THE BOOKS I READ IN 2024
Presented in the order I finished them (L to R).
My Dad loved the Robert Redford and Paul Newman film, The Sting. We would watch it all of the time when I was a kid. We had the amazing soundtrack by Scott Joplin on LP (still do) and would listen to it all of the time while playing this game called MEMORY. Memory is made up of twenty-four tiles; twelve sets of two of the same image. It’s turn-based, and so each go you turn a tile over and reveal an image and then you get to turn another one - if they match, you get to go again. It’s a game that rewards you for having a good short term memory.
When I was eleven, my dad had an aneurysm that wiped out his short term memory. When he got home from the hospital, because I was a kid I didn’t realize what was going on, and so when we tried to play - needless to say - it didn’t go well. For me, Joplin, The Sting, Memory, and that moment where everything changed for me are forever linked. I think that’s why I’ve always been fascinated by con artists - partly because of the good memories of the times before, and partly because it seems like they are able to have control in a world that is out of control.
The Big Con is a book that served as the source for The Sting - and in reading it you learn that con artists control nothing, and one of the most fascinating things I learned in the book, and this will seem totally counter-intuitive, is that most marks (mark is the person who is being conned) are other con artists. That’s right - people who professionally trick people out of money make up the majority of people are getting tricked out of their money by professionals. It gets to something deeper in human psyche, that we think we can subvert the rules, we can game the system, and con the con man. We cannot.
Also, another fun thing to know - con artist is short for confidence artist - their job is to get your confidence, your trust. For a lot of them, that’s the game - to be able to get people to believe in them. The money is how they make ends meet, but what drives them is people.Taken at the Flood - Agatha Christie
Another Poirot book! As I said a few years ago, I am not going to do reviews of these books, but just know I am reading all of the Hercule Poirot books in order and am about 3/4 of the way through.
A favorite of the year for sure and one that I would consider mandatory reading. Broadly speaking there are three ways one can learn about the past (someone please check me on this if I’m wrong) First, by reading original source material - primary source material - to understand a person, time, or event. An example of this would be you want to learn more about the American Civil War, so you read a collection Abraham Lincoln’s letters. Journalism of the time would also fall into this category. Second, you read a history book - Team of Rivals, or any of the myriad books researched and written about the time period. Both of these would be considered non-fiction and factual ways to understand the past.
The third way though is through fiction - and in this case with Kindred it’s a sort of historical / science fiction. Her ability to put you into the experience of her characters is unparalleled. It reveals more of what life was like in the antebellum south - not in facts or figures or historically accurate portrayals (although it is historically accurate) - but through the power of empathic storytelling and revealing the complicated emotions and motivations of everyone involved.
You can read all of the historical books and primary sources and intellectually understand a concept - but this book brings it all to life in a way that is unsettling and will stick with you. Any pitch of the book’s concept will tell you only the broadest brush stroke of what’s actually going on in the book. The pitch is this: Kindred follows Dana, a writer who travels back in time to the antebellum South and meets her ancestors, a white plantation owner and a Black slave. So, it’s sorta like Back to the Future, right? Not even remotely close. The end of this book hits hard and is hard to shake. I cannot recommend this book enough.The Underdog (and other stories) - Agatha Christie
Gonna drop a controversial take in here - I think Hercule Poirot is a better literary creation and that Agatha Christie is a better writer than Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. It’s no secret that she admired Holmes and wanted to create her own version of him and did it with Poirot (with various people filling in for Watson over the series) - but in my opinion she ends up surpassing Holmes as a character.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs
This has been on my radar since I read The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro, which changed my life, because Jane Jacobs was sorta famously the person that stood up to him. That’s reductionist but we’re not here for a lecture on the history of urban planning. Basically, her deal was like stop the top down approach to planning that doesn’t take the communities into account and instead do it the other way. It’s a view I agree with. I agree with it so much that when I read this book I grew frustrated. She writes it like she’s trying to convert you to her cause - it reads like a (very long) persuasive essay - but when you already agree with what the writer is saying, it becomes trying. The book is also comprehensive. So, it’s not like here’s one or two things that illustrate my point, but seven or eight and it’s like I GOT IT. If you’re into urban planning, cities, community and grassroots engagement it’s worth reading.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - William L. Shirer
My mom was a voracious reader and had this book on her bookshelf and it always stuck with me - I mean the cover is pretty memorable with the swastika on a field of black - and was a book I had always wanted to read. It’s a beast - 1250 pages long. I honestly think that is the reason I got it, not some premonition of the electoral results in November of 2024.
Two things about this book: when we bought it we were in Bloomington, IN because Rebecca and I traveled there to witness the full solar eclipse (which, as an aside was a life changing experience that cannot really be described. It’s a must see before you die. For me, it inched me ever closer to understanding the universe and my place in it. HOW IS THAT FOR AN ENDORSEMENT OF SOMETHING?!?!) - anyway, we went to a bookshop in the quaint little downtown. There were two copies and I was like “I’ve always wanted to read this, why not now?” so I decide to buy it.
We go up to the front counter and there were two women in their 50s or 60s working there and when I plopped the book down for purchase they judged me so hard - it was like a record scratch moment - they were, in a word, shooketh. Sure, from their point of view they were just minding their own when some white dude rolls up and slaps a swastika down in front of them. From my point of view - THIS IS YOUR BOOKSTORE, YOU PUT THIS BOOK HERE?!?!
Always the mediator, Rebecca, also sensing the vibe shift, comes in with “well, better to know than not!” which I don’t think really helped. They responded sort of luke-warm to that, I think believing that we were now over-compensating in trying to play it off like I was only reading this as a prophylactic to the impending fascist take over of our country. Whatever - they took my money and I have read the book now.
Second thing - this is a fantastic book written by someone who was there. Shirer was a newspaperman working in Berlin during the rise and fall of the Nazi party and he weaves his personal recollections into (and opinions - hearing him make fun of Hitler and Mussolini is quite cathartic) well-researched history gives the book a really engaging flow. It’s never stuffy, even though it is painstakingly researched and full of things that I had forgotten or never really knew. It’s a big one, but for those interested in history, it’s absolutely worth it.Caste: The Origins of our Discontents - Isabel Wilkerson
You should really read Caste. Mandatory. Read it. Read it now. I was a bit late to the party on this one and I’m sorry, but I’ve read it now and am telling everyone else they need to as well. This is a book that I like to call a “Matrix Book” - one of those books that fundamentally alters how you see the world - you can see the code after you read this book. Other books are The Omnivore'‘s Dilemma and The LBJ books by Caro. In Caste - you will learn absolutely no new facts in this book - you know it all already, but her point of view and how she presents this idea - that America is a caste-based system (like India and Nazi Germany (Nazi’s again?!!?)) - will forever and for permanent change how you view literally everything.
It’s become a bit of a (not really funny) joke in our house. Any time anyone complains about anything in politics, or America, or capitalism or whatever I will just respond with “you should read Caste.” I said it so much, it’s now communicated by a mere look - and the speaker knows that what I am about to say is “you should really read Caste.” If we all read Caste, I think we would be better off as a country.After the Funeral - Agatha Christie
This is a link to a portrait of Agatha Christie as a little girl, entitled Lost in Reverie, by Douglas John Connah, 1894.Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie
More Christie!
Call for the Dead - John LeCarré
As I’ve reached the final third of the Hercule Poirot books, I’ve decided I want to try and stretch them out so am now folding in John LeCarré novels because they scratch a similar itch and and good fun to read. This is his first novel, and the first of the George Smiley books, and you can sorta tell. It’s not as polished and Smiley is in his first iteration here. It’s a great read - lots of fun and good twists and turns. One of the things that’s great about LeCarré is he uses a (invented?) language with how the spies talk about their tradecraft and he doesn’t ever stop to bring you along - so you sort of are a step behind sometimes because they’ll use terms that they know, but he hasn’t told you. It’s refreshing to see an author who doesn’t get caught up catering in that sort of way. In the end, you always figure it out and in the end, through all of the smoke, mirrors, double-crosses, and betrayals, his books are just about people.
The Night Manager - John LeCarré
Two in a row. They made a show out of this a few years back that I really enjoyed. Going to say something really lame here… the book is better. It gets more into the agent side of things - in fact the character that Tom Hiddleston plays in the show - Jonathan Pine - is arguably not the main character of the book. I can see why they made that change when they adapted it. The TV show also falls prey to the normal cinematic adaptation stuff of arguably out-of-character heroics in the third act to make for a rousing ending. The book is the totally opposite direction, more true to life, and more interesting.