Classics Considered

I’ve already shared my reading goals for 2024, and even though I formed them in November, I don’t think I will make any changes to them. Reading What I Own and Reading the World are top priority, along with various other readalongs mentioned on that post. I’m very excited about all of those!

Now… looking back on 2023, I don’t think it’s been the best year for reading. Some years seem to brim with amazing reads, and others, like this one, have been a bit underwhelming. I only completed 35 of my goal of 40 books, so I will just run down the list and give a few thoughts. Taking a page from Cyberkitten, I’m putting my favorites in bold…

1. The King in Yellow – RW Chambers. This was a curious collection of 1890s occult horror, centered on a sinister “King in Yellow” motif. I heard about this from Marianne Guevara, who has read a lot of this genre and has great recommendations. While I didn’t love it per se, it was unique and worth a read. Anyone who likes Lovecraft, Blackwood, or Doyle’s horror fiction would get something out of it.
2. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins (reread). It’s quite rare that I reread books, but I did return to this one for a readalong and also enjoyed the 2018 adaptation. The novel drags in places, but the payoff is there, and I am still captivated by Marian Halcombe and the scoundrelly Count Fosco. It is a book I will likely reread throughout the years, in spite of its 600-ish pages. :]
3. “Barn Burning” and four other short stories from The Elephant Vanishes – Haruki Murakami. “Barn Burning” was fantastic, but I couldn’t get past the gratuitous salaciousness of Murakami’s other stories and threw in the towel on this collection.
4. Convenience Store Woman – Sayaka Muraka. This is a good book for getting out of a reading rut—it is short, punchy, and features a quirky female character. I found it to be a letdown in other respects.
5. Humility – Gavin Ortlund. A very good little book about Christian humility. I started rereading it already.
6. Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross – Sigrid Undset. Very mixed feelings about this trilogy, but it was definitely worth reading. Had some great discussions about it for the Reading the World challenge.
7. What the Chickadee Knows – Margaret Noodin. Random book of indigenous poetry I picked up at the library. I enjoyed it.
8. So Far So Good – Ursula K Le Guin. Another random poetry selection from the library. Did not enjoy it. Never read anything by Le Guin before and not feeling inspired to.
9. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning – Margareta Magnusson. Found this to be disturbing in places…
10. In Praise of Shadows – Jun’ichirō Tanizaki. I read a lot of old books but I was personally shocked how racist this one was (it doesn’t seem to have much bearing on the book’s reputation, so I was totally unprepared). It has some interesting ideas, but they were tarnished for me by the problematic content.
11. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Alexander Solzhenitsyn. My first Solzhenitsyn. It was ok… I feel like it is a valuable book, but truthfully it didn’t really leave much of an impression on me other than as an account of an (awful) experience.
12. Macbeth – Saw a college production of this play with my brother. Enjoyed it much more on the stage than reading the script.
13. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce. It was pretty meh for me. I liked Dubliners better.
14. The Blue Sky – Galsan Tschinag. A novel from Mongolia, first in a trilogy. It was a simple coming-of-age story, but I liked it and plan to read his other books.
15. Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett. I found this off-putting at first, and extremely depressing by the end, but it does have some really fantastic quotes.
16. The Moon Is Down – John Steinbeck. This was my first “wow!” read of the year. Short but pithy. The movie was pretty faithful to the source material, and my family enjoyed watching it.
17. The Island of Doctor Moreau – HG Wells. Reread this one with Stephen. This was my third read of it. Due to knowing the plot twists, not as enjoyable as the first two times, but still a good read.
18. The Oresteia by Aeschylus. Didn’t get much out of these Greek plays if I’m being honest. Next time I’ll have to read some supplementary material. However, I’m glad I read something out of my comfort zone, and two of my friends did a lot to provide context and cultural background, which I appreciated!
19. 5 Ingredients – Jamie Oliver. I just skimmed this cookbook. It wasn’t great.
20. Ends and Means – Aldous Huxley. I never did review this one properly. 😦 It’s fair to say Huxley’s arguments for his ideals are not watertight, but (apart from his religious takes) I enjoyed the timbre of his thought, and many of his ideas for improving society are very interesting. Ends and Means is a book to inspire, not to instruct.
21. An Encyclopedia of Pacifism – Aldous Huxley. Thought this would be more of the same of Ends and Means, but actually he goes into history and political events more in this little book. Same headspace but different enough to warrant reading.
22. Vegetarian Dinner Parties – Mark Scarbrough. This is a cookbook for experts, not idiots like me.
23. A Study in Scarlet – Arthur Conan Doyle. I know this book too well by now, but I did find it reasonably interesting to analyze Doyle’s writing in his debut Sherlock Holmes novel.
24. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway. Did not like, did not finish.
25. Light in August – William Faulkner. I liked this book, but have not yet finished it. It starts out fairly character-driven with several interesting characters, then it zooms in one particular character and gets totally dark and grim. I will return to it when I’m in the mood for that.
26. The Man Whom the Trees Loved – Algernon Blackwood. Oh my… I loved this book. I’m a little embarrassed how much I loved it. :] When I visited Olympic National Forest this year, I felt this story in my entire soul—the protagonist’s crazy obsession with the woods is one that resonates. More than that though, it is a well-crafted exploration of a changing relationship that can be a metaphor for aging and various life events. A stroke of genius by Blackwood.
27. The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction – Robert J McMahon. I liked this one quite a bit. It was a good review.
28. The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene. Another novel that blew me away. It’s part of a niche topic that really appeals to me, so that helped.
29. The Sign of Four – Arthur Conan Doyle. Didn’t enjoy this one as much as I have in the past, unfortunately. I guess it doesn’t really hold any surprises for me anymore. 😛
30. East of Eden – John Steinbeck. I genuinely regret spending so much time on this novel and should have DNF’d it early. I feel no particular pride in having read it, and the only benefit of having finished it was to be able to critique it. Which also wasn’t very satisfying because several of my friends love this novel and I felt bad to disagree so heartily with them. 😛
31. Washington Square – Henry James. I knew the plot from the movie The Heiress, but even that did not prepare me for the psychological and emotional depth of this novel. It is extremely modern how James portrays the subtle abuse and manipulation Catherine endures from the authority figures in her life, yet James predates today’s understanding of childhood trauma by many, many decades. It’s also a brilliant protofeminist novel, yet you don’t have to be a feminist to appreciate its themes, because they are so deftly crafted that anyone can immediately appreciate the heroine’s struggle. My family and I rewatched The Heiress, and we also watched the 1997 adaptation. The 90s version, which is closer to the book, really divided us—my mom found the ending to be extremely tragic, whereas my dad identified the heroine’s wisdom and growth as a positive conclusion to a sad story. It is very like Eugene Onegin in the sense that the ending is what you make of it, and I have come to adore books like that.
32. Beowulf – Tolkien translation. The Tolkien translation was fine, but I still didn’t care much for Beowulf much this second time around. This won’t be my last time reading it, but I don’t think I’ll be rushing to read another translation yet, either.
33. “The Library of Babel” and “The Garden of Forking Paths” – Jorge Luis Borges. These were my first exposure to Borges, and I had mixed feelings about them… I find him a bit esoteric so far, but need to read more to form an opinion.
34. We Hereby Refuse – Frank Abe. This book had great information… I learned a lot, but I just didn’t feel like it was great manga.
35. The Quiet American – Graham Greene. Did not like this one. :]

In summary – my top favorite books this year were Washington Square, The Power and the Glory, and The Man Whom the Trees Loved. I would say Washington Square holds the broadest appeal, so would recommend it to anyone.