Here are 70 books that The Best of Boneshaker fans have personally recommended if you like
The Best of Boneshaker.
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As a cyclist from a young age (thanks to the encouragement and engineering of my dad—he literally welded one of my first bikes together from the carcass of another kid’s bike that was run over by a car in his driveway on accident), I’ve always had a fondness for bicycles and, more specifically, *riding* bicycles. So, as is probably common for anyone who is fond of something, I’ve spent years exploring it from as many angles as possible. In the process, I’ve loved studying bicycles in motion, along with collecting artistic and philosophical expressions that center the act of getting around on two wheels under your own power.
I’ll caveat that The Third Policeman isn’t going to delight everyone—it’s a wacky, somewhat bewildering book to wander through.
But it’s also masterfully written, and one of the most creative and exalted ways I know of bicycles appearing in literature.
Probably better known for his novelAt Swim-Two-Birds, O’Brien brings the bicycle to life in this murky murder mystery that doubles as a philosophical exploration on humanness and reality.
It’s as if Samuel Beckett wrote a play that prominently features bicycles, directed by the Coen Brothers.
The Third Policeman is Flann O'Brien's brilliantly dark comic novel about the nature of time, death, and existence. Told by a narrator who has committed a botched robbery and brutal murder, the novel follows him and his adventures in a two-dimensional police station where, through the theories of the scientist/philosopher de Selby, he is introduced to "Atomic Theory" and its relation to bicycles, the existence of eternity (which turns out to be just down the road), and de Selby's view that the earth is not round but "sausage-shaped." With the help of his newly found soul named "Joe, " he…
As a cyclist from a young age (thanks to the encouragement and engineering of my dad—he literally welded one of my first bikes together from the carcass of another kid’s bike that was run over by a car in his driveway on accident), I’ve always had a fondness for bicycles and, more specifically, *riding* bicycles. So, as is probably common for anyone who is fond of something, I’ve spent years exploring it from as many angles as possible. In the process, I’ve loved studying bicycles in motion, along with collecting artistic and philosophical expressions that center the act of getting around on two wheels under your own power.
For the history-curious cyclists among us, I submit for your consideration David V. Herlihy’s excellently-researched and well-told history of the two-wheeled machine we love so much.
From its beginnings as a literal “bone shaker” (an iron frame on wooden wheels), to the impossibly-light machines of the 20th and 21st centuries, Herlihy’s tale of cycling commerce, commuting, and competition over time and across the world is as enlightening as it is entertaining.
I’ve turned to it again and again for its historical perspective (and its great photos).
The first comprehensive history of the bicycle-lavishly illustrated with images spanning two centuries
During the nineteenth century, the bicycle evoked an exciting new world in which even a poor person could travel afar and at will. But was the "mechanical horse" truly destined to usher in a new era of road travel or would it remain merely a plaything for dandies and schoolboys? In Bicycle: The History (named by Outside magazine as the #1 book on bicycles), David Herlihy recounts the saga of this far-reaching invention and the passions it aroused. The pioneer racer James Moore insisted the bicycle would…
I’m a cyclist and a cycling fan. I’ve commuted through the Surrey countryside by tricycle and explored the cycling city of Cambridge by bike. I’ve stood at the side of the road to cheer on the Olympic road race, the Tour de France and the Tour of Britain, and the World Road Cycling Championships. I kept on cycling until I was eight and a half months pregnant and was reading a biography of Beryl Burton when I went into labour. There aren’t a lot of cycling novels out there, but I’m proud of having added one to that small number.
It takes a certain kind of person to succeed in the sport of cycling, and The Rider is possibly the closest I’ll ever get to understanding that mindset. This book tops every list of recommendations of cycling novels that I’ve ever seen and with good reason.
Told in the first person, it’s completely immersive. We follow the narrator through a single day’s race, and we feel all of it as he does: the slog, the suffering, the drive to win. I might have wondered why he kept going, but the simple act of reading the book answers that question: you can’t stop. I barely drew breath.
At the start of the 137-kilometre Tour de Mont Aigoual, Tim Krabbe glances up from his bike to assess the crowd of spectators. 'Non-racers,' he writes. 'The emptiness of those lives shocks me.' Immediate and gripping from the first page, we race with the author as he struggles up the hills and clings on during descents in the unforgiving French mountains.
Originally published in 1978, The Rider is a modern-day classic that is recognised as one of the best books ever written about the sport. Brilliantly conceived and best read at a break-neck pace, it is a loving, imaginative and…
As a cyclist from a young age (thanks to the encouragement and engineering of my dad—he literally welded one of my first bikes together from the carcass of another kid’s bike that was run over by a car in his driveway on accident), I’ve always had a fondness for bicycles and, more specifically, *riding* bicycles. So, as is probably common for anyone who is fond of something, I’ve spent years exploring it from as many angles as possible. In the process, I’ve loved studying bicycles in motion, along with collecting artistic and philosophical expressions that center the act of getting around on two wheels under your own power.
One of the most compelling parts of this gem of a book are Adam Thompson’s immaculate line drawings that capture the artfulness, and beautiful simplicity, at the heart of a bicycle ride—their white space pulls you in and invites you to imagine the landscape and circumstances around them.
Bicycles, and the paths they forge, take many shapes, but in the hands of Fattaruso and Thompson those shapes take center stage, and the essence of bicycling shines.
It’s a lovely interlude that always makes me nostalgic for riding a single speed on a rural road at the height of summer.
Somewhere between prose poem and sacred incantation lies Bicycle. In spare, comically surreal and beautiful prose, Paul Fattaruso does for bicycles what Richard Brautigan did for trout—he elevates them to the status of an idol. An intimate, inventive, and vibrant book.
Paul Fattaruso is the author of Travel in the Mouth of the Wolf. His work has appeared in Volt, Jubilat, Fence, Black Warrior Review, Another Chicago Magazine, The Tiny, and others. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife Kristin and his son Max. He rides a silver bicycle.
I was a participant in the D.C. punk scene during the 1980s and helped start an organization known as Positive Force. I remember hearing about the group “Parents of Punkers,” the head of which compared punk to a violent cult. They would go on television and scare watchers about what their kids might be doing. I remember at the time that this missed the realities of my own experiences and made me want to protest this moral panic. But I knew this required some distance from the “punk rock world” I had inhabited. I kept thinking about writing this book and the timing was right.
Known mostly as the bassist for the noise band, Sonic Youth, Gordon was also a sophisticated critic and supporter of the growing punk movement in America during the 1980s. In this collection of essays (many of them originally published in art magazines), she explains one of the most distinct movements within 1980s punk – “straight edge,” refusing drugs and alcohol, thereby disassociating the classic mantra of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. With a sharp eye, she explains, “These kids are antidrugs, antidrinking, anti-Reagan, and antisex – not so much out of puritanism as from a desire to be in control, and to avoid being manipulated by the consumerist system.” She praises the Do it Yourself (DIY) spirit of 1980s punk, enjoying watching bands “jam econo” (that’s a Minutemen term). She also holds this sort of activity in contrast with the blasé spirit she gets from observing new wave nightclubs…
Throughout the 1980s and early '90s, Kim Gordon—widely known as a founding member of the influential band Sonic Youth—produced a series of writings on art and music. Ranging from neo-Conceptual artworks to broader forms of cultural criticism, these rare texts are brought together in this volume for the first time, placing Gordon's writing within the context of the artist-critics of her generation, including Mike Kelley, John Miller, and Dan Graham. In addressing key stakes within contemporary art, architecture, music, and the performance of male and female gender roles, Gordon provides a prescient analysis of such figures as Kelley, Glenn Branca,…
I am a female musician who has toured and experienced life on the road in the male-dominated world of rock and roll. I am always looking for female musicians (famous and unknown) who led the way to me being able to do what I do. Female musicians still don’t get equal time with their male counterparts. There are still so few women who have been recognized in the media, so reading about them makes me feel less alone. Their memoirs inspire me to keep playing and bring to music what only a female musician can do.
I was very surprised by this book about Kim Gordon the bassist of the band Sonic Youth. It wasn’t what I was expecting.
Kim Gordon was someone I always thought of as very cool and extremely reserved. In her memoir she opens up quite a bit about who she is, as opposed to the persona she had been given in the band Sonic Youth. Playing music was not her first love—it was art.
I loved reading about her artistic explorations, traveling with hippies in California, and being a free spirit. She describes tenderly her relationship with her older brother Keller who suffered from schizophrenia and was hospitalized. The Sonic Youth song, “Sister” is about him. The book also describes her painful divorce from Thurston Moore (founding member of Sonic Youth). Kim Gordon redefines herself as much more than just the bass player in a rock band.
A new edition, part of the Faber Greatest Hits series -- books that have taken writing about music in new and exciting directions for the twenty-first century.
In Girl in a Band Kim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth and role model for a generation of women, tells her story. She writes frankly about her route from girl to woman and pioneering icon within the music and art scene of New York City in the 1980s and 90s as well as marriage, motherhood, and independence.
Filled with the sights and sounds of a changing world and a remarkable life, Girl…
My interests as a historian involve examining how Americans organize to
change policy or politics through affiliations beyond political parties
and, by extension, thinking about how culture is made and supported
through institutions and businesses. These messy networks and
relationships ultimately define how we relate to one another in the U.S.
Indie music scenes are one way to trace all of these relationships,
from federal policy governing radio stations and what goes out over the
airwaves to the contours of local music scenes, to the business of
record labels, to ordinary DJs and music fans trying to access
information and new sounds that they love.
No list of books on the indie music scenes of the 1980s is complete without this classic tale of the rise of commercial tensions regarding indie rock bands.
Music offered a form of rebellion against conformity – and punk challenged the corporate music industry of the 1970s with its DIY code and aesthetics. But in its wake, new forms of rebellion and alternative pathways to success emerged – at least for a time.
These bands that Azerrad chronicles became the giants of this alternative scene, and they were the sound of college radio. As Azerrad writes, corporate labels co-opted new wave in the early 1980s, “but they couldn’t co-opt punk’s infrastructure—the local underground scenes, labels, radio stations, fanzines, and stores. They, perhaps more so than any particular musical style, are punk’s most enduring legacy.”
Finally in paperback, the story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan Eighties - when a small but sprawling network of bands, labels, fanzines, radio stations and other subversives re-energised American rock with punk rock's d-I-y credo and created music that was deeply personal, often brilliant, always challenging and immensely influential. OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE is a sweeping chronicle of music, politics, drugs, fear, loathing and faith that is already being recognized as an indie rock classic in its own right.
Among the legendary bands featured are: Black Flag, the Minutement, Mission…
I’m a writer, living in southwest France since 1995, and previously in Kenya for 20 years. Travel has always been my passion. I’ve written about hiking across France in Best Foot Forward, touring the perimeter by camping car in Travels with Tinkerbelle, cycling through the Marne Valley in The Valley of Heaven and Hell, and a Kenyan safari in Safari Ants, Baggy Pants and Elephants. Recently, due to COVID and with an elderly dog that suffers from separation anxiety, I couldn't leave for any length of time; I satisfy my wanderlust by reading other people’s adventures. My taste is for tales that include plenty of humour, and I’ve selected five which I have particularly enjoyed.
A beautifully painted account of the author’s journey through Africa, as much about his conflicting emotions as about cycling. Mainly eating jam sandwiches, and sleeping in dangerous places and filthy hostels, he pedals his way towards South Africa across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and war-torn Sudan. He finds friendship in unexpected places, and disappointment in others.
It appealed to me as both a cycling adventure, and having lived in Kenya I was keen to read about his experiences in Africa.
This enthralling account details Alastair Humphrey's epic journey across Africa, through Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya. His experience is at times brutal, and though he faces loneliness, despair, and harsh conditions, he also survives through trust in the kindness of strangers.
Moods of Future Joys is a story of the triumphs over adversities, of one man who set off from his home in Yorkshire to cycle the world, fundraise for charity and... to live a little.
I grew up in a small town, with wonderful librarians who introduced me to books I remember fondly to this day. The Flicka, Ricka, Dicka series, the Bobbsey Twins, Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew, and, of course, Little Women shaped my love for stories about relationships and the simple pleasures of daily life. Whether it’s a mystery or a memoir, I want interesting interactions between the main characters, meaty descriptions of daily activities and affairs, and, of course, a happy ending. As I’ve gotten older, I like books with older protagonists; those are hard to come by—one reason I wrote a novel about the adventures of five middle-aged girlfriends!
I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a book this much.
Sean is a brilliant writer, and funny as all get out. We share a love of the South, a love of words, a fear of snakes, and an aversion to traffic. As I read, I earmarked nearly a dozen passages I shared with family and friends, like, “Covid cases climbing like decisions at a Billy Graham crusade” and “I have nothing against fog machines and stage lights, but ordering a Starbucks in a church lobby just feels wrong."
His account of his and his wife’s bicycle trek down the Great Allegheny Passage and the C&O Canal Towpath trail put to rest once and for all any aspiration I harbored about walking the Appalachian Trail. Some things are better read about!
A laugh-out-loud funny true story of a loving relationship, a grand adventure, and a promise kept.
It was only a few years after the starry-eyed young couple got married when scary news threatened to take the wind out of their sails. But Sean Dietrich's wife, Jamie, wouldn't let it. She dared to hope for and plan for a great big adventure, and she made him promise to do it with her. For love and the promise of biscuits along the way, Sean--who was never an athlete of any kind--undertook the bike ride of a lifetime and lived to talk about…
Sean Conway is a record-breaking endurance cyclist who has cycled over 100,000 miles in the last decade including cycling around the world, LEJOG twice, and the world record for the fastest person to cycle across Europe.
Also very well written. Charlie chooses the roads less travelled and he meanders for nearly 4 years from the UK to Singapore then back and down through Africa to Cape Town before turning around and cycling back up Africa to the UK. He got arrested in Tibet. Had a pony stolen in Mongolia and nearly got killed by a drunken mob in Ethiopia. Gripping throughout.
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