the books I read in 2024

There are still a dozen days left in 2024 but my progress in The black book by Lawrence Durrell is quite dismal. I probably won't finish reading it before the end of the year. I made the mistake of checking the book out because I was rewatching The Durrells in Corfu on PBS Passport. That series is an adaptation of Gerald Durrell's books about the family's years on Corfu, from the 1930s up to the spread of fascism sending the family back to Bournemouth. It's the rollicking story of a widow and her four eccentric children. Durrell's Black book is more experimental and surrealistic. I was also intrigued because I had read The black book by Orhan Pamuk (1990) many years ago. I remember very much liking Pamuk's book though the images in my brain at the moment could be from that book or other Pamuks.

These are the books I read in 2024, in chronological order.

• Orwell's roses, by Rebecca Solnit (2021)
• The sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)
• Becoming, by Michelle Obama (2018)
• Red, white & royal blue, by Casey McQuiston (2019) - I don't think I've watched the film adaptation more than 100 times yet.
• Trickster makes this world: mischief, myth, and art, by Lewis Hyde (1997)
• Didn't nobody give a shit what happened to Carlotta, by James Hannaham (2022)
• Bad gays: a homosexual history, by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller (2022)
• Architects of an American landscape: Henry Hobson Richardson, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the reimagining of America's public and private spaces, by Hugh Howard (2022) - Bill and I walked about in Mount Auburn Cemetery in October, one of the great 19th-century public spaces.
• Theorem, by Pier Paolo Pasolini, translated by Stuart Hood (first published 1968, my copy is the NYRB, 2023 edition) - the basis for the Pasolini film Teorema (1968)
• Let's not do that again, by Grant Ginder (2022)
• Pink line: journeys across the world's queer frontiers, by Mark Gevisser (2020)
• Young Mungo, by Douglas Stuart (2022) - like his earlier Shuggie Bain, this book has a strong sense of place
• Blackbird, by Larry Duplechan (1986)
• The color of law: a forgotten history of how our government segregated America, by Richard Rothstein (2017)
• Erasure, by Percival Everett (2001) - I read a review of his new novel James (inspired by Huck Finn's companion) and read this book in anticipation of James coming out in paperback. More recently, I read a review of Colored television by Danzy Senna in NYTBR. Senna wrote the introduction to My search for Warren Harding (see below) and is the wife of Percival Everett. Will the circle be unbroken?
• The Paris hours, by Alex George (2020) - plenty of amusing name-dropping from literary Paris, e.g., Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Proust, Sartre
• Older brother, by Mahir Guven, translated by Tina A. Kover (2019)
• What she ate: six remarkable women and the food that tells their stories, by Laura Shapiro (2017) - a lucky grab from random searching at the public library. Shapiro's voice in the concluding chapter seemed so familiar even though our life paths were different. Turns out, she was born the day after I was. It was a good read too!
• The pairing, by Casey McQuiston (2024) - more food and drink and story
• The box: how the shipping container made the world smaller and the world economy bigger, by Marc Levinson (2nd ed., 2016) - I accidentally ordered two copies and gave one to Craig. I hit "add to cart" at bookshop.org when it seemed like things were going kerflooey and didn't review my cart carefully enough. Craig enjoyed the book too.
• This is New York, by E.B. White (1948)
• My search for Warren Harding, by Robert Plunket (first published 1983, my copy is New Directions, 2023)
• The black book, by Lawrence Durrell (first published in Paris in 1938, not published in unexpurgated form in the U.S. until 1960 or in Britain until 1973; my reading copy is Dutton, 1960)

I use Goodreads to record my reading. As usual, it's about an even mix of fiction and nonfiction. If you want to see how Goodreads compiles these books and shows you a clickable cover where you can get more information, go to 

https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2024/6837039

separated at birth: simple tasks like dealing with your shoes

They've argued. He's all banged up. She's going to her own room for the night. He sits on the bed to get undressed but his injuries prevent his reaching his feet. She helps him take off his shoes. (The Diplomat, Season 2, on Netflix)

He's a troubled kid, always carrying a gun. Mom gets exasperated and kicks him out of the house. He ends up staying with a couple ne'er-do-wells. They treat him badly and make him do criminal things. He finally can't take it anymore after they pee in his shoes. "They're expensive. We went on a special trip to London to get them." He drags himself home. She asks him about the smell. He just says "My shoes" and she sits him down and takes the shoes off and gives him a hug. (The Durrells in Corfu, Season 1, Episode 4, on PBS Passport)

Unconditional love ... though maybe intermittent and contextual.

writing in space

Sometimes my indexing or cataloging takes me to places I really want to go or where I have very happily been. Sometimes it's a bit of both. I really enjoyed my trips to Milan in 2018, including a climb up to the roof of the Duomo. Hanging out with the gargoyles. My indexing a day or two ago included an article about eL Seed in Abitare. His work usually includes some Arabic calligraphy and the work above was on the plaza in front of the Duomo in Milan. He is Franco-Tunisian so I assumed his nom d'art was derived from something like al-Said. But no. One of the bits of biography that I found on the web described his love of El Cid as a child and his appropriation and respelling of that name.

I often check the Library of Congress Name Authority File when I encounter a new person and want to see if their record looks ok. I was amused to note that the record for eL Seed was done at the Metropolitan Museum of Art so I sent them a note of gratitude. William claimed it.

Thanks, William, and thank you, Bassam Makansi on Facebook, for the good picture of the calligraphy on the plaza. The picture from the roof of the Duomo is mine from 2018.