"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Saturday, December 28, 2024

2024 End-of-Year Book Survey



My Head Is Full of Books: 

The 2024 End-of-Year Survey of Books


 


  • Number of books read and completed:  122
  • Number of re-reads: 1
  • Genre you read the most: Adult fiction 
  • Number of books started but not finished: 4
  • Number of children's/YA books: 20
  • Number of poetry books: 13
  • Number of memoirs, biographies, and nonfiction books, including children's:  30
  • Number of graphic or illustrated books read, not children's: 2



 1. Best books read in 2024:

·    Literary fiction: James by Percival Everett

2. Book(s) I thought I'd love, but didn’t:

  •  Bee Sting by Paul Murray -- the book is a beast at over 650 pages and I just couldn't make myself care about the characters. I didn't finish it.
  • Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel --- This was my 2024 One Big Book, a personal challenge. I've heard so much about the book over the years, so I was pretty disappointed to find out I really didn't like it. You should read my review, it's find of funny how much I didn't like it.

3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book: 

·  Orbital by Samantha Harvey -- Wow, just wow.


4. Book(s) I "pushed" many people to read:

  •  James by Percival Everett

5.  Best series--

6. Favorite new author I discovered in 2024:

  •  Claire Keegan (Books: Foster and Small Things Like These) 

7. Best book from a genre/type I don't usually read:

·       Killer Angels by Michael Shaara -- Novel about a war battle, specifically the Battle of Gettysburg and the soldiers/officers involved in it. 


8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year:

9. Favorite book club selection(s) based on the discussion(s):

10. Favorite book cover: How to Be Both by Ali Smith (the cover is part of the story and I kept looking at it.)


11. Most memorable characters of the year:

12. Most thought-provoking/ life-changing books of the year:

13. Most beautifully written book read in the year:

· The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty  

14. Book I've never read UNTIL 2024:

15. Favorite passage(s) or quote(s):

  • "One thing is certain: Love is our only hope. Love springs from new life, love springs from death. Love acts like Ghandi and our pets and Jesus and Mr. Bean and Mr. Rogers and Bette Midler. Love just won't be pinned down. " -- Anne Lamott, Somehow: Thoughts on Love.
  • "You couldn't go anywhere in this town without bumping into God." -- Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch
  • “The only way to understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change.” ― Daniel Mason, North Woods 
  • "How should we respond? It has been said, I have said it myself, that the powerful may own the present, but writers own the future, for it is through our work, or the best of it at least, the work which endures into that future, that the present misdeed of the powerful will be judged...Even after Orpheus was torn to pieces, his severed head, floating down the river Hebrus, went on singing, reminding us that the song is stronger than death." ― Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
  • "If the younger ones in our lives can remember only this one idea, that they are here, briefly, a little space to love and to have been loved, they they will have all they need, because love is all they need, rain or shine...good old love, elusive and steadfast, fragile, and unbreakable, and always there for the asking: always, somehow."  -- Anne Lamott, Somehow: Thoughts on Love.

16. Shortest and longest book read in 2024, not counting children's books:

17. Book which shocked me the most:

·  Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan   


18. Best audiobooks of the year:

·  Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench, with Brendan O'Hea. Two old friends chatting about Ms. Dench's roles in Shakespeare's plays.

  • James by Percival Everett

19. Favorite novella/short book read for 'Novellas in November':

·   A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf


20. Favorite book by an author I’ve previously read

21. Best book I read this past year based SOLELY on a recommendation or peer pressure:

·  When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill -- Strongly recommended by daughter.


22. Newest fictional crush:

  •  I always think this is a dumb question. Why don't I just removed it from the list? 😂

23. Best 2024 debut: 

  • The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown. I think it is the only debut book I read in 2024, luckily I really liked it. (Review pending.)

24. Best world-building/Most vivid setting I read this year:

25. Book which put a smile on my face/was FUN to read:

· When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill  


26. Books which made me cry:

27. Hidden Gem of the Year? There are several:  

28. Anything odd about this year's reading list:

·  I don't think my reading was as balanced as for usual. I only read two graphic novels, when I usually read a half dozen or more. I read less adult nonfiction this year than in years past. I decided to NOT participate as a Cybils Award judge this fall which left me room to participate in the novellas challenge. I learned I really like that form and enjoy reading short books.

29. Most unique book(s):    

30. Book which made me angry (due to the topic):

·     Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow 


31. Favorite short story collection -- I didn't care for either of the short story collections I read this year but I did like some of the short stories themselves: 

  • Short Stories: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King; The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy; A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote; Signal Moon by Kate Quinn.

32. Favorite re-read of 2024: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. I've probably read or had read to me at least 50 times in my life. It is a wonderful Christmas story for the whole family. This year my daughter is introducing it to her son who is a seven-year-old.

     

33. Favorite classic book read during the year:


34. My year in books at Goodreads. A visual of all the books I read this year and a few stats. 


1. Favorite Book Club selections of 2024.

2. Best Audiobooks consumed in 2024.

3. Best Nonfiction of 2024

4. Favorite novels read this year:

a. James by Percival Everett
b. North Woods by Daniel Mason
c. Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan
d. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
e. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
f. The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea
g. When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill 
h. The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown
i. I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger
j. The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
   
 

 


1. Favorite reviews written in 2024

2. Most popular reviews of the year based on stats:

  • Review: Night Watch: Where I Try to Figure Out Why It Won the Pulitzer Prize -- 851 page views, 9 comments.
  • Review: The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty -- 545 page views, 4 comments
  • Review: I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger -- 293 page views, 3 comments
  • Review: Orbital by Samantha Harvey -- 179 page views, 20 comments

3. Best discussion/non-review post:   

4. Best bookish event that you participated in?

·   Novellas in November -- my goal was to read 2-4 novellas, I read 19!  


5. Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2024

  •  Kind comments and encouragement from you, my readers.

6. Most challenging thing about blogging or your reading life this year?

  • Staying up for blogging. Blogging takes time and effort, and it is hard to keep going when I get few page views and even fewer comments. But I have joined some supportive on-line communities and the other book bloggers I’ve “met” keep me going.

7. Most meaningful posts for me:

8. Posts I wish got a bit more love:



 1. Bookish goals for 2025

  • Read a minimum of 100 books.
  • Write reviews for all book club selections.
  • Complete "My One Book" challenge: The Brothers Karamazov
  • Read two of the five National Book Award winners. (Announced in November)
  • Read the Pulitzer Prize 2025 winner for literature (announced in March or April) plus read three past winners or finalists. 
  • Read the Booker Award winner or a finalist.
  • Read two Women's Prize winners or finalists (announced in April)
  • Read at least five classic books from my list. (See list here.)
2. Books I didn’t get to in 2024 are now top priorities in 2025:
  • The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
  • The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich
  • The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
  • Playground by Richard Powers
  • The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie

       

3.  How did I do on my reading challenges or goals for 2024?

  • Read 100 books this year. ✔ (120+ books)
  • My Own Personal ‘National Book Award’ Challenge to read two of the five winners or finalists each year. ✔
  • Read the Pulitzer Prize winner and past winners:   ✔
  • Completed four of the five books I listed as books I wanted to read in 2024: ✔- 
  • Read 5 Classics ✔
  • Big Book Summer Challenge. Six completed ✔ 
  • I completed my 2024 'One Big Book' Challenge:  Wolf Hall ✔
  • Read 2-4 novellas for Novellas in November: I read 19!  ✔


-Gratefully turning the page on 2024.

 

-Anne






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Best Audiobooks Read in 2024


I love listening to audiobooks and actually prefer doing so over reading the print versions usually. This year there were some real standout audiobooks and then a whole batch of very wonderful ones. I've ranked the standouts but the others I just listed as they came to mind, so the numbering system falls apart at that point.

Standout #1: James by Percival Everett; read by Dominic Hoffman
Random House Audio, 2024. 7 hours and 49 minutes.
James is the retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn story from the point of view of Twain's Jim, the enslaved man who escapes with Huck. In a lot of ways this is a perfect audiobook since so much of the book is about the language or dialect we use. "A white character notices James’s standard English cadence with shock and asks: “Why are you talking like that?” With impressive comedic timing and vocal agility, Hoffman skips nimbly between James’s natural eloquence and the “slave filter” he uses to hide it from white people, deepening a project that hinges on vernacular as both signifier and tool of liberation" (NYT). James is also my favorite book read in 2024.

Standout #2: Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench with Brendan O'Hea; read by Barbara Flynn, Judi Dench and Brendan O'Hea
Penguin Audio, 2023. 12 hours and 5 minutes.
In her 60+ years of acting, Judi Dench has acted in 20 Shakespeare plays and in a variety of roles within those plays. This project, a series of conversations with Brendan O'Hea about the Bard and her career, was meant to for the Globe Theater Archives, but was reworked under the direction of O'Hea with the help of Barbara Flynn (who sounds an awful lot like Dench) into this fabulous audio experience.  "Sheer heaven for fans of Dench, Shakespeare, or the craft" (Cathy, Blue Willow Book Shop). 

Standout #3: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, read by the author
Recorded Books, 2024. 31 hours and 16 minutes.
I loved The Covenant of Water narrated by Verghese himself. This was a rare treat because I got to listen to his beautiful Indian accent but also learned how to pronounce previously unknown words and locations to me. The 30+ hours of listening made me feel like I had practically moved to India and more specifically to Parambil, the family estate, built as far away from the nearby river as it could be for fear of the water. The audiobook experience was so immersive it felt like I was living and breathing the same air as the characters.

4. Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, read by Stephen Hoye
Random House Audio, 1974, 2004. 13 hours and 44 minutes.
Killer Angels is a novel about the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War. My husband and I listened to the audiobook together. Stephen Hoye did an exceptional job reading the story, building up the tension preceding the battles to a perfect pitch. His accents for the both the Southern Generals and for the Maine men were spot-on and led to an even more personalized experience with the text. Even though I knew who won the battle historically, every time we stopped listening, I wanted to get back to it as soon as possible to find out how things worked out. As I listened I knew the book would end up on this list as best audiobooks of the year.

5. Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, read by Nirmala Rajasingam
Random House Audio, 2023. 13 hours and 28 minutes.
A Women's Prize judge said Brotherless Night is "a powerful book that has the intimacy of a memoir, the range and ambition of an epic, and tells a truly unforgettable story of the Sri Lankan civil war." The story was intense but I couldn't stop listening to the audiobook. To stop would mean I didn't care. And I did care, very much, because of this story. About the audiobook, the narrator Nirmala Rajasingam did a brilliant job. Audible says this book is meant to be heard. I agree.

6. North Woods by Daniel Mason, read by a cast of ten voice actors.
Random House Audio, 2023. 11 hours and 5 minutes.
In North Woods all the stories revolve around a small cabin in Western Massachusetts over several centuries. North Woods has a series of linked stories told chronologically centering the action on or near the cabin. Four centuries of stories, families, characters, and schemes. And all these stories are not told in the same formats -- some are told in prose, others in lyrics and poetry, newspaper articles, medical case file entries, real estate advertisements, a true-crime detective story, a page entry from an almanac, and even a historical society speech. The audiobook was excellent and used a variety of voice actors, ten in all. That seems about right considering the story took place over so many centuries.

Random House Audio, 2012, reissued 2022. 10 hours and 41 minutes.
For more than a decade, thousands of people have sought advice from Dear Sugar—the pseudonym of bestselling author Cheryl Strayed—first through her online column at The Rumpus, later through her hit podcast, Dear Sugars, and now through her popular Substack newsletter. Tiny Beautiful Things collects the best of Dear Sugar in one volume, bringing her wisdom to many more readers. I listened to the audiobook of Tiny Beautiful Things which was narrated by Cheryl Strayed. It was a perfect decision to have the author, Sugar herself, read out the advice she had given her readers. Everything about the experience was so authentic. I'm sorry I missed the book when it was first published in 2012, but I am so glad I found it after its 2022 reissue, which has a few updates and additions from the original.

8. The Song for Achilles by Madeline Miller, read by Frazer Douglas
HarperAudio, 2012. 11 hours and 15 minutes.
The Song of Achilles is the retelling of the Iliad story from Patroclus' point of view. The story was new and fresh to me. My husband and I listened to the audiobook, read by Frazer Douglas, and enjoyed it immensely. The pronunciation of names and places were all handled expertly. What we lacked was a complex list of the many characters, gods and heroes alike, to help us keep everyone straight in our heads. Not until I dug around the house and found the print copy loaned to me by my daughter, did I find what I needed to fill out the story: a character glossary and a gods and heroes illustrated closeup. I recommend listening to the audiobook but getting a copy of the print version to refer to as you listen.

9. The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea, read by the author
Hachette Audio, 2018. 9 hours and 46 minutes.
"This audiobook begins with a frantic revelation--"Big Angel was late to his own mother's funeral"--and the pace never slows down after that. The author narrates his novel with a verve and engagement that few performers could emulate, blending Spanish and English, dialogue and narrative with the balance of a dancer. Listeners get to know Big Angel and his family through an almost stream-of-consciousness rhythm that can seem frenetic at some times, poetic at others" (Audiofile). I found this book really enjoyable and helpful in my thinking about what it is like to be a member of a Mexican American family living in California but whose hearts are very much still across the border. This is a fantastic story and Urrea is a fantastic storyteller.

10. The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich, read by Peter Francis James and Kathleen McInerney
HarperAudio, 2008. 11 hours and 3 minutes.
The first book in Erdrich's Justice Trilogy, The Plague of Doves details the interconnected lives of several generations of whiles and Indigenous people living in a town in North Dakota where an unsolved murder in 1911 still haunts the community. "Erdrich is a master storyteller known for her compelling novels, and her lyrical, recursive narrative style is enriched by the narrators' ability to fully portray her characters. This ideal match of writer and readers creates a memorable and moving experience" (Audiofile).

-Anne
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Thursday, December 26, 2024

Review: KNIFE: Meditations After an Attempted Murder


Title: Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie

Summary: 
From internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him

On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black—black clothes, black mask—rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.

What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide. (Publisher)
The book is profound and very literate. I was touched by so many of his meditations/essays and wanted to capture them by sharing a few excerpts.I will let these excerpts speak for themselves instead of relying on just my own thoughts on the book.

Rushie expands on his thoughts on 'knife' as an idea:
  • A knife is used to make the first cut on a wedding cake; 
  • A kitchen knife is essential for the creative act of cooking;
  • A  Swiss Army knife is a helper, able to perform small but necessary tasks; 
  • Knives can be conceptual like cutting through bullshit;
  • "Language, too, was a knife. It could cut open the world and reveal its meaning, its inner workings, its secrets, its truths...Language was my knife" (85).
Referring to the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and how literature spoke to him during his recovery:
 "I didn't want to repair any motorcycles, I learned that through literature, I could repair myself" (90).
On reflecting on the past with regret, he says:
"To reject what your life has been is true folly, I told myself, because the person doing the regretting has been shaped by the life he suhe subsequently regrets" (94).
With his own mortality on his mind he offers thoughts on grief after the death of a friend: 
"It is the trivia of the past that one mourns as much as greater matters (such as literary talent) when one is saying goodbye to a friend" (127).
Rushdie imagined a conversation with his would-be assassin (I've quoted this reflection several times when I've noticed how some people seem to have no sense of humor about anything):
"There's a thing I used to say back in the day, when catastrophe rained down upon The Satanic Verse and its author: that one of understanding the argument over the book was that is a quarrel between those with a sense of humor and those without one. I see you now, my failed murderer, hypocrite assassin, mon semblable, mon frere. You could try to kill because you didn't know how to laugh" (168).
I enjoyed how Rushdie referred to the works of other writers or poets to explain his thoughts. Here Rushdie reflects on the Raymond Carver's poem "Gravy" and the concept of second chances. Carver lived ten years after a fatal diagnosis. Carver described that time as gravy. 
"That was a good way to think of it. Every day of life, was gravy" (171).
On making a new life going forward and the importance of his relationships:
"Everywhere I looked, as I contemplated my next steps back into the world, I felt the reassuring arms of friends around my shoulders" (172).
Rushdie emphasized several time how writers have an important role in responding to the ugliness of the world (and these quotes help me, too, as I digest all the misinformation [lies] that got Trump re-elected):
"How should we respond? It has been said, I have said it myself, that the powerful may own the present, but writers own the future, for it is through our work, or the best of it at least, the work which endures into that future, that the present misdeed of the powerful will be judged...Even after Orpheus was torn to pieces, his severed head, floating down the river Hebrus, went on singing, reminding us that the song is stronger than death" (180).
"Above all, we must understand that stories are at the heart of what's happening, and the dishonest narratives of oppressors have proved attractive to many. So we must work to overturn the false narratives of tyrants, populists, and fools by telling better stories than they do, stories within which people want to live" (181).
On closure:
"I remembered a Doonesbury comic strip which one character tells another: "You know, I really miss September 10th." That sentence, speaking so tenderly as it did of lost innocence, even a lost world, had stayed with me...I wanted very badly to be, once again, that carefree fellow...a writer with a new novel soon to be published, and a man in love." There may not be closure but there could be a reconstructed happiness...a wounded happiness and there was and perhaps would always be, a shadow in the corner of it. But it was a strong happiness nevertheless, and as we embraced, I knew it was enough" (203, 207)
The book wasn't an easy read. The topic is very distressing and so were the details, but I did enjoy the way Rushdie made so many literary references and talked about his life as an artist and the power he and other writers have in righting the record. For some reason that gave me a bit of hope for our future.

My rating: 4 stars.



-Anne
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