A New Tradition Maybe?
This year the holiday season proved strangely elusive, and then, when it finally felt like it arrived, it was fraught with problems. Wesker had a bad weigh in. First, my lovely spouse was sick, then I fell ill and am still not well two weeks later. There were so many blizzards. Work was insistent. Yeah. A bit more hectic than I am used to.
Normally, I am ready to dress some cats in bows and post some silly pictures of a kitty New Year’s Party while I am already hip-deep in next year’s to-read stacks. This year, I’m too sick to chase after cats so my lovely spouse is supplying the pictures. I’m in a reading slump, so next year’s books just seem insurmountably numerous and distant. It’s a pretty low-key year-end.
So, instead of skipping the post entirely, I thought I would do something that people often ask me for but I usually have no idea how to provide — the list of my best books of the year. I chose five, and while some are classics, others are freshly published. Enjoy these recommended reads!
The Best of the Year
Cloudland Revisited, S J Perelman, 1938-1958
This is the year I really started to get serious about studying classic film, and so Cloudland Revisited really hit the sweet spot of making me laugh, but also making me think about old movies and their impact on youth, culture, and our collective consciousness and histories. I laughed so hard, I passed the book over to my lovely spouse to read once I finished it. Then she laughed too. Then we both laughed together and that is just so magical of a moment to share.
My Friends – Hisham Matar – 2024
My Friends was the book I really wanted to win the Booker Prize. It’s such a beautiful examination of what it means to leave home and never return, even if you go back there geographically. It also looks at the nature of adult friendships that remain in a liminal zone between acquaintanceship and true closeness as connections wax, wane, and change across time. Matar’s prose is brilliant and leads the reader without forcing them to any particular conclusion.
Inherit the Wind – Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee – 1955
It’s been a very difficult and disappointing year in politics. It feels hopeless and threatening and ominous and that makes me very glad to have read this play. Inherit the Wind is a play about the resilience of human intelligence and compassion in the midst of bigotry and hatred. It gives me hope that we can get through this, even if everything seems to be falling apart right now.
The Book Against Death – Elias Canetti – 2014
Published posthumously, The Book Against Death is Canetti’s reckoning with mortality. Written over decades of his life in little bite-sized pieces, it is more than a personal journey, but instead verges on a literary examination of why we tell stories, how we grieve, and how the lives of others are inextricably intertwined with our own.
The Observable Universe – Heather McCalden – 2024
McCalden lost both parents to AIDS while she was still young. This book not only explores death and the brief reality of life but is a struggle to understand two people whose biology she shares but not anything else. It’s an exercise in letting go, but also one in curating what to hold on to in order to go forward. In the midst of this is an examination of the evolution of the internet using a viral model.
Happy New Year!
That wraps up 2024! Happy New Year!
This year I hope to read a few more nonfiction books and, yes, it’s finally happened, I have started to read books about books and authors. Look for hopefully a month-long feature of classic books about the movies at some point in 2025, and perhaps an examination of the works of Gary Indiana. Again, these are all just plans so far, but it’s an exciting place to start.