(Some Of) The Books I Read - 2024
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I read a lot and have since I was a kid and mom handed me Crocket Johnson’s Harold & the Purple Crayon, a fantastic book on the power of imagination. As a kid, I tore through Beverley Cleary, Roald Dahl, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Jack London, and JRR Tolkien. Music mags, science fiction, and horror were my early teen obsessions, politics and history replacing sci fi and horror by the end of high school.
In adulthood, books on politics and history have been a consistent, with crime/mystery pulps, travelogues, and biographies also making the piles. Books on food and exploration are always grabbing my attention, especially if they are old. And I can’t get enough oddball single histories (on car bombs, dirt, dude ranches, etc.).
I don’t keep track of what I’ve read, but I figure that, having several books going at once, I probably average a book a week – more or less depending on mood, health, distractions, and life. This year, I probably hit my average, partially thanks to scoring a large batch of Simenon novels I hadn’t read. Read that many books and some definitely stand out. Below are a few of this year’s favorites.
Yanis Varoufakis Technofeudalism (2023) I first heard of Varoufakis when he was appointed Greece’s minister of finance and was sent to negotiate with the European Union during Greek’s debt crisis. Varoufakis wrote about his experience in Adults in the Room, a book which should be dull as dust but is pretty riveting and very readable. The readability is thanks to Varoufakis’ clear prose, something that is a mark of all his books and a big reason why he is the first economist I recommend reading. His most recent book is Technofeudalism, which is a deft look at the transformation of capitalism from centering on “markets and profits” to “platforms and rent.” Varoufakis explains how the rise of Big Tech has restructured our economics, vital knowledge if we are not going to fight yesterday’s battles.
John Foot The Archipelago: Italy Since 1945 (2018) This was the year I immersed myself in Italian history and I read some very good books, none better than John Foot’s study of post-fascist Italy. The Archipelago is essentially a collection of short essays, woven together by prose style and events. The writing is smart but informal, perfect for someone who wants more than a popular history but avoids the academic. And since the essays are bite-sized so reading the whole book never seems burdensome. There’s a lot here that grabbed me, but what was the most interesting is how the rise and reign of Silvio Berlusconi foreshadows what Americans are dealing with today.
John MacGavock Grider War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator (1926) Originally published anonymously, War Birds is the diary of an American pilot in England and France during World War I. I’ve read a fair number of war memoirs and this one if a bit different. Most war stories focus on combat experiences and what’s going down in the field and at camp, with violence all around. Grider’s diary mostly covers the pilot and his pals waiting and waiting and waiting in England to be trained, to get flyable planes, to get commissioned, to get more training, to get outfitted, and to get assigned, and to get orders to head to the front. During the wait the Americans drink, carouse, and watch their buddies fly planes into barns, hillsides, and the ground. Page by page the tension builds, Grider eager to “come out a Big Man or in a wooden kimono.” Grider got the kimono. A friend and fellow pilot made sure his diary got published.
Max Jacobs The Selected Poems of… (1999) In my twenties, I was a veracious poetry reader. Not so much after, though when an interesting looking book of poems passes by, I will bite. Glad I chomped on this small collection of poems by this early 20th Century, French Cubist, who was murdered by the Nazis. This is the first book of Cubist poetry I’ve read and I plead ignorance as to what makes it Cubist and not Surrealism or Absurdism, though maybe Cubist lit is a combo of the two. Whatever, I love Jacob’s playfulness and inventiveness, even when I don’t know what his point is. Sometimes, you just have to let everything wash over you and absorb what you will, now or later.
Jim Ruland Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records (2023) I read this one as homework and was expecting a book for fans – a semi-readable, too-detailed slog. And, though Ruland’s history is detailed and fan-worthy, it is very readable and not a slog. A vital contribution to punk’s bibliography, Corporate Rock Sucks also succeeds as a study of the business end of independent labels, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, when it looked like it would topple the corporate rock world.
E.J. Hobsbawm Bandits (1969) When I first got deep into history, there were several historians that I gravitated to. Howard Zinn, of course, Christopher Hill, Eric and Philip Foner, Paul Avrich, and Herbert Aptheker were all go-to’s, as was British historian E.J. Hobsbawm. So, stumbling on Hobsbawm’s small history of American, Asian, and European banditry was a pleasant surprise. A socialist, Hobsbawm puts banditry in a political and economic context, leaning heavily into class. Finding this gem is especially timely given the public’s obsession with Luigi Mangione and the murder of Brian Thompson.
Claire Dederer Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma (2024) The best book I read this year is Dederer’s exploration of what it means to be a fan of creative people who are also bad people, how we measure good and bad, how good and bad is applied unevenly, and how do we deal with all this, especially in a world where biography trumps an artist’s creations. Dederer writes on Roman Polanski, Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, Vladmir Nabokov, Michael Jackson, Virginia Woolf, and others – and her insights are not what you’d expect. A very thoughtful, nuanced, and needed book.
One I Keep Returning To: This was the year my copy of Canterbury Tales finally got buried under books. Right now, the book that I keep returning to is Sherwood Anderson’s forgotten classic Winesburg, Ohio (1919). Subtitled A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life, Winesburg, Ohio is a collection of 25 short stories, each focusing on one townsfolk, all linked though Anderson’s narrative and pioneering prose.
One That Will Be Around For A While: I have a small stack of encyclopedia of’s stacked next to the bed. They are great when insomnia hits and I need something to read but don’t want to commit. For most of the year that “encyclopedia” has been The CIA World Fact Book of 2022/23, a very clearheaded look at each of the world’s countries. It’s perfect if you want to know what Romania’s biggest export is or the size of the Fujan navy. A couple months ago I scored a copy of George Kanahele’s Hawaiian Music & Musicians: An Encyclopedic History. At just under 1000-pages, Kanahele’s tome has been filling my brain with names from and histories of a genre of music that I only know scant basics of (I could tell you who Gabby Paninui was but damn if I could identify his music). Get back to me in ten years and I’ll probably be able to fill your ear-hole with what I learn from Kanahele.
Okay, that’s it for now. I might be back on Thursday. I might not. But you will hear from me a couple times before the year’s end. Please do consider, signing up for a paid subscription. And do have some good holidays!