Some titles are linked to my highlights from the book. | Title | Author | Notes | | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Paris Without End | Giola Diliberto | Hemingway's stint in Paris from the POV of his first wife Hadley Richardson. Author uses primary sources to pull back the curtain on many of the details that were core to Hemingway's self-made legend. | | Twilight of the Gods | Ian Toll | Final volume of Toll's history of WW2 Pacific | | The Conquering Tide | Ian Toll | Volume 2/3 of Toll's history of WW2 Pacific | | Desert Solitaire | Edward Abbey | Another classic in the vein of Sand County Almanac that I've put off for decades. I enjoyed it, but I felt near constant low-level annoyance with Abbey's mixture of self-satisfaction with the access he was granted to these places as a federal employee and his disdain for American tourists who wished to visit the same places. | | Dom Casmurro | Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis | After my good luck with the Émile Zola translation, this [NYT book review](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/books/review/machado-de-assis-dom-casmurro.html) caught my eye, a recommendation for a new translation of a beloved Brazilian write I have never read. | | [[Iberia\|Iberia]] | James Michener | One of Michener's few non-fictions, essentially his diary of traveling in Spain pre- and post-Civil war. | | Napa: The Story of An American Eden | James Conaway | Student of Wallace Stegner, history of the wine industry in Napa and clashes between its developers and preservationists. Should cause every YIMBY to sharpen their position: we should build denser cities so other places can remain open space. | | Seven Ages of Paris | Alistair Horne | History of Paris' built environment as impacted by major leaders and political events. Focuses on the early kings. | | [[ALL THE KING’S MEN\|All The King's Men]] | Robert Penn Warren | Read this after seeing Twitter thread where English majors were discussing the one book they would select to deep read for a semester. This was a common response. | | Pacific Crucible | Ian Toll | Well-researched blow-by-blow of the first phase of US-Japan conflict in WW2. The details about the the US-Japan relationship prior to the war are fascinating, especially the bits about Theadore Roosevelt's Japanophilia. | | The Name of the Rose | Umberto Eco | An invitation to scrutinize the institutions that preserve knowledge ... do they exist to distribute that knowledge or hoard it to maintain an advantage? | | Sideways | Rex Pickett | Read this after I read a [SF Chronicle piece](https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/wine/article/sideways-movie-rex-pickett-17802231.php) about the author's regret that he didn't make enough money from the success of the film, now seeking money for autographed copies. I watch the movie once a year. | | [[Earth\|Earth]] | Émile Zola | Read this on recommendation of a [Stone Age Herbalist tweet](https://twitter.com/Paracelsus1092/status/1345362204535779328). This book helped me appreciate how much a good translation matters, started out with one translation and it was inscrutable, then found a more recent version that was excellent. Now I love Zola. Makes me wonder how often foreign authors fail to be durable because their translations antiquated. | | [[Pachinko\|Pachinko]] | Min Jin Lee | My friend Nico Muhly scored the HBO series. Both the book and series are superb. | | The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin | Benjamin Franklin | New details for me on Franklin's childhood and professional activities prior to his role in government. | | Berlin Diary | William Shirer | The volatility in American culture and politics inspires me to better understand the nuances of Germany's transition to the Third Reich. This is the journal of a US radio journalist based in Berlin during the prelude of WW2. Later he would write the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich | | End of a Berlin Diary | William Shirer | Sequel to the above. | | The Collapse of the Third Republic | William Shirer | Figured I might as well read everything Shirer wrote. His bread and butter are observations of Germany, but I was astonished by this history of France's Third Republic. There's much more to the tidy story of the Allies we learn in standard American history. | | Crossing to Safety | Wallace Stegner | One of my favorites, a comfort read, this is my third reading. I want to write prose like this. | | Tales of the Alhambra & Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada | Washington Irving | Irving was one of America's first celebrity authors, and later he would become an American dignitary in Spain living for some time in Sevilla. Read in anticipation of a sabbatical there. | | Guns, Germs, and Steel | Jared Diamond | Have no idea why it took me so long to pick this one up. Cat nip. | | The Wager | David Grann | Beach read about the famous British mutiny and wreck. Unexceptional. | | The Birth of Plenty | William Bernstein | ... because I loved Bernstein's Splendid Exchange. |