Tag: reading

I used to do a thing where I’d look at the NY Times picks for books of the year, and see how many I’ve read, and what I thought of them. So here goes.

Starting with the “10 best” books. I’ve read 2 of the 10, both fiction.

All Fours, Miranda July. I read the reviews, didn’t think I’d like it, then kept on seeing raves for it, so put it on the hold list at the library. I was right the first time — I didn’t like it. I’m a perimenopausal woman, so I’m supposed to be the target audience, but I didn’t like the main character, found the sexual passages deeply unerotic, and generally didn’t find any of the revelations particularly revelatory. If you liked it, tell me why.

James, Percival Everett. This is the retelling of Huck Finn from the pov of “Jim.” I liked this, without loving it. I found it both entertaining and interesting to read, but ultimately found the characters underdeveloped. (I also read Julia, by Sandra Newman this year, which is her take on 1984, from Julia’s point of view, which I liked a little more.)

Of the additional 90 books in the “notable books of 2024 list,” I’ve read 4, and started another 3.

I very much enjoyed the first two, which are both mysteries of a sort, in that someone dies or disappears, but the focus is far more on the characters and their relationships than on whodunnit. I thought The Safekeep was interesting and well written, but the big surprise was obvious to me from nearly the beginning. I’m super curious whether that was the case for other readers, and how much it varies depending on whether you’re Jewish by heritage.

I just finished Circle of Hope this morning, and really liked it. It’s about a lefty evangelical church in Philadelphia and how it was pulled apart over both generational shifts and racialized disagreement in the wake of the pandemic and the attention to race post George Floyd. There was an excerpt from it in the paper early in the year or last year, and I found the racialized disagreement utterly predictable. But with the additional space to really get to know the different people as individuals, the story gets more complicated. Griswold is a very good writer, and the church gave her amazing access during what was clearly a very difficult time. But I’m not sure what the takeaway is other than that being in community is hard, especially across real differences in life experience, even when everyone is trying. It’s worth the work, but it may not succeed. Another of the books on the list is Undivided, by Hahrie Han, which is about a conservative evangelical church struggling to address racial injustice — I’ve got that out from the library too, and will be interested in comparing them.

I’m in the middle of Lev Grossman‘s The Bright Sword. I picked this up because of its strong reviews in spite of being maybe the only person who really disliked The Magicians. I’m enjoying it, but I got it as an audiobook, and it’s very long. And because it’s sort of meandering — it’s got one story going in the main timeline, but keeps looping back to tell individual character’s backstories in more detail — when I take a break from it, there’s not compulsion to return to find out what happens next.

I started but ran out of library renewals on two books from the list before I could finish them. I might try again onThe Practice, the Horizon and the Chain, by Sofia Samatar. It’s very abstract and allegorical, but interesting. I just couldn’t get into Creation Lake, by Rachel Kushner.

Part 2 will be some of the other books I read this year that are worth commenting on.