Finished reading: The Reformation by Will Durant 📚
Reading
Check out my separate reading blog for an index of book reviews and ratings.
Currently reading: The Death of Grass by John Christopher 📚
Finished reading: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 📚
An absolute masterpiece. Totally gutted by the end. I can’t believe it took me this long to read it. ★★★★★
Finished reading: Sibley’s Birding Basics by David Allen Sibley 📚
Ah, the inevitable slide into birdwatching. Great introductory guide to help me get started. ★★★★☆
Currently reading: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 📚
Finished reading: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin 📚
Characters who love books and reading, lots of fun literary references, a bookstore set on an island … this one could have been written just for me. ★★★★☆
Currently reading: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin 📚
Finished reading: Desperation by Stephen King 📚
Maybe not one of Mr. King’s best efforts, but it was entertaining, and the ending came together better than I expected. ★★★☆☆
Currently reading: Desperation by Stephen King 📚
Tackling the remaining Stephen King books I haven’t read. I usually read fiction on my Kindle, but I have the hardback of this one. I forgot how heavy and unwieldy some of Stephen King books can be!
Finished reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 📚
I loved this short, spare novella. In 109 pages, Keegan puts you squarely in the mind and body of its protagonist, Furlong. You feel the pangs of long-ago childhood angst, the chill of an Irish cold spell, the ugliness of small town bigotry, the warmth of a coal stove, the despair over the human cruelty. The Irish dialogue felt more like music or birdsong, making me wish my own language wasn’t so ordinary and flat. I felt sad to leave Furlong’s side after so short a visit, but the tale and ending was told in just the right way, with just the right words. ★★★★★
Currently reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 📚
Currently reading: Slow Horses by Mick Herron 📚
Lamb’s laugh wasn’t a genuine surrender to amusement; more of a temporary derangement. Not a laugh you’d want to hear from anyone holding a stick.
I enjoyed the TV series, but the book is even better.
Finished reading: The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry 📚★★★★★
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.
Currently reading: Sibley’s Birding Basics by David Allen Sibley 📚
Finished reading: Dune by Frank Herbert 📚 ★★★★★
There is no better teacher than history in determining the future. There are answers worth billions of dollars in a $30 history book.📚
Charlie Munger
Currently reading: Dune by Frank Herbert 📚
Rereading ahead of seeing the movie. I had forgotten how much I loved this book.
Finished reading: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh 📚 ★★★☆☆
The End of Private Libraries
Friday, March 1, 2024 • 6 min read
There seem to be two kinds of people on this earth—those who love books and everyone else. The bookish have always been far outnumbered, and the gap must be widening in this age of endless digital entertainment. I count myself among the proud minority, but a book, of all things, has brought into question my lifelong practice of keeping a private library.
A recent acquisition illustrates the issue.
“Didn’t you just read this on your Kindle,” Lisa asks me as she flips through the book I’ve brought home.
I dislike direct questioning about my book-buying habits. It feels like the pointed inquiries on medical questionnaires about alcohol consumption.
“Yeah, but I liked it so much I wanted the hard copy,” I tell her.
The fact is, I will likely never read this book, even though I did enjoy it. I bought the book because I like having a visual, tangible record of the time this book and I spent together. I like scanning my shelves and seeing proof of a rich reading life. I like the way a roomful of books makes me feel about myself. Besides, I tell myself, there are worse ways to spend money.
Currently reading: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh 📚
Finished reading: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 📚
This was a good book. I liked the characters and the storyline. The reasons Sam and Sadie found to be mad at the other were a little frustrating, but I think that’s ultimately the lesson they each needed to learn. The portrayal of grief and loss was really well done. ★★★★☆
Thank you @Annie for the recommendation!
Finished reading: The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 📚
Currently reading: The Reformation by Will Durant 📚
Finished reading: The Renaissance by Will Durant 📚
Reading The Story of Civilization
Friday, January 26, 2024 • 6 min read
In the spring of last year, I started reading The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant. This is no quick undertaking. Spanning eleven volumes and 10,000 pages, it will take me the rest of this year to finish.
The first volume was published in 1935 when Durant had just turned 50. He published the final volume forty years later. Midway through these decades of writing, Will's wife Ariel became a co-author and active collaborator in this epic undertaking. Together, they read an average of five hundred books as research for each published volume.
The Story of Civilization is regarded as one of the most compelling narratives of world history ever written. The tenth volume, Rousseau and Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1968. Goodreads currently gives these books a 4.4 out of 5. Such a high rating is rare, which indicates how readers truly admire the series. Essayist Jamie Todd Rubin chose these as the sole books to take along to his proverbial desert island, which was all the prompting I needed to start this adventure.
It’s been a couple years since I finished In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. I read all six volumes with an amazing Twitter book group over the course of a year. I struggled with the serpentine sentences and French society references at the time, but passages like these stuck with me. 📚
Currently reading: The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 📚
Finished reading: Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree 📚
My Year in Reading
Monday, January 1, 2024 • 6 min read
I read 75 books in 2023, my high water mark for the most reading in a year. Books have always been like a warm blanket, and I needed that comfort during a most challenging year.
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. — James Baldwin
I took on some ambitious books during the year. I read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which has long been on my to-be-read pile. I read a new translation of The Odyssey after having last followed the plight of heroic Odysseus some thirty years ago. I am tackling a multi-year reading of Will and Ariel Durant’s epic eleven-volume Story of Civilization. I inherited these books from my Grandmother twenty-five years ago, and I have finally found the time to read them. Discovering her careful handwriting in the margins of these books has revealed a new and somewhat startling side to my prim and proper Grandmother. What you mark and highlight says a lot about your thoughts and beliefs. It’s like a second history is being told in these pages. I’ve decided to leave my own trail of marginalia for my daughter, should she find the patience and fortitude to complete this generational journey herself one day.
A Slow Read of The Story of Civilization
Finished reading: Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li 📚
My 75th book of 2023, which is a new personal record for the most books I’ve read in a single year. Many of the stories in this collection touch on the hard to articulate grief of losing a child, which hit home for me. ★★★★☆