2024 in books
This year was a good year for reads. I enjoyed more physical books than I have had for some time. It feels great to get back into reading again. I'm thankful I have the time.
Last Date in El Zapotal
This book is quite harrowing, in a good way, but also in a bad way. The wording and tempo engulfed my mind into the story as if these thoughts and memories were my own.
The tale dragged me down each dark and putrid step by this unnamed character, all the way to bedrock. I was left with the most satisfying emptiness I have ever felt. It was as if I stuffed myself of the delicious imaginary foods from the stories of Peter Pan, only to awaken from a dream, my stomach feeling big and empty. Somehow, reading his descent down the stairs into the underworld called back memories of my life, the minute of everyday existence that fills the gaps between the more momentous occasions of our days on Earth. By the end, the author had made me feel happy in a sad sort of way, at the same time feeling sad in a happy sort of way.
Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto
This was the first of many books of Stewart's I will likely read in my lifetime. Published in 2009, it is a written collection of essays essential for anyone mindful of whole earth ecosystems with contrarian views we don't hear often from the environmental movement. Read this book if you fall into any of these categories:
- You live in a city
- You don't live in a city
- You think about the future sometimes
- You use electricity
- You value the wisdom of the experienced
"Don't mourn, organize!"
The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
This was a great find in a Little Free Library in my neighborhood. A showcase of Hemingway's short stories alongside two or three or four drafts of each, with all the edits and crossed out words and lines and sentences and paragraphs. It was a great introduction to Hemingway. I closed the book with a newfound appreciation for the sculpting process of story writing.
Capitalism and Freedom
These last few years have all but forced me to think about systems and organization of society & economics. I fell into a rabbit hole, reading and listening to Friedman's lectures (many uploaded to YouTube), culminating into buying this 1962 collection of essays on his economic ideas and their relations to society. The book is not quite as engaging as his lectures but provides a broad and deep examination into when and where markets work, how to enable best-case outcomes in situations where markets don't work, and well reasoned arguments on why you shouldn't want governments solving all societies problems.
The Bomber Mafia
I can't say I remember much from this read other than I enjoyed reading it. I love Malcom's writing style, it's engaging and fun. Whatever ending I was expecting to happen, didn't. So I have no memory of any lessons learnt if there were any lessons to learn at all. My summary is as follows:
Well known spaghetti sauce journalist discovers the understory of some obscure WWII statistics
Stay True
A wonderful memoir of a young man going through college, finding identity in a world of expectations and his friends that glue it all together. Best read of the year.