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Double Bass DB forum "what books are you reading" thread

#602
"Fierce Conversations" by Susan Scott. A book worth reading because it provides background and guidance about how you can speak the truth and become more effective in interpersonal and professional relationships. Scott speaks frankly about how destructive silence and saying what you think others want to hear can be in organizations and among individuals.
 
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#606
The Blues: The Authentic Narrative of My Music and Culture
Book by Chris Thomas King

Great book, posits a fasinating theroy on the genisis of the blues, being the music of cosmopolitan free blacks, rather than country slaves.
Also a real eye opener on black history in general
 
#607
Chris Fitzgerald said:
Currently reading this:
View attachment 4130044

I often cringe at this type of book, but this one is really excellent and I am considering making it required reading for my grad students. It really resonates.
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Lee Moses said:
I picked up Atomic Habits a year or two ago, and was really impressed. I need to re-read it, this time making sure actually to put it into action.
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Okay, the seed our esteemed administrator planted has finally sprouted. I'm rereading Atomic Habits right now, but this time I signed up for the "30 Days to Better Habits" on the website and am doing the activities in the workbook. Hopefully, it will have more lasting effects this time.
 
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#608
Lee Moses said:
Okay, the seed our esteemed administrator planted has finally sprouted. I'm rereading Atomic Habits right now, but this time I signed up for the "30 Days to Better Habits" on the website and am doing the activities in the workbook. Hopefully, it will have more lasting effects this time.
Click to expand...

This is great! I used the Atomic Habits method this past month to make a change that has stuck: namely, I have always thought it would be good to do my daily bass calibration workout in the morning right before my physical workout. Always put it off because I didn’t want to get up earlier. But this month I did it and am on week 5 as of today, which means the “willpower” part of it is pretty much over.

Tell me more about the website thing?
 
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#609
Chris Fitzgerald said:
This is great! I used the Atomic Habits method this past month to make a change that has stuck: namely, I have always thought it would be good to do my daily bass calibration workout in the morning right before my physical workout. Always put it off because I didn’t want to get up earlier. But this month I did it and am on week 5 as of today, which means the “willpower” part of it is pretty much over.
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If I get one positive benefit out of a book, I consider that a success. It sounds like you've found success!

Chris Fitzgerald said:
Tell me more about the website thing?
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If you go to jamesclear.com, there is a 30-day course sent regularly to your e-mail. Writing things down is forcing me into more accountability as well as thinking more about how everything relates to my own situation, rather than simply reading and saying, "Yeah, yeah, that sounds good."
 
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#610
I'm reading "How We Learn To Move" by Rob Grey. It's about coaching sports but I believe it has a lot of carry-over to teaching and learning bass. It's free if you have kindle unlimited

Some key points so far
- Training with repetition is ineffective and boring, leading to frustration and high dropout rates among youth in sports
- Programming variability into practice makes you adaptable and less prone to injury
- The less abstract and more "game-like" your practice is, the better your performance on game-day
 
#611
Last year I read Moscow 1812 by Adam Zamoyski, great read about Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.
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#614
Have been reading a lot of living female authors recently, literary stuff but not dry or pedantic. Folks like Ann Patchett, Jodi Picoult, Liane Moriarty, Celeste Ng, Tracey Lange, etc.

I don’t know if these books have a specific genre that they fit into, but they are pretty much all about families and relationships over time, and they are insightful and intelligent, and they resonate with my experience of growing up in a large and complicated family. Family literature? I don’t know, but I am glad to have discovered this new-to-me category of books.
 
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#615
I’ve been reading Kyle Gann’s The Arithmetic of Listening, which is a bit math-y but fascinating. I finally understand why composers thought musical keys had different basic flavors.
 
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#617
Chris Fitzgerald said:
Have been reading a lot of living female authors recently, literary stuff but not dry or pedantic. Folks like Ann Patchett, Jodi Picoult, Liane Moriarty, Celeste Ng, Tracey Lange, etc.

I don’t know if these books have a specific genre that they fit into, but they are pretty much all about families and relationships over time, and they are insightful and intelligent, and they resonate with my experience of growing up in a large and complicated family. Family literature? I don’t know, but I am glad to have discovered this new-to-me category of books.
Click to expand...
After reading “Animal Joy, A Book of Laughter and Resuscitation” I decided I needed something lighter and picked “The Dutch House” by Ann Patchett off the bookshelf. I’ve never read her or any of the authors you mentioned before. It is light, but it took me 100 pages to get beyond indifferent and now at ~page 160 I’m really enjoying it. I come from a small family, geographically isolated from other relatives, so perhaps I got lucky as the book deals with a brother and sister cut off from their expected futures by the death of their father and being cut out of “the family” by their step-mother.
 
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#619
@Lee Moses and @Chris Fitzgerald I recently read Atomic Habits as well. Interesting that a lot of my habits developed from things he discusses in the book. It was interesting to read his suggestions and see things I had already been doing for years. Although I’ve not managed to develop any new habits yet, perhaps a round table discussion might benefit us?


In order to get this thread back on track:

Andrea Camilleri - The Snack Thief
Woody Allen - The Complete Prose
Arnold Schwarzenegger - Total Recall
Rafi Zabor - The Bear Comes Home
 
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#620
Frank Kreber said:
My Top 10 so far:

Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain
Fjodor Dostojewski: Demons
Umberto Eco: Foucaults Pendulum
James Clavell: Shogun
Stephen King: It
Dennis Lehane: Mystic River
Hilary Mantel: A Place Of Greater Safety
Carlos Ruiz Zafon:The Cemetery of Forgotten Books (quadrology)
JRR Tolkien: The Lord Of The Rings
Franz Kafka: The Trial
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These are all great for so many reasons. Always great to read something deep and meaningful while also enjoyable.
 
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