Some books read in the past year that left their mark on me. CRIME:
Got stuck into a new and fabulous series, the Flavia de Luce series starring an 11-year-old girl detective. Written by Alan Bradley. Very much 'cozy' crime fiction based in England in the 1950s (but written now). I read the first two novels in them: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag. What I love is that the 11-year-old is obsessed with chemistry and has a lab and a unique voice. She is the narrator and uses chemistry to solve crimes. Also finished the last of another crime series: the Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French. Finished the last in the series which again has been the best I've read in crime in a long time. Tana French is my new favourite and she has just come out with a standalone novel. NONFICTION: - David Remnick's biography of Muhammad Ali. Brilliant writing about Ali's ascent to fame. The boxing scenes send a chill down the spine but the book is really about Ali's politics and is a good companion to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. - Rebecca Solnit's two collections of essays - Men Explain Things To Me and The Mother Of All Questions. Taught me a lot about feminism and men and opened my eyes. - Several books on writing (am writing a book): Draft No. 4 by John McPhee on the writing process and structuring your thoughts. Brilliant stuff. The Situation and The Story by Vivian Gornick. Working by Robert A. Caro, and The Writing Life by Annie Dillard. Also reading Amitava Kumar's Writing Badly Is Easy. They are all uniformly brilliant. - Atul Gawande's Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance. I'm a big fan of Gawande's and this is the third book of his I've read, the other's being Being Mortal and The Checklist Manifesto. I would say this is my favourite. - Caste Matters by Suraj Yengde. Another mind-opening book which I haven't quite finished, but have read most of it. Will continue to dip into it here and there. OTHER FICTION: - Re-read Frank Herbert's Dune. First read it as a 16-year-old and was apprehensive about the second read. So many of our heroes turn out to have written sexist, racist stuff or were otherwise total ass***** in their real lives. But Dune continued to amaze with its vision, its mixing of various cultures in the world, the strong secondary and tertiary characters and pro-environmental message. Now wondering if I should run through the entire series ahead of the movie. - The Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Just can't rave enough about this book which gave me a lot of joy. This will be my new gifting favourite. That's about it. Reading A Dominant Character by Samanth Subramanian and should finish soon. Ditto with Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. On Sat, Nov 21, 2020 at 12:43 AM Thaths <[email protected]> wrote: > Silk listers, I used to turn to you for book recommendations around this > time of the year. But stopped this practice when I stopped seeing > engagement. But last year a handful of you said that you missed this annual > tradition. So here we go again! > > What have you read over the last year that has left a mark on you? What are > you eagerly looking forward to reading over the coming holidays? How has > COVID19 affected your reading? > > I will share my recommendations later in this thread. > > Thaths > -- > Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? > Carl: Nuthin'. > Homer: D'oh! > Carl: Unless you're crooked. > Homer: Woo-hoo! > -- *Get your 'vaccine' from 'fake news', lies, half-truths, manipulated truths, propaganda and general B.S. at my media buddhi newsletter <https://mediabuddhi.substack.com/>.* H R Venkatesh Director, Training and Research, BOOM <https://www.boomlive.in/> John S. Knight Journalism Fellow 2019 <https://jsk.stanford.edu/fellows/class-of-2019/h-r-venkatesh/>, Stanford University Twitter: @hrvenkatesh
