My friend Joe Savino remarked that this is the shortest book list of mine in many a year. 34 compared to 50+ in prior years. But in my defense, several of these wonderful books are over five, six, sometimes over seven hundred pages. Not an excuse, but a reason. And whereas in the past, I augmented my list with audiobooks, listening them while on my lunch-hour walk, in 2019, I unfortunately did not take as many lunch-hour walks as in prior years. I let my job dictate my emotional and psychological equilibrium, or lack thereof. I quote a great American crime novelist:"The workin' man don't get nothin' but older."
Nevertheless, here's the list. I've hyperlinked each title, so glide your curser over the title of the book and you can click away, and get taken to a review of it.
Brother Kemal and Happy Birthday, Turk! by Jakob Arjouni, two more reads into the underworld of Arjouni, who died age 49 in 2013, and his Turkish-German private investigator Kemal Kayankaya. Good cocky mysteries.
Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris is yet another hilarious recitation of the absurdity of life. As usual, I guffawed out loud during much of this insane, Christmastime romp.
Time Will Darken It by William Maxwell, “the best known editor at The New Yorker,” takes us to 1912 Illinois, small-town gentleness, and leaves you feeling that the afternoon is an actual character. Paris Stories by Mavis Gallant is a very good book of very good stories. I’m looking forward to reading our other volume we have somewhere in the apartment, “Selected Stories of”. Naturally there are six other books ahead of her.
Death and the Penguin and Penguin Lost by Andrey Kurkov are two of my favorite books from 2019; Kurkov takes you along on a sometimes nerve-wrecking story but will endear himself to you before you know it. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown is an extraordinary story. In the early decades of the U.S. in the Pacific Northwest, growing up in a broken home, working harder than one can ever imagine, this story about Joe Rantz, and the quest to make it to the 1936 Berlin Olympics is unbelievable. I couldn’t get over how cold I felt while reading about Joe Rantz and his buddies rowing their brains out in the freezing weather around Seattle. This is a marvelous and informative biography.
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles another of my gold-star reads for 2019, New York City in the 1930s, deep and complex. The System of the World by Neal Stephenson took me forever to read last year, not because it was a drudgery, but because it is a huge book, its scope immense, and the intertwined stories of 17th Century European politics, science, medicine, and swashbuckling are fantastic. It concludes the Baroque cycle, three volumes of several books within each. I loved it.
Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time by Hilary Spurting is a fascinating biography of novelist Anthony Powell, and his impact on many of our contemporary, modern British writers. A Closed Eye by Anita Brookner is yet another book I digested with relish by the woman who brought me Leaving Home and The Bay of Angels. “My idea of heaven is a nice cup of tea” and sitting reading a Brookner novel.
Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War by Adam Hochschild, it’s a hard book to read because I’ve read so much already about this war both in fiction and nonfiction that its innumerable betrayals and cruelties are such precursors, preludes in full to the Second World War, like the explosion of the universe from the big bang theory.
Autumn Light by Pico Iyer is as I mentioned in my posting about it a beautiful book. I wish I had the time to reread it. Independent People by Halldor Laxness, the Nobel winner for literature, is a thick uphill tragic story of the people of early 20th century Iceland. Nature is almost as cruel to the people as they are to themselves.
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks is a very good book in the vein of Dan Brown or Joseph Kanon. I recommend it for like-minded readers.
The Turkish Gambit and Murder on the Leviathon by Boris Akunin are my continuing pleasures of late 19thcentury Russian murder mysteries, making you laugh or making you astounded by the brilliance of the ongoing adventures of the Sherlock Homes-like Fandorin.
The Mystic Masseur and Guerrillas by V. S. Naipaul are two more ventures into the world of colonial Trinidad & Tobago. The former novel is loaded with satire, the latter reminds you that white rule, capitalism, subjection of the poor found its way into every nook and cranny of the British Empire, even after Empire.
When I began reading Wendell Berry I had no preconceived notions of his art, but having read four of his books in 2019, I have been left with inarticulate adoration of his prose and amazement of his social, economic, and roots-of-the-family scope. Nathan Coulter; A Place on Earth; The Memory of Old Jack; and Jayber Crow. Four books that are going to be difficult to let go of.
Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon is a page-turner, Second World War thriller that fits right into my Alan Furst or John Lawton canon.
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne is a good book. He covers a lot of ground so buckle up.
The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambassador to the Court of St. James, 1932-1943, edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky, is one of the most fascinating books ever. The presence of some of the most powerful people of the middle 20th century, be it political or artistic, and Ambassador Maisky’s ability to keep his head above the Soviet Union’s fanaticisms during WW II, is nothing short of brilliance. He is so incredibly charming, even when being bullied by Churchill.
The Bastards of Pizzofalcone by Maurizio de Giovanni. This was like reading a television crime series, only in Italy. It was a fun diversion. Blowing the Bloody Doors Off by Michael Caine cracked me up most of the time, but he feels it’s necessary to give the reader helpful hints and encouragements about show business in every chapter.
Agent Running in the Field by John Le Carre, his latest, was quite good. I am a proud and loyal admirer of le Carre and I am happy to know he won the Olaf Palme Prize for his contribution to democracy.
Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats, and Joyce by Colm Toibin is a fascinating book about Oscar Wilde’s father, James Joyce’s father, and WB Yeats’ father, each unique in his own right, one more interesting than the other, but it is a very good read.
Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergast takes you through the glorious discovery of coffee and its development as an indispensible attachment in our lives; but it also shows you the limitless greed of men with money and land, and advertising and lawyers, until you are demolished by the suffering that has occurred to bring you that heavenly coffee, good to the last drop, combustion.
Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales by Oliver Sacks joins the other Oliver Sacks books I’ve read, and I haven’t read them all but soon I will, as a wonderful book. Under Occupation by Alan Furst was my first and only disappointment in his oeuvre. Fugeddaboudit.
The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco. I knew I needed to read a book by Eco because I really liked the film of The Name of the Rose and my friend Theresa (who is a Brooklyn girl you know) liked the book The Name of the Rose very much. So I chose The Island of the Day Before. Half. Just half of this effete intellectual snob's book was necessary. The rest was a waste of my three-score-and-four life.
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