My fiction reading went heavy on the light, this year – often, paperbacks I picked up at hostels to read on planes and in immigration lines. Mid-year I began to read political books for my work writing abstracts – demanding and rewarding work.
Searoad and I for Isobel were highlights in fiction; The Looting Machine was a sobering and important read in politics, offering broadly applicable insights.
I’ve never abandoned so many books before! I’m finding that I’m not willing to slog through a book I’m not enjoying.
In 2018 I’ll be continuing to read political books (and business articles) for getAbstract, including works of political philosophy. I also plan to read lots of personal narrative, as my writing is tending in that direction.
Fiction
Elizabeth O’Neill, Nine and a Half Weeks (Jan. 2)
Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Short Stories (Jan. 7)
Rabindranath Tagore, (abandoned in January)
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (Jan. 19)
Madeleine Thien, Dogs at the Perimeter (Jan. 23)
Amy Witting, I for Isobel (second read, Jan. 30)
Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook (abandoned Feb. 17)
Ben Bova, Kinsman (Feb. 25)
Jack Kerouac, On the Road (abandoned in June)
Robert M. Persig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (abandoned in June)
Raduan Nassar, A Cup of Rage (July 23)
Madeleine l’Engle, A Wind in the Door (2nd read, Aug. 9)
José Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon (abandoned in August)
Ursula K. LeGuin, “The Day Before the Revolution” (Aug. 26)
Lee Child, Make Me (Sept. 23)
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Oct. 1)
Ursula K. Le Guin, Searoad (Oct. 9)
Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question (abandoned Nov. 11)
L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between (Nov. 20)
Barry Hines, A Kestrel for a Knave (Nov. 30)
Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream (Dec. 5)
Amy Witting, “Goodbye Ady, Goodbye Joe” (Dec. 6)
Kristen Roupenian, “Cat Person” (Dec. 11)
Nonfiction
Vivian Gornick, The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative (Dec. 13)
M.F.K. Fisher, “Once a Tramp, Always …” (Dec. 20)
James Baldwin, “Notes of a Native Son” (Dec. 21)
Joan Didion, “On Keeping a Notebook” (Dec. 23)
G.K. Chesterton, “On Running After One’s Hat” (Dec. 24)
David Sedaris, “The Youth in Asia,” “Jesus Shaves,” “Giant Dreams Midget Abilities” (Dec. 24)
Annie Dillard, “This Is the Life,” “The Force That Drives the Flower” (Dec. 24)
Politics
Jonathan Chait, Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail (Aug. 2)
Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History (Aug. 24)
Marvin Kalb, Imperial Gamble: Putin, Ukraine, and the New Cold War (Sept. 12)
Hillary Rodham Clinton, What Happened (Sept. 20)
Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (Oct. 10)
Andre Lankov, The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia (Oct. 18)
Ted Burgis, The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa’s Wealth (Oct. 30)
Andrew Radin and Clint Reach, Russian Views of the International Order (Nov. 11)
Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (Nov. 29)
David Rothkopf, The Great Questions of Tomorrow (Dec. 12)
