In the past year, I read fewer books than usual, but if anything I thought about them more. The year began with a big project: reading Homer's Odyssey chapter by chapter with two other friends, each of us reading a different translation and discussing them online. As the only one of the three readers with any ancient Greek, I was the one who looked up and struggled through passages we wanted to compare. This not only revived my interest in the language but rekindled my desire to go to Greece, which came true at the end of the year. The final book I'm reading, Mary Renault's Fire from Heaven, is a novelistic treatment of the life of Alexander the Great, whose Macedonian birthplace we visited. There were a number of other classical books, or works inspired by them, in the early part of 2018 - specifically several by Seamus Heaney; Kamila Shamsie's Home Fire, a version of Antigone with an immigrant heroine and her brother, a suspected ISIS terrorist; Alice Oswald's Memorial, a poem that lists all the deaths mentioned in the Iliad, and Daniel Mendelsohn's An Odyssey, about teaching the book to a class that included his own father and then going on a trip with him that recreated the ancient voyage.
Besides this focus, books I particularly enjoyed in the past year were William Finnegan's Barbarian Days, an autobiographical book about surfing that held me riveted from the first to the last page; Cesar Aira's bizarre and miraculous Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira, Michael Ondaatje's luminous latest novel, Warlight, set in post-WWII London,, and Men Without Women, Haruki Murakami's most recent collection of short stories, many of which appeared first in The New Yorker.
The book that impressed me the most was probably The Diaries of Emilio Renzi, Vol 1: The Formative Years, by Ricardo Piglia, one of the greatest of all Latin American writers. When diagnosed with a terminal illness, he spent the last ten years of his life compiling, revising and editing the huge volume of journal notebooks he had kept throughout it under the name of his alter-ego, Emilio Renzi. They are just now being published in English. The concept is monumental, and the writing extremely compelling; for someone like me who has kept journals off and on all her life (including this blog) it was a mind-bending project. Vol 1 covers the years when he was beginning to want to be a writer, through university, and up to the time his first book was published that brought him acclaim -- so it is the diary of a writer becoming a writer. It was a great contrast to last year's mammoth project (Knausgaard). Volume 2, The Happy Years, came out in November, and I look forward to reading it. I followed Vol 1 with one of Piglia's novels, which was great, but confess I liked the journals better. If you like Bolano, you will appreciate these.
Finally, in the fall, Jonathan and I both read William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium, a memoir of the writer's pilgrimage in the footsteps of 6th-century monk John Moschos who visited Orthodox monasteries all over the Byzantine world of his time. Dalrymple's journey begins on Mt Athos, Greece, takes us to Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the West Bank, and ends in the Egyptian desert. The book was written in 1997 and chronicled not only where Moschos went, but the lived reality of the same monasteries fourteen centuries later, most of which were, or had been, under attack by other religions and political groups and were currently inhabited by only a handful of monks; his own visits sometimes alerted the authorities and endangered the present monks, who could be accused of harboring a spy. But it was exactly the right book for us to read before our own first trip to see the Byzantine world at closer quarters; I'll be writing about our trip to the ancient monasteries at Meteora, Greece very soon.
As always, I look forward to hearing what you've been reading too, so please post your lists in the comments as well as your reactions to any of what I've said or listed here! And best wishes for happy reading adventures in 2019! I'm anxious to read the next Piglia, as I said, and the new Murakami novel, Killing Commendatore; also on my list is the Alexandria Quartet of Lawrence Durrell, and The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel about Sicily. How about you?
2018 (**=favorites)
Fire from Heaven (Alexander the Great trilogy, Vol 1), Mary Renault
**Men Without Women, Haruki Murakami
A Sort of Life, Graham Greene
**From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium, William Dalrymple
Artificial Respiration, Ricardo Piglia
**The Diaries of Emilio Renzi, Vol 1: The Formative Years, Ricardo Piglia
The Sense of Sight, John Berger
Transit, Rachel Cusk
**The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira, Cesar Aira
Quarantine, Jim Crace
**Warlight, Michael Ondaatje
Memorial, Alice Oswald
In the Night of Time, Antonio Munez Molina
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
Unreasonable Behavior, Don McCullin
**Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, William Finnegan
An Odyssey, Daniel Mendelssohn
No Time to Spare, Ursula LeGuin
**Home Fire, Kamila Shamsie
Aeneid Book VI, Seamus Heaney
The Cure at Troy, Seamus Heaney
The Foliate Head, Marly Youmans
**Burial at Thebes, Seamus Heaney
**The Odyssey, Robert Fagles, translator (rereading with friends, each a different translation)
Dang. From your illiterate friend.
Posted by: bill knight | December 31, 2018 at 03:49 PM
Aww. Happy New Year, Bill!
Posted by: Beth | December 31, 2018 at 04:27 PM
Ah, I envy you reading 'The Leopard' for the first time, Beth! One of my favourite books (and the film, despite Burt Reynolds' terrible overdubbing, is not bad at all). Like you I read Daniel Mendelsohn's 'An Odyssey' this year but have not yet started Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey; I'm not sure I can usefully compare it to the E. V. Rieu I read at University, twenty-five years ago now. Which version did you read, and did you as a group reach any insights?
And I envy your trip to Greece. 'From the Holy Mountain' is a wonderful book, as are most of William Dalrymple's, although I recall it leaving me saddened even then at how the world was becoming more rigidly separated along cultural and religious lines.
My 2018 list is below (and thank you for continuing this tradition on your blog). There's a fair amount of fluff on there - nothing Phoenica published! - but my favourites are probably: 'Compass', a birthday gift from a friend, and a truly remarkable feat of storytelling with perfectly judged tone, and an education to me as it's so non-Angolphone-centric; 'Invitation to a Beheading' because I didn't know that Nabokov's Russian books were so good; 'A Fortunate Man' as nearly all Berger is great; and 'Music at Midnight' for being a window into a Jacobean world that illuminated what I already knew of Herbert's poetry.
This Will Never Happen Again, David Cain
Compass, Mathias Enard
Long Run, Catriona Menzies-Pike
Darling, Richard Rodriguez
Why Buddhism is True, Robert Wright
The Brilliant History of Colour in Art, Victoria Finlay
The Second Body, Daisy Hildyard
Larchfield, Polly Clark
A Time to Keep Silence, Patrick Leigh Fermor
Hidden Nature, Alys Fowler
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, Elizabeth Smart
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, Geoff Dyer
Invitation to a Beheading, Vladimir Nabokov
The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Midlife Crisis, Luisa A. Igloria
Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar, Daniel Klein & Thomas Cathcart
James Ravilious: A Life, Robin Ravilious
The Accidental, Ali Smith
84 Charing Cross Road / The Duchess of Bloomsbury, Helene Hanff
The Fountain in the Forest, Tony White
The Pull of the River, Matt Gaw
Living an Examined Life, James Hollis
An Offering of Uncles, Robert Farrar Capon
The Owl Service, Alan Garner
Travels in a Dervish Coat, Isambard Wilkinson
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Jaron Lanier
Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, Robert Louis Stevenson
To Travel Hopefully, Christopher Rush
How to Be Here, Rob Bell
The Lady with the Dog, Anton Chekov
Wish Lanterns, Alec Ash
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
Running Up that Hill, Vassos Alexander
The Reading Cure, Laura Freeman
The ZimZum of Love, Rob Bell
Bow First, Ask Questions Later, Gesshin Claire Greenwood
An Odyssey, Daniel Mendelsohn
Between the Monster and the Saint, Richard Holloway
A Fortunate Man, John Berger
Primate Change, Vybarr Cregan-Reid
Running Free, Richard Askwith
The Year of the Lord 1943, Alan Jacobs
Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants, Matthias Enard
The Antidote, Oliver Burkeman
A Month in the Country, J. L. Carr
Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert, John Drury
Happy New Year!
Huw
Posted by: Huw Hitchin | December 31, 2018 at 06:02 PM
Beth, I have the same urge as Piglia/Renzi to gather together all my notebooks/diaries (from age 9 onwards) but there's so much still to do in the present that going back over the past seems indulgent and wasteful...though I might still do it...inshallah!
I havent read the Renzi diaries -thanks for mentioning this.
Happy 2019 my dear.
Posted by: Natalie | January 01, 2019 at 07:54 AM
Hah! I wonder how much of my understanding of classical antiquity (and everything else!) comes from Mary Renault: I read her right greedily at a very impressionable age.
Posted by: Dale Favier | January 01, 2019 at 02:32 PM
It's rare any of my commonplace reading reaches even the foothills of your elevated endeavours. But I have read A Sort of Life, in which GG avoids writing an autobiography. And I wonder if Berger's The Sense of Sight is the same as his Ways of Seeing (which I have read and enjoyed) inexplicably re-titled for another audience.
Oh joy! Here's another: Heaney's Aeneid VI. Ever since seeing him at the Hay Festival - so gentle, so understanding, yet so witty - I've been a Heaney devotee. A sweet translation, modern but never jarring.
Posted by: Roderick Robinson | January 02, 2019 at 05:33 AM
Huw, what a great list, and thanks too for your accompanying notes. (You did read a Phoenicia book -- Luisa A. Igloria's "The Buddha Wonders..." - thanks for that!) I have to tell you that I looked up Mathia Enard's "Compass" right away, on your recommendation, and downloaded it immediately -- I'm about halfway through and think it's one of the best things I've read, period. Plus, it's right up my alley with all the Middle and Near-Eastern references and places that are known to my from my husband and his family. Excellent writing, great story-telling. Happy New Year, and happy reading in 2019! Mine is starting off well, thanks to you!
Posted by: Beth | January 02, 2019 at 03:31 PM
Dale, yeah, she's so good, and brings you right into those worlds. I wish all young people would try those books.
Posted by: Beth | January 02, 2019 at 03:32 PM
Hi Robbie - yes, Heaney never fails to touch me, and the fact that we share this passion for classical literature has always made me love him more. Heaney came from an earthy, rural background like I did, too, and his poetry and translations always feel grounded there instead of in trying to impress people with his intellectualism.
Posted by: Beth | January 02, 2019 at 03:35 PM
Natalie, you and me both! When I think of all those notebooks and sketchbooks...but the prospect is pretty daunting, too. I wish you'd do it! Happy New Year!
Posted by: Beth | January 02, 2019 at 04:05 PM
I love it when people post their book lists! I don't keep track of anything, just read morning, night, and in-between. Now that I am happily retired from video editing!
Posted by: Sharyn | January 04, 2019 at 09:15 AM
When I first started to reply to your annual list Beth I tried to be comprehensive.
Not any more. It’s not possible with books everywhere in two different far apart locales, Alberta and Tahsis, Vancouver Island . Another trip to Ikea for bookcases is not far off but anyway why bother with comprehensiveness.
So some books from 2018
Grant by Ron Chernow. A doorstopper. I liked the military part the best. I quit after Lincoln’s assassination.
Final Solution:The Fate of the Jews 1933 - 1949. By David Cesarani. Another doorstopper about the greatest crime of the 20th century. Cesarani died after the book’s publication. It represents the culmination of a life’s work.i honoured that by reading it carefully.I will dip into it in the future.
Tad Borowski’s This way for the gas,ladies and gentlemen. A companion to Final Solution in a way. I found it in a Toronto used bookstore. Borowski a polish dissident writes of his time in Auschwitz. One of the most harrowing books I have read. Borowski committed suicide in 1950. Maybe like Primo Levi another holocaust survivor?
Kitchen Confidential and Meduim Raw by the late Anthony Bourdain,speaking of suicides. I loved the writing. Kind of like Hunter Thompson becomes a chef
Somme Mud by E P F Lynch, Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, Stranger to myself: The inhumanity of war.Russia 1941-1944, by Willy Peter Preese. Three soldier accounts of war,two in WW1.
Boyhood: Scenes from provincial life,by C M Coetzee
Last Train to Zona Verde by Paul Theroux
Jungle of Stone: The discovery of the lost world of the Maya,by William Carlsen
Second thoughts on books,authors and the writerly life,by Navtej Sarna. I found this in a New Delhi bookstore. It’s by a guy who is I think India’s ambassador to the US.
Let’s take the long way home,by Gail Caldwell. Two women,different backgrounds,meet,become close friends,one dies. Very well written I thought.
Crossing Chiromo Road,by Michael Seaborn. A Canadian lawyer quits the Law, goes and finds work in a refugee camp in Africa. The guy grew on me.
Browse: The world in bookstores,ed Henry Hitchings
Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa, by Haruki Murakami. I have gone back to this a few times. As a classical music lover I was enchanted.
The Wolf by Nate Blakeslee and Educated by Tara Westover. Two great books read at Christmas.
Books I dipped into for enjoyment.
Ten windows: How Great Poems Tranform the world,by Jane Hirschfield found in a Kathmandu bookstore.
Creslaw Milosz: New and Collected poems 1931 to 2001.
Jack Gilbert : Collected poems
Joy: 100 poems, ed Christian Wiman
Ted Kooser : Kindest Regards
Well that’s part of it for 2018. Every year there are great books. So I keep buying
Posted by: John | January 05, 2019 at 12:01 PM
Hi Sharyn, always good to hear from you! I'm glad to know you're reading all the time!
Thanks so much, John! I'm always interested in your list. I should definitely read Jungle of Stone, and Murakami's conversations with Ozawa. We are probably going to be moving our studio this year, which will mean getting rid of more books, I'm afraid. So for me it's the opposite problem, sigh.
Posted by: Beth | January 05, 2019 at 01:31 PM
John, good to hear that you like the Ozawa / Murakami book: I was flipping through it in a bookstore recently and it looked interesting. Next time I'll buy it! And a fascinating and serious list (tangentially: have you read 'Escape from Kathmandu? I bought it in a Kathmandu bookstore and it's a ripping / ridiculous yarn).
Beth, I hope you continue to enjoy 'Compass' and glad that it's provided a good start to the year. I'm reading 'Out of the Silent Planet' which was a Christmas gift.
Posted by: Huw Hitchin | January 06, 2019 at 08:39 AM
I loved "From the Holy Mountain" and its concept -- retracing the steps of John Chrysostom as he traveled to the monasteries he had felt responsible for. Along those lines, I'm rereading Needleman's "Lost Christianity." Most everything else on your list is new to me.
Posted by: Peter | January 07, 2019 at 07:35 AM
Honored to be in such good company inside your head, Beth. Thank you.
Posted by: Marly Youmans | January 08, 2019 at 06:42 PM
Hi Beth. Thanks for reminding me to have another look at Compass.
Two recent reading highlights:
- Elizabeth Hay's latest, All Things Consoled. A memoir about her relationship with elderly parents. Definitely rang a lot of bells, and very beautifully written.
- Miriam Toews's Women Talking.
With these two books, I really felt both writers had taken a masterful leap and done something far beyond their previous work.
Posted by: Andrea M. | January 12, 2019 at 02:29 PM