Readings 2020 - Nonfiction

Reading was another important activity during this pandemic year. I read my share of novels and escapist stories. I also read a lot about the music I love. 

I read several biographies and memoirs including books about Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Chrissie Hynde, David Bowie and Patti Smith. Also an interesting expose of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone magazine that reinforced much of what I already thought about that man and his vanity magazine. 

I read a few books about pandemics, the medical establishment and countries in crises along with some very strong critiques of the trump administration including that bio by his niece.

The book about Hollywood and the making of Chinatown in the seventies was a very good read. The history of mankind was good too. I also finally got around to reading that Che book that had been sitting on a book shelf for a number of years. And that Midnight Movies book too.

Overall a good year for reading.

• Janis: Her Life and Music - Holly George-Warren, 2019
• Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie's Life - John O'Connell, 2019
• Restless: My Life as a Pretender - Chrissie Hynde, 2015
• Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man - Mary Trump, 2020
• Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine - Joe Hagan, 2017
• The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood - Sam Wasson, 2020
• Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded - Jason Heller, 2018
• Midnight Movies - J. Hoberman, 1982
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari, 2011
• Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump and an Epic Trail of Destruction - David Enrich, 2020
• Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World - Laura Spinney, 2017
• Year of the Monkey - Patti Smith, 2019
• Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America - Gerald Posner, 2020
• Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future - Paul Krugman, 2020
• The Dylan Companion - Elizabeth Thomson, ed, 1990
• Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crises - Jared Diamond, 2019
• The Fixers: The Bottom-Feeders, Crooked Lawyers, Gossipmongers and Porn Stars Who Created the 45th President - Joe Palazzolo, 2020
• Switched on Pop: How Popular Music Works and Why It Matters - Nate Sloan, 2019
• The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey - Ernesto Che Guevara, 1992
• Code Blue: Inside America's Medical Industrial Complex - Mike Magee, 2019
• Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism - Ann Case, 2020
• Philadelphia: Finding the Hidden City - Nathaniel Popkin, 2017
• One Nation, Two Realities: Dueling Facts in American Democracy - Morgan Marietta, 2019
• If We Can Keep It: How the Republic Collapsed and How It Might Be Saved - Michael Tomasky, 2019
• Underland - Robert Macfarlane, 2019
• Broken Music: Artists' Recordworks - Ursula Block, 1989
• Scotland to the World: Treasures from the National Museum of Scotland - David Souden, 2016