In 2023 I finally got it together and started really using the San Francisco Public Library, putting books I wanted to read on hold, reading parts of books and checking out books that I was simply curious about. The library is an amazing resource. Below is a list of books that I finished. I do this exercise to simply reflect on the previous year.
Books I Read 2023
The Shipping News
Annie Proulx
Charles Scribner’s Sons
Without a doubt you can find this book in any Goodwill or Salvation Army. A very interesting read.
Beloved
Toni Morrison
Vintage; Reprint edition
In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist
Pete Jordan
Harper Perennial;
A Black Woman’s West: The Life of Rose B. Gordon
Michael K. Johnson
Montana Historical Society
This is an interesting book I picked up in a restaurant in Glacier, Montana. It chronicles the life of a black woman and family. What is interesting is that the Gordon family became an integral part of the town that they lived in and according to this account the racism was pretty muted.
Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle
Jody Rosen
Crown
Candide
Voltaire
Penguin Classics
Whenever I get a bit too optimistic about things, I like to read this classic to bring me down to earth.
Micromegas and Other Short Fictions
Voltaire
Penguin Classics
Very cool book that actually has a short story about traveling by space ship and visiting other planets and alien beings. Sort of amazing that this is not talked about more and on reading lists. This was written in the 18th century!
Two Wheels North
Evelyn McDaniel Bibb
Oregon State Press
Blindness
Jose Saramago
Harcourt, Brace and Co
American Studies
Louis Menand
New York : Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002.
Mexico City – Cradle of Empires
Caistor, Nick,
Reaktion Books
A Most Remarkable Creature the Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey
Meiburg, Jonathan,
Alfred A. Knopf
My Bike & Other Friends
Henry Miller
Capra Press, 1978.
Gulliver’s Travels
Swift, Jonathan
Doubleday, Doran & co., inc.,
Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller
MEDVSA
One of the great banned books of the 20th century and I found a signed copy! Miller has the ability to make the ugly beautiful. It is understandable why they banned this book. It should only be for adults in the first place, but then again the youth would surely not even understand most of it.
Zionism – A Brief History
Brenner, Michael
Princeton
A very good book for our times. A “just the facts” look at the creation of Israel. Theodor Herzl, one of the early Zionists obviously began something that we are feeling the ramifications of today.
If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?
Kurt Vonnegut
Seven Stories Press