I know I say this every year but I really didn’t read that much beyond what I needed to for work. Lots of true crime podcasts and cooking shows — that was about all I had bandwidth for. I also don’t think I kept as careful record of what I read this year as I usually do. And I did read poetry, but not a lot of it stuck. What I did read and make note of, though, was:
Because I don’t actually mind being disliked but sometimes it gets to me: The Courage to Be Disliked by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi
This was as hard to get into on a reread as I remember it being the first time around: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
So much better than I remembered, partly because of the new translation, partly because I wasn’t trying to read it in the space of a week for English 129 on top of all my other freshman-year-in-college coursework from that week: The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
I wanted the narrator to be a little more critical/skeptical: Black Girl from Pyongyang by Monica Macías
As it turns out, Captain Nemo is a better materials scientist and science communicator than the Titanic guy: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, audiobook read by James Frain
I *really* wanted to read this book from a methodological standpoint and still do, but am not currently in a frame of mind to power through all the airline safety issues (DNF for now): My Hijacking by Martha Hodes
Further DNF: Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow (was really put off by the self-indulgent teenaged rape-voyeur fantasy in the opening chapters) AND The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith (and since that’s two in a row, I think I’m officially off that series)
Read for Reasons(tm): Cribsheet by Emily Oster
I thought the last one was the last one, but this is really the last one: Riccardino by Andrea Camilleri, translated by Steven Sartarelli, audiobook read by Grover Gardner
I thought being one of four Sarahs inevitably in every room was bad, but: Doppleganger by Naomi Klein
Reread because first time through was on paper and the audiobook is narrated by Kenneth Brannagh: The Man with the Golden Gun by Ian Fleming
Reinforced my belief that poets are the best prose writers: Pulling the Chariot of the Sun by Sean McCrae
I’m sure I read more this year, but maybe not much more, and a lot of it was books ranging from popular biographies to academic monographs about Moses Maimonides for work-related reasons. But I think this is as complete as this year’s list is going to get.