Reading 2022

January/ February / March:

The Other Mexico: Critique of the Pyramid, Octavio Paz

The Power of Geography, Tim Marshall

When Women Were Birds, Terry Tempest Williams

Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe [re-reading]

Caste, Isabel Wilkerson

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

Voices of Marrakesh, Elias Canetti (re-reading)

The Voice, Seicho Matsumoto (short stories)

A Month in Siena, Hisham Matar

A History of God, Karen Armstrong (re-reading)

Abu Musa's Women Neighbors, Ahmed Toufiq

People Who Walk in Darkness, Stuart Kaminsky

The Wind-Up Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi [post-apocalyptic Bangkok)

In the Country of Men, Hisham Matar (Libya, & his father)

This Could Be Important: My Life and Times with The Artificial Intelligentsia, Pamela McCorduck

Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express, Stuart Kaminsky

The Fall of Paris -- the Siege and the Commune 1870-71, Alistair Horne

Beneath a Scarlet Sky, Mark Sullivan (fict biog/Italy under German Occupation)

The Betrayal, Helen Dunmore (novel, 1950s Leningrad)

The Emissary, Yoko Tawada

Corregidora, Gayl Jones

Twilight of Democracy: the Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, Anne Applebaum

The Naked Eye, Yoko Tawada

Palmares, Gayl Jones (novel, Brazil during slavery)

Storm Before the Calm: America's Discord…& Triumph Beyond, George Friedman

April/ May/ June:

Aleppo: A History, Ross Burns

Romanesque Painting Juan Ainaud

The Vegetarian, Han Kang (novel, Korea)

Arrow of God, Chinua Achebe

A Severed Head, Iris Murdoch

Exposure: Native Art & Political Ecology

The Big Silence, Stuart Kaminsky

The Distant Marvels, Chantel Acevedo (novel, Cuba)

+The Blue Between Sky & Water, Susan Abulhawa (novel, occupied Gaza)

Confessions of a Good Arab, Yoram Kaniuk Israeli writer

Crazy in Poughkeepsie, Daniel Pinkwater

The Unknown Masterpiece & Gambara, Honore de Balzac

The Silence, Don DeLillo

The Door, Magda Szabo (re-reading)

* Every Day is for the Thief, Teju Cole (Nigeria)

Ten White Geese, Gerbrand Bakker (novel, Dutch woman in Wales)

Fear: A Novel of World War I, Gabriel Chevallier

The Exercise of Power (America & post Cold War World), Robert Gates

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Michael Woolf

* The Shadow of the Sun, Ryszard Kapuscinski [re-reading]

+Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger, Soraya Chemali

Marching Spain, V. S. Pritchett (1927 walking trip)

July/ August/September:

Master of the Game: Kissinger & Middle East, by Martin Indyk

Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins

Warriors: The New Prophecy: series (cat sagas) Erin Hunter

Paris in the Fifties, Stanley Karnow

The Warriors: Midnight; Moonrise; Dawn

Theatre, Somerset Maugham

Birdcage Walk Helen Dunmore (fiction bk group/rr)

Warriors: Starlight, Erin Hunter

The Last Weynfeldt, Martin Suter

Warriors: Twilight

* The Age of Extremes (the short 20th Century) 1914-1991, Eric Hobsbawm

Warriors: Sunset

Transcendent Kingdom, Ya Gyasi

Young Bloomsbury, Nino Strachey

The Personal Librarian, Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray

(fictional biography of Belle da Costa Greene, & the JP Morgan Library)

Back to the Garden, Laurie R. King

Bluebeard's Egg & Other Stories, Margaret Atwood

Tribe, Sebastian Junger

The Cat Who Saved Books,

Sight, Erin Hunter

October, November, December:

The Narrow Corner, W. Somerset Maugham

A Journey into Matisse’s South of France, Laura McPhee

Firestar’s Quest, Erin Hunter

The Interpretation of Culture, Clifford Geertz (re-reading)

Nations and Nationalism, Ernest Gellner

Dark River, Erin Hunter

The Sea, John Banville

One Foot in Laos, Dervla Murphy

The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym

Warriors: Outcast

Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World, Tom Burgis

Gravel Heart, Abdulrazak Gurnah

Christendom Destroyed Europe 1517-1648, Mark Greengrass (selected portions)

Memory of Departure, Abdulrazak Gurnah

Warriors: Eclipse, Erin Hunter

Planet of Slums, Mike Davis

King Leopold’s Ghost, Adam Hochschild

A Lover’s Discourse, Xiaolu Guo