Welcome to my annual roundup of the books I’ve read for pleasure, categorized idiosyncratically! There’s not always a completely clear line between work and non-work reading; what I’ve chosen to include or exclude here from the latter category is also a part of the idiosyncrasy.
Best bastard/orphan/son of a whore and a Scotsman: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, audiobook read by Scott Brick.
Second-best bastard/orphan/son of a whore and a Scotsman (more or less): Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, audiobook read by Simon Vance.
One doesn’t like to speak ill of a book in which the now-deceased author’s detectivery plays a huge role in resolving a crime, but…: I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle Macnamara.
Most gratuitous mathematics and violence against women: Preface of The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson, audiobook read by Simon Vance.
Read more detective fiction by women: The Cuckoo’s Calling, The Silkworm, A Career of Evil, and Lethal White, all by Robert Galbraith, audibooks read by Robert Glennister.
… because otherwise, the misogyny rife in the genre makes me think I should start writing my own: Day after Day by Carlo Lucarelli.
Bologna book: See above.
Not a Bologna book: Piero, by Edmond Baudoin.
The ‘good Italian’ is a myth: The Italian Executioners by Simon Levis Sullam.
Because a friend I loved dearly thought this was a great book for getting over heartbreak, and I needed it again this year: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott.
This year’s hit-too-close-to-home read: Good on Paper by Rachel Cantor.
Venice book: Watermark by Paul Brodsky.
Venice books I’d like to read someday but didn’t read this year: Autumn in Venice by Andrea di Robilant; The Unfinished Palazzo by Judith Mackrell; The Stones of Venice by John Ruskin.
#SarahLearnsItalian: Corto Maltese: Favola di Venezia and Corto Maltese: In nome de Allah, both by Hugo Pratt; Il barrone rampante by Italo Calvino (still in progress; is unexpectedly slow going for a YA novel); very short selections from Miti, Emblemi, Spie by Carlo Ginzburg (which I was reading in English for a review essay I wrote this year, and then tried the Italian original for the sake of the language, although reading comprehension was really never going to be the issue for me).
The year in diglossia: A Death at Sea, The Voice of the Violin, and A Track in the Sand, all by Andrea Camilleri and all in translation, audiobooks read by Stephen Sartarelli.
The year in diglossia, manageable only in small pieces and only after listening to the English translation: La morte in mare aperto by Andrea Camilleri, purchased at the Palermo airport.
Weirdly academic reading choices before a completely non-academic trip to Sicily: Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily by Jeremy Johns and Where Three Worlds Met by Sarah Davis Secord.
Normal-person reading choices before a completely normal-person trip to Sicily: The Leopard by Guiseppe di Lampedusa.
Opening that put me off continuing to read before traveling to Sicily: “You have to get yourself a window seat and arrive on a clear, sunny day. These occur even winter, because the city is always anxious to look good, whatever the season. As the aircraft begins its descent, you can see from the window and the red rocks of Terrasini, and the sea aquamarine and blue, with no way of telling where the blue ends and the aquamarine begins…The airport at Punta Raisi is built upon a narrow strip of land separating the sea from the mountain; indeed, before now, one plane has fetched up against the mountain (5 May 1972) and another in the sea (23 December 1978). That’s the city airport for you. That’s the city for you.” Palermo, by Robert Alajmo.
Unexpected read on translation writ small and large: Undocumeted by Dan-El Padilla Peralta.
Reading The Library Book last year made me want to read: Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean.
Ann Arbor books that I didn’t read because I left the first one in the series at my partner’s house to read at a later date, got dumped, couldn’t recover the book, and therefore also didn’t read the second one in the series (or, life interferes with reading): Very Bad Men and Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan.
Books I Kon-Mari-ed before returning to New York from Ann Arbor:
Books I Kon-Mari-ed once I got home:
What I like about my current book project is the very blurry line between reading for work and reading for pleasure: An Egyptian Novel by Orly Castel-Bloom.
Best non-fiction about Egypt: The Caliph’s Lost Maps by Yoseph Rappoport and Emilie Smith-Savage.
Best fiction about Egypt: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty, audiobook read by Soneela Nankani.
Fuck cancer: Dear Zealots by Amos Oz.
Israel book: Holy Lands by Amanda Sthers.
The Medieval Manuscript in the 21st Century: Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble; Scraped, Stroked, and Bound, edited by J. Wilcox; and Printing the Middle Ages by Sian Echard; Feminist in a Software Lab by Tara McPherson.
My year in terrible books: The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages by Geraldine Heng; The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise by Darío Fernández-Morera; Complaint by Avital Ronell; The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler; The Flight to Lucifer by Harold Bloom.
2019 summarized in one book: Complaint, above.
This year’s faves: City of Brass and The Caliph’s Lost Maps.
Was put on a special diet with only ten foods allowed. Amongst those were ham, eggs, and lavender tea. No vegetables anywhere on the list. I decided it was stupid and I was going to eat some romanesco.