Bibliography, 2017

I come across this summary of a year's reading, which is in a far better format than this, but it's too late now. Regardless of format, it's been my worst year for reading since records began (67 books),  but a year of non-fiction triumphs. Fiction still accounted for the majority of my reading, but at the lowest level since the children. Books of the Month were evenly split, but the quality differential was high. As a result, I'm resolved to read much more non-fiction next year, especially history and economics.

So strong was the non-fiction field that I struggled to make a choice. At least three were pretty much everything you could want of their genre. Lost in Translation is amongst the best memoirs I have ever read, and Bowling Alone made me take (some) sociology seriously. However Piketty was brilliant, insightful and loaded with data. It wasn't the book I expected at all, though some conclusions were in line with some of my existing thinking. It has shaped and refined how I think about a range of issues and shows brilliantly the importance and possibilities of historical analysis. It is deservedly lauded, even if some of the conclusions both in the book and especially outside are dubious.

After all that, fiction was easy. The best thing I read was Mahfouz's Palace Walk. The first of his Cairo trilogy, and the best, is captivating. I've been meaning to read them for ages, and I wish I'd done so earlier. 

Here's the list by month:

January: U.K. Le Guin, Rokannon's World (1966)
February: N. Mahfouz, Palace Walk (1956)
March: U.K. Le Guin, A wizard of Earthsea (1968)
April:N. Mandela, Long walk to freedom (1994)
May:R. Adams, Watership Down (1972)*
June: R.D. Putnam, Bowling alone (2000)
July: M.F.K. Fisher, The Gastronomical me (1943)
August: A. Bennett, These Twain (1918)
September: T. Piketty, Capital in the 21st century (2013)
October: J. Morris, Spain (1964. Revised 1979)
November: R. Irwin, The Alhambra (2004)
December: E. Hoffman, Lost in Translation (1989)

Bibliography, December 2017

BOTM : E. Hoffman, Lost in Translation (1989)

G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous trifles (1909)
N. Mahfouz, Palace of Desire (1957)
M. Forsyth, A short history of drunkenness (2017)

This was easy. I liked everything I read this month. Any of them could have been Book of the Month at other times, but Hoffman's book is outstanding. It's easily the best memoir I've read all year. Possibly the best I've ever read. The base subject is good - an early life in post war Polish Jewry is fascinating - and well done. But it is lifted onto another level by her experience emigrating at thirteen to Canada and the dislocation and distance from her original culture that thus occurs. Astoundingly conceived and excellently done.

Bibliography, November 2017

BOTM: R. Irwin, The Alhambra (2004)

E.M. Brent-Dyer, Exploits of the Chalet Girls*
Evliya Celebi, Book of Travels. Ed. & tr. E. Dankoff and S. Kim, An Ottoman traveller (2010)
C. Fisher, Postcards from the edge (1987)
A. Lurie, Real People (1969)
J. O'Neill, Netherland  (2008)
C.P. Snow, George Passant (1940)

Late. So a flurry of these will come at once. It was thin on quality, though a number of these are famous. A number of them are also dated, especially Snow, but also Fisher. I thought Lurie was dated too, but I only realised on completion that it was written in the 60s not the 80s. It nonetheless doesn't hold up so well now. Many of them had very good parts, but none quite held it together enough. Irwin on the Alhambra was the best of the bunch.