What Are You Reading?

[lordstanley]

I read 44 books in 2024. Of these, 30 were non-fiction, 14 were fiction. Also of the 44, men wrote 30 of them, women wrote 14 of them. I read almost exclusively on Kindle these days and did a purge/donation of most of my print books a few years ago. So while I don't really have  a physical library, I do keep track on a spreadsheet the title and author of each book I read and have done so since 2009.

Some of my favorites from 2024, in no particular order:

Non-Fiction

Endurance - Alfred Lansing (classic about doomed Antarctic expedition a century ago; one of the few books I've ever re-read, which I do every decade or so)

A Walk in the Park - Kevin Fedarko (Grand Canyon adventure)

Destiny Disrupted - Tamin Ansary  (history from an Islamic perspective)

How The Word Is Passed - Clint Smith (essays on race/slavery by visiting various sites with historical or modern significance)

To The Field Of Stars - Kevin Codd (on walking Spain's Camino de Santiago, which I did this September)

Why We Love Baseball - Joe Posnanski (considers dozens of moments and personalities over time, some familiar, some not so familiar)

The Teachers - Alexandra Robbins (an educator's perspective on the challenges and rewards of the profession)

Revelation For Normal People - Robyn Whitaker (making sense of the final book of the New Testament)

Fiction

Normal People - Sally Rooney (about two Irish teens growing into adulthood together and apart, made into a BBC TV series available on Hulu)

Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (English aristocracy a century ago, made into a TV series in the '80s)

Kindred - Octavia Butler (late 20th century black woman who time travels back and forth between the South of the  early 1800s and today)

A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles (Count returns to Russia around 1918, lives under house arrest in a hotel for the next quarter-century or so)

Margo's Got Money Troubles - Rufi Thorpe (fun; a single mom who was the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler; turns to OnlyFans to make a living)

 

[pfife]

Currently:  The Showman by Simon Shuster (yes that's his name) about the first year of Russia invading Ukraine and the making of Zelensky

[pfife]

The Gambler by Billy Walters

[oblong]

I'm reading a biograpy of Robin Williams.  Robin.  NY TImes bestseller.  It's a quick read.  

[pfife]

The Gambler was a really good book.  I esp liked he he talked about how he approached betting.    He talks about a lot of gambling during his golf matches and that was interesting because it was ungodly amounts of money, but i could have done without the play by play of peoples drives, approach, and putting game.   

 

Onto the next one, a free kidle version of the Federalist papers.  We will see how long i stick with it.

[CMRivdogs]

I've been on a weird kick lately. Probably starting a few months back starting with a James McBride interview at the National Book Fair in the fall. Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, Five Carat Soul, The Good Lord Bird, I still want to read Miracle at St Anna when it becomes available at my local library or on Libby.

Meanwhile thanks to a recent history podcast I occasionally follow I've started The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution. 

[pfife]

On 2/6/2025 at 10:36 AM, CMRivdogs said:

Meanwhile thanks to a recent history podcast I occasionally follow I've started The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution. 

by title alone this sounds like something I would like, thank!   Added to the list.

Now:

On Call by Anthony Fauci

[oblong]

This has been a lot better than I expected. 

[LaceyLou]

Most of you probably know that I've always been interested in the WWII/Nazi GermanyHolocaust era...

So it's a bit surprising that I only heard of this book from 2011: In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson. 

I've only just started it, but it looks like it'll be easy to get into.

[CMRivdogs]

Has anyone read Jeff Passan's The Arm? It was on the A app's cheap book list this morning. I figured for $5 it was worth a try.

[oblong]

16 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Has anyone read Jeff Passan's The Arm? It was on the A app's cheap book list this morning. I figured for $5 it was worth a try.

Yes.  It was very good.  in fact it's probably worth reading again.

 

[romad1]

Reading "Island Infernos" from James McManus about the US Army in the Pacific War.  Why this is interesting to me:  most WWII history of the pacific dwell on the USMC and USN to the exclusion of the Army.   About 50% through this.  Most interesting insights:

• MacArthur's Army commanders Kreuger and Eichelberger were as different as US Army generals could be and hated each other.  
• McManus always raves about the tremendous logistical footprint of the US in the Pacific in the podcasts I listen to with him,  and here he also goes into detail about the numbers a lot...one of those details was the number of baseball and softball leagues on Bouganville which was an important staging base in the Solomons. 
• He covers the war in Burma and the Merrils Marauders campaign which appears to have been a creation to empower General Stilwell to say that US troops were engaged in the fight to rebuild the Burma Road.   The unit was abused heavily by both Merrill and Stilwell and were basically combat ineffective from being forced to do things in the Jungle terrain you just can't repeat from a European or eastern United States climate template.  
• Its interesting how many of these generals understood China from the inter-war years. 
• Talking about General Wainright's POW experience.  How much these leaders were consumed by depression over having to surrender and having no agency over their men's lives in Japanese POW camps. 
• McManus goes into a lot of interesting detail on the f'ups these legends of history make.  That alone is worth the read.  

Island Infernos: The U.S. Army’s Pacific War Odyssey, 1944 | JohnCMcManus.com

Edited March 18 by romad1