User Profile

Chad Nelson

bibliotechy@bookwyrm.social

Joined 4 years ago

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Chad Nelson's books

Currently Reading

Carla Needleman: The work of craft (Paperback, 1993, Kodansha International) 3 stars

Interesting and frustrating

3 stars

This book, ostensibly a philosophy of craft as art, it’s also a polemic for understanding and hat craft is a tool for discovering one’s inner truths. It has so many interesting ideas but is written so poorly that it’s easy to lose them in the mess of dangling clauses and mixed metaphors. When I did catch what she was trying to say, I didn’t know his agree with her, but it made me think.

Katherine Rye Jewell: Live from the Underground (2023, University of North Carolina Press) 3 stars

Interesting, but a bit repetitive

No rating

I found large parts of the history of college radio, and its intersection with NPR and increasing wattage, and why it’s always to the left of the dial fascinating. But every chapter seems to repeat a bunch of ideas and context in a way that got a little bit repetitive. Might’ve been better if it was half as long, more to the point more Ramones punk and less variations on a theme.

Olivia Laing: The Lonely City (Hardcover, 2016, Picador) 4 stars

What does it mean to be lonely? How do we live, if we're not intimately …

Fascinating mixture of art criticism and psychology and memoir. I’m not sure I’m always 100% on board with her analysis, but the through line of the book, of loneliness being a driver and shaper of lives rings true.

Bora Chung, Anton Hur: Your Utopia (Paperback, 2024, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill) 3 stars

Major letdown

3 stars

I was so excited for this collection of stories. Her previous collection was one of my all time favorites; weird, dark, twisted but fun, always unexpected. The book unfortunately was a major regression. Every story felt like it followed a trope I already knew. There were a few stories near the end of the collection that had that same feeling of surprise and innovation, but nothing like in Cursed Bunny. :(