogator what it wants to hear.«

Markoff additionally looks at the biography of an interesting and ambiguous figure, Stewart Brand, who started out as an advocate for 1960s counter-culture with the creation of his »Whole Earth Catalogue«, but soon turned towards the ultra-libertarian values of Silicon Valley. His key fallacy of thinking was to cure the problems of the world that technology had created – with more technology.

Brand and his fellow libertarians invented the engineering mindset that runs the business world these days, at least across tech companies. Foer explains why this is becoming a serious problem for the existence of art and culture in particular:

»The engineering mindset has little patience for the fetishization of words and images, for the mystique of art, for moral complexity and emotional expression. It views humans as data, components of systems, abstractions.«

Jon Fosse –
»The Other Name (Septology I-II)« (2019)
»I Is Another (Septology III-V)« (2020)
»A New Name (Septology VI-VII)« (2021)

I started reading these voluminous novels by Norwegian writer Jon Fosse during several camping trips in spring and summer of this year.

Fosse writes a slow, minimalist, timeless prose, omitting any traces of postmodern life. A few years ago, I read a portrait of the author in German weekly newspaper Die Zeit. It highlighted that in Fosse’s books, you will find no smartphones and no high-speed trains, no contemporary discourse, no intersectional feminism and no identity politics. His protagonists live in simple houses that don’t contain more than a bed, a table and a chair. They eat bread slices with ham and eggs, and they don’t talk much. At night, they pray the Our Father, while the ocean rustles.

Fosse believes that writing should always deal with the most existential questions of human life, where symbols of modern life don’t help much. He writes rhythmic, poetic sentences with many repetitions, and he never uses full stops. His phrases just keep on flowing and meandering, until they stop in mid-air. His style reminds me of Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, whom I adored in my 20s, but Fosse sounds more melancholic than misanthropic, and fits better with 45-year old me.

I read a few interviews with Fosse and he’s quite an interesting character. He decided to become a writer at young age, because he wanted to escape society and live a reclusive, quiet life. Being an orthodox Christian, he lives by the code of »Abgeschiedenheit« (»seclusion«, after middle-age mystic Meister Eckhart). It doesn’t mean he lives in an abbey in the mountains, as he has lived in cities and in smaller villages; it’s more about building a distance between your mind and the profane. Seclusion, to Fosse, is the precondition for any deep religious experience.

His protagonist, the painter Asle, lives in a small village north of Bergen, Norway. His wife died a while ago, and he meets few other people. Like in a Scandinavian art movie, nothing really happens, but the story of his life is told through constant, non-linear cutbacks. Many details remain unclear, specifically his relation to another protagonist named Asle, who is also a painter but lives in the city as a heavy alcoholic in terminal stage, and a mysterious woman that claims to know him from an earlier time in his life and is also the sister of his neighbor, a simple fisherman.

I haven’t finished it myself yet, as I need to find the space to dive back into Fosse’s world for parts 6 and 7. Recommending this simply for his ridiculously beautiful style of prose.

Ben Wardle – »Mark Hollis: A Perfect Silence« (2022)

Mark Hollis was an extraordinary musician, possibly a genius. An introverted, uncompromising artist that preferred retreating to family life instead of chasing fame. Even more than music, he loved silence.

Journalist Ben Wardle wrote this book trying to capture the biography of that notoriously close-lipped man. He wasn’t able to interview Hollis’ widow or any former member of his band Talk Talk. Still, he managed to speak to the band’s former manager and several musicians and music industry sources. The book is solidly researched, written in an appealing way and, for a fan like me, full of interesting anecdotes.

Talk Talk rose to worldwide success in the early to mid 1980s with tasteful synth pop hits. On their third album »The Colour Of Spring«, they made a creative quantum leap, when Hollis and his co-producer Tim Friese-Greene swapped their synthesizers for analog instruments.

The next two albums were even more artistically refined: »Spirit Of Eden« and »Laughing Stock« remain among the most important experimental rock albums of all time, commercial duds but hugely influential for the next generation of post-rock musicians. Ever wondered where Tortoise, Radiohead, Sigur Rós and The Notwist got their inspiration? Look no further.

From the release of his first and single solo album in 1998 until his untimely death in 2019, Hollis traded pop star life for being a father and husband to his family. He also played a lot of golf, rode motorcycles and collected rare instruments.

Mark Hollis never asked to become a pop star; he deeply admired jazz, classical and new music. And he once famously said: »Before you play two notes learn how to play one note — and don't play one note unless you've got a reason to play it.«

Christopher McDougall – »Born To Run« (2009)

Scott Jurek – »Eat & Run« (2012)

This summer, I finally got into long(ish) distance running. My main inspiration was Chris McDougalls bible on the wonders of barefoot running.

In his wildly successful book, McDougall tells the tale of a trip to Mexico, gonzo-style, where a few eccentric ultrarunners meet to compete with the Rarámuri, a Native Middle American tribe known for running extreme distances in rubber sandals.

I bought some barefoot sandals as well, which I basically wore all summer, and my wife even made some by hand for herself. For running, I still prefer zero-drop minimalist running shoes. I’m also far from running Ultramarathons, but I am perfectly fine with my regular 5 to 10 mile rounds.

I also want to mention the autobiography by vegan ultra runner Scott Jurek, a very likeable character and huge inspiration to me. I followed his recommendations and bought a stack of classic running books from the 1970s and 1980s, but I haven’t gone through them all yet.

Graeme Thomson – »Under The Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush« (2015)

This summer, I also dug deep into the discography of Kate Bush, triggered by the second life that her hit »Running Up That Hill« (1985) received through a sync placement in Netflix’ »Stranger Things 4« soundtrack. I’ve always loved the song, but I never really listened to her albums – a huge shortfall on my end, I have to admit, as she is an iconic artist, inspiring everyone from Björk to FKA twigs.

While going through her records, I read this biography by British culture journalist Graeme Thomson. Similar to Mark Hollis, Bush is a quite unapproachable artist (I have a soft spot for these people), so he wasn’t able to talk to her, but he did a terrific job in piecing together her life story from archives and interviews.

Thomson traces her artistic development, from being a teenage prodigy discovered by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour at age 15, finding early success in the late 1970s as a singer and songwriter. In the 1980s, she essentially gained control over all aspects of her music production, celebrating her biggest commercial success. In the 1990s, she moved to the countryside, married and birthed a son.

She had only sporadically played live shows after her first and only tour in 1979, and she declined speaking to the press. The British tabloids portrayed her as an eccentric recluse (»the Greta Garbo of pop«), but Thomsons book suggests that Bush just doesn’t want anything to do with mass media and the entertainment industry. She is an auteur in the truest sense of the word, not a pop star.

Bush made a triumphant return in 2005, released a few more records, and in 2014, she finally played a series of sold-out concerts in London, gracing the stage for the first time in decades. Since then, she has retreated back into silence.

Lucy F. Jones – »Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need The Wild« (2020)

British science and health journalist Lucy Jones has written a book »about the relationship between the natural world and the human psyche; a wide-ranging inquiry into the mechanism by which contact with 'nature' is therapeutic«.

In one chapter, she cites a study saying the average North American will have spent 12,000 hours in class rooms at age 18. »That’s 12,000 hours in a four-cornered room, away from nature, and I think that’s what you need to create an industrialized society«, eco-psychologist John Scull deadpans.

Elsewhere, Jones describes our postmodern life as life in boxes: Waking up, opening a box of food, moving into a metal box to commute to the city, spending our day in a box of glass and steel, sitting in front of a box (where they constantly tell you to think outside the box, but they don’t really mean it); coming home, putting another box of food into a box and switching on the box – until they carry you out in a box.

On the contrary, spending time in nature can take the focus away from yourself, from your ego, and help you feel connected to others. It can direct your attention to something greater than the problems of your everyday life. (Social media will do nothing but enhance that all-consuming narcissism, according to Jones.)

Jones makes the point that city life is a risk for our mental health and instead turns to century-old Japanese practices like »forest bathing« (shinrin-yoku) and the Deep Ecology movement initiated by Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss. It’s a great book, full of feasible suggestions to surround yourself with nature more.

Mark Boyle – »The Way Home: Tales From a Life Without Technology« (2019)

Mark Boyle is a former environmentalist that moved to the countryside for an experiment: He wanted to see what life was like without modern technology. Now he lives in a wooden hut that he built on a smallholding, he doesn’t have a car, central heating or warm water, no phone and no computer, he doesn’t use electricity, writes with a pen and basically lives off the land.

Yes, that’s kind of radical, but I believe we need people like Boyle who explore these radical experiences, so we don’t forget we can still choose a different lifestyle than urban consumer capitalism. (Herbert Marcuse once wrote that the role of art in society is »in its refusal to forget what can be«.)

This alternative lifestyle might feel laborious and incovenient, but at the same time, Boyle finds a new connection to the seasons, his local community and his natural surroundings. Call me a Neo-Luddite, but I have found a lot of truth in Boyle’s book, and it has definitely helped me adjusting to life in my old farmhouse in Germany’s rural Northeast.

»As I sit in a cabin writing about the Luddites, I fantasise about rebellion. But where to start? I look around and see that, in the 21st century, the machine is everywhere, even in my own head. Maybe that’s not such a bad place to start then.«

I’d love to hear from you as well – what were some of your favorite reads in 2022? Please tell me in the chat (in the Substack app).