Tired of reading the same recommended books from the usual sources? Just think of our weekly What We’re Reading column as your non-committal book club with The FADER and some of your favorite bands. For this installment, Jack Tatum of Wild Nothing talks about reading during downtime promoting and touring for his forthcoming album Nocturne.
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin: This series has been huge for me. I got pretty hooked after going into the HBO series more or less blind. I immediately went out the day after I finished the first season and bought every book. It was actually that desperate. I definitely wouldn't say I'm proud, but I barely put these books down while reading them. There was a solid month where my roommates would come into my room and be like, "Jack, are you seriously still reading Game Of Thrones?" I really couldn't stop. It's not so much the fantasy aspect that attracts me. It's definitely something that becomes more prevalent as the series progresses, but I personally found myself becoming really invested in all these outrageous characters, whether it was because I loved them or found them repulsive.
After Dark by Haruki Murakami: Not exactly breaking any new ground here, but I've been slowly making my way through Murakami's novels over the past few years, especially while on tour. "After Dark" happens to be the most recent one that I've read and also one of the quicker reads I've had in the past few months. I flew from New York to Virginia recently and brought this book along thinking that I would be reading it off and on while on tour, but I ended up blasting through it on the flight. More or less it's a story of what happens in the late hours of a particular night in Tokyo, following a handful of characters around from dusk till dawn. Murakami definitely has such a great ability to bring a story full circle, especially with this short novel where all these characters that seem relatively unrelated find themselves crossing paths in interesting ways. Definitely a fun, quick read.
Lanark: A Life in Four Books by Alasdair Gray: I'm still in the middle of this book, but as this is "what I'm reading" and not necessarily "what I've read," I'll include it anyway. This has been one of those books that I'm really taking my time with for whatever reason. I wouldn't say it's slow, but every once in awhile you start reading a book and then get distracted or pick up another one and before you know it, three months have passed and you're still on the same chapter. That's basically been my experience with Lanark. That being said, it's something that I chose to talk about because what I have read so far has been really interesting. The first "book" takes place in a dystopian city, presumably some sort of hell or purgatory where the characters meet in a dingy coffee shop, disappear into giant mouths and turn into dragons. You know, stuff like that.
