As a few of you might know, each Sunday at 4pm GMT I run Booked For The Week – a regular chat with a selection of cool industry folks about what they’re reading, what they’re hoping to read next, and what books they recommend. The very secret goal of the column is for the guests to name every book ever written. It’s a task every single one has failed miserably at with two notable exceptions. One was Dan Griliopoulos, who listed 400 books in a document before he got bored and gave up – a heroic, if ultimately futile effort. The other was Warren Spector back in November, who not only gave me the longest and most detailed reply I’d had before or since, but also followed up several times to add more books to the list.
“Hey, so if you recall I reserved the right to change my mind about anything on my “what I’m going to read next” list for your Bookshelf column,” Spector emailed me last night. “Well I changed my mind completely and thought it might be fun and interesting to do an update. Feel free to ignore this, but here’s what I was thinking.”
Obviously, I’m not going to ignore Warren Spector. I figured an update to the original post would just get buried, so here it is in full. “Is this just promotion for your bloody column, Nic?”, you may ask. Au contraire, my little faithless banana bread tin. Is it promotion for literature itself. Cheers again to Warren.
So in my recent entry in this website’s Bookshelves column I listed a bunch of books I was considering reading next. I did the logical thing and listed the books that were next to my reading chair or at the top of my Kindle library, but I reserved the right to change my mind. Good thing I did because, boy, did I change my mind!
I’ve done some interesting reading recently that I wanted to share. None of which had anything to do with the books I thought I was going to read. I’m not talking about a book, but several unrelated books that turned out to be related and are richer when read together than when read separately. All are exceptionally well-written. I strongly recommend each of them, but especially if you read all of them back-to-back. That’s a genuinely special experience. Or was for me anyway.
First, New York In The Fifties by Dan Wakefield. It’s a history of the intellectual and creative history of the city from the late-Forties through the early-Sixties, mostly around Columbia University and Greenwich Village (West and East). The author was like the Zelig character in Woody Allen’s movie. He knew the Columbia intellectuals, the Esquire and New Yorker writers, the Village Voice founders, the Beats, a ton of musicians, people caught up in the blacklist, C. Wright Mills, Norman Mailer, Jack Kerouac, Thomas Pynchon, Bob Dylan and more.
But then there’s book number 2 — Three Shades Of Blue by James Kaplan. It’s the story of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans (with lots about Charlie Parker, too) during the SAME PERIOD in the Village and mid-town (the jazz center of NYC). You get a completely different perspective on those years. It’s fascinating. The author talks about specific songs and albums, all of which are streamable. I listened to the music he was talking about as I was reading, which enriched the experience greatly.
And THEN there’s Positively 4th Street by David Hajdu, the story of the folk scene IN THE SAME PERIOD, also in the Village. It’s mostly about Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Richard and Mimi Farina. Again, a different perspective on the period.
Next, I’m going to read a book called The Slip by Prudence Peiffer, about the art scene in the same place, same time. I anticipate that being fascinating for its perspective, too.
One of the more interesting things I learned is that ALL of these people hung out at a bar called The White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village — ALL OF ‘EM. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall!
Even if you’re not interested in the time, place, or (seriously) the subject matter, the ways in which the books dovetail with one another makes for a fascinating reading journey. And you might just find yourself becoming interested in things you weren’t interested in before.
I am very happy to work at this website for many reasons, but high among them is game developers emailing me out of the blue at 8pm to passionately talk about the books they’ve read so I can share it to an audience of people that I’m 96% sure will mostly definitely give a shit. It makes me want to stay curious and excited and I hope you feel the same. Thank you again to Warren, and thank you to everyone who continues to read and comment on the column every week. As much as I’m always excited to speak to a new guest, some of my favourite times have been when I haven’t been able to find anyone, but you’ve all still kept the conversation going with some great recommendations and thoughts. It feels like a very special and rare thing for a PC Gaming site and I plan to keep it going as long as possible.
Also, if you’re a developer with a book habit please get in contact. I need new guests for the slate and I’m very lazy.
If you missed it, Spector is making a new immersive sim called Thick As Thieves with Greg LoPiccolo and David McDonough. They recently chatted to Jeremy Peel for RPS about the project.