- Some titles are linked to my highlights from the book. - Also see [[2024 Reading List|2024]], [[2023 Reading List|2023]] | **Title** | **Author** | **Notes** | **Category** | | --------------------------------------------- | ------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------- | | Hawaii | James Michener | **In Progress** | Historical epic fiction | | Death Come For Archbishop | Willa Cather | French missionary attempts to establish a diocese in New Mexico. | Hisorical fiction | | 7 Powers | Hamilton Helmer | The business strategy book du jour. | Business strategy | | Michael Kohlhaas | Heinrich von Kleist | Early German literature often cited for its exploration of justice versus moral absolutism. | Classic European novella | | The Secret Token | Andrew Lawler | A history of the Roanoke Colony founded by Sir Walter Ralegh in 1587, provides context of the Anglo settlement of North America that has been conveniently compressed in process of making America's founding myths. | Early American history / colonial settlement | | The Adventures of a Tropical Tramp | Harry La Tourette Foster | Picked up in Adobe Books on 24th Street, a forgotten travel memoir that captures the late-imperial moment of American travel ... even more feelings of entitlement than now. Still, many interesting sketches of life in all parts of Peru in the 1920s. | Travel memoir | | Heart Is a Lonely Hunter | Carson McCullers | One of the novels that helped widen who American literature paid attention to in the early 20th century. | American literary fiction | | The Habsburg Empire | Pieter Judson | Pushes back on the idea that the Habsburgs were a doomed mess and shows how the empire actually functioned. | European political history | | Summer of Fire and Blood | Lyndal Roper | A new Reformation history that treats Luther as a real, volatile human being rather than a marble statue. | Religious / intellectual history | | Empire | Niall Ferguson | A controversial but influential attempt to reassess the British empire. | Global imperial history | | Civilization | Niall Ferguson | An opinionated history pushing “why the West won” arguments back into mainstream debate. | Big history / civilizational studies | | The Complete Confucius | Confucius | | Classical philosophy | | The Last Love Song | Tracy Daugherty | Biography of Joan Didion. | Biography | | [[Notes to John]] | Joan Didion | A much debated book that reshaped how people understand Didion’s final years and work. | Memoir | | The Postman Always Rings Twice | James M. Cain | One of the books that basically defined the tone of American noir. | Crime fiction | | [[The New Leviathans]] | John Gray | A short, bleak take on why liberal democracy feels shaky in the modern world. | Political philosophy | | Alexander the Great | Anthony Everitt | My favorite history reading of the year, it turned out I knew very little about him. | Classical biography / ancient history | | Cast of Characters | Thomas Vinciguerra | Another group portrait of the early New Yorker crew. | Culture | | The Years with Ross | James Thurber | An inside look at the early New Yorker and how American humor got professionalized. | Memoir | | 24 Hours in Ancient China | Yijie Zhuang | I love this series. | Ancient history | | Short Stories in Spanish, Intermediate, Vol 1 | Olly Richards | | Language learning | | Slither | Stephen S. Hall | **Abandoned** | Science / natural history | | The Hunter | Tana French | **Abandoned** | Literary crime fiction |