My Book of the Year

Back in my bachelor days, when I was unable to watch television because I did not have cable, I read in the evenings for entertainment. In those years, roughly from 2005 until 2013, I averaged one book per week.

I haven’t managed to read 52 books per year since then. Last year, for example, I read only 19 books, and that was a pretty good year for me. This year I did better than that, finishing 27 books, as of this writing.

I have mentioned some of these books in previous posts (for example, here, here, here, and here). The death of Kay Parker prompted me to read her memoirs, as well as a couple of volumes by a colleague of hers, Hyapatia Lee. It appears that one can live a meaningful life after a career as a porn star. A visit to Clingmans Dome sent me to a book on Clingmans Dome and a book by the celebrated Horace Kephart on the eastern band of the Cherokee Indians. And although I had not read it at the time we visited the birthplace of Zebulon Vance, I did manage to read his most famous work, The Scattered Nation.

I read, yet again, a couple of “day by day” books of meditations. It takes an entire year to read each book, given that you read only one page per day. The book Permission to Dream by Chris Gardner and Mem Rivas is a book by a fellow who came from nothing to make it to the big time. Why we think that the reflections of a successful fellow who has pretty much no really useful advice to offer are important enough for a book is beyond me. A much better book was The Boys, by Ron and Clint Howard. It was simply a nice tale of growing up as child actors.

I had time to enjoy a little fiction this year. Birds of Prey by Wilbur Smith was a swashbuckling tale that was thoroughly enjoyable. Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories was a really good read. Back in the dark and dismal days of my youth I and every other student in my class had to read her classic “The Lottery.” Her other works were not quite as dark as that one, but she was a real talent. You Can Go Home Now by Michael Elias was surprisingly enjoyable. The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri was the very first of the Inspector Montalbano mysteries. This was possibly the second-best work of fiction I read this year.

I read four biographies, or possibly 53 biographies. I had a copy of Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This, by Marion Meade, on my bookshelf for decades. I was prompted to read it when I learned that the author had died either this year or last year. My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir, by Katherine Johnson, was a nice, light autobiography of the primary mathematician featured in the movie Hidden Figures. The major biography, or perhaps 50 biographies, that took a couple of months to read was The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, by Plutarch. Taken in small segments, this is an enjoyable work that could probably double as a history. But it was longer than War and Peace. To Rescue the Republic: Ulysses S. Grant, the Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876, by Bret Baier with Catherine Whitney was the best biography that I read this year. And since I don’t exactly know where to place The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, I will place it here with the biographies.

In the category of history, I read 1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder, by Arthur Herman. I never did think that Wilson was a very good president, and after reading this, I think even less of him, if that is possible. The better book in this category that I read this year was JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, by James W. Douglass. I have been a lone-gunman magic bullet believer ever since the Warren Commission produced its report - no more. I’ve read a good number of books that I easily dismissed as the work of nut cases. Douglass has now convinced me otherwise.

I believe that takes care of 25 books, leaving only two. The Concealed Handgun Manual, 7th Edition, by Chris Bird, was a game changer for me. I have a concealed handgun permit, which I think is my third such permit, and have taken a fair number of gun safety and training courses over the years. Yet this book gave me new information and considerably improved my accuracy. It also changed my perspective on what constitutes a good way to fire a revolver when under duress (hint: double action, not single action). It would probably have been a good idea to have read this book before undertaking the effort to get a concealed handgun permit. Still, it was worth the price. It’s never too late to learn.

Finally, my selection for My Book of the Year. I threw in the qualifier “my” because the winner of my award was actually published in 1956. I have heard the phrase “This is just a little Peyton Place” for a good number of years. There was the movie and a nighttime television soap opera loosely based on the book. These added to the mystique of Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious. Well, finally, I’ve read it for myself. It is a romping good read, and I can see why, despite the critics, it sold a gazillion copies. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.