My Favorite Books of this Reading Year
Once again, it is time for the least-anticipated literary awards of the year…The Johnny Bingo Awards!
These prestigious awards are awarded annually in a variety of categories that change constantly. There is only one constant, one rule, which I've been using for nearly 20 years:
Eligible books are those I read this year (see below for full list). It could’ve been written by a blind Greek poet in the 8th century BCE or be an unpublished galley hacked from an MFA candidate’s MacBook in a Brooklyn cafe. As long as I read the last paragraph before the ball drops in Times Square, it can be a winner.
The literarily literate among you understand that “the blind Greek poet in the 8th century BCE” refers to Homer, author of The Iliad and The Odyssey. This week it was announced that the acclaimed director Christopher Nolan’s next project will be a movie version of The Odyssey, starring Tom Holland and Zendaya. The social media reaction to this was filled with so much literary ignorance it made me want to strap myself to the mast…
On to this year’s awards!
Best Historian at Capturing BIG Subjects in a Single Volume
Andrew Roberts
When it was announced that Ridley Scott would be making a film about Napoleon Bonaparte, I was nervously excited. I knew from Gladiator that historical accuracy wasn’t exactly Scott’s strong suit, but still – the chance to see a master filmmaker put things like Austerlitz and the invasion of Russia on screen…
The film was awful but its release inspired me to brush up on my Napoleon and that’s how I came across Andrew Roberts. His Napolean: A Life is a masterpiece. Scott couldn’t skillfully fit 22 action-packed years into 3 hours of celluloid, but Roberts splendidly tells the entire story of Napoleon’s life and era in fewer than a thousand pages.
It was so good I read his single-volume history of WWII, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, and I can say with confidence it is the best single-volume history of this enormous subject I’d ever read. It might be subtitled “Hitler Could Have Won the War if He Wasn’t Such an Ideological Idiot.”
I intend to work my way through Baron Roberts’ (yes, he is a Baron) entire bibliography over the next few years.
Best Book by Someone I Hadn’t Read Yet
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Gabrielle Zevin
It seems much of the book-loving world has read Zevin’s Tommorow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – but I went back a few years and sampled one of her earlier works. An absolutely charming book written by, about, and for book lovers.
Best Old-Fashioned Novel by an Underrated Novelist
The Ocean and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story
Mark Helprin
Mark Helprin has had a curious literary career. Early on, he took the expected steps of the Next Great Writer: acclaimed short story collections, regularly published in The New Yorker, the breathlessly reviewed debut novel (A Winter’s Tale), and the breakthrough novel (A Soldier of a Great War).
Then he seemed to fade from cultural view. Partly it’s because he had politics well out of step with the literary gatekeepers – he is a passionate supporter of Israel’s right to existence (even served in the IDF) and was revealed to be a speechwriter for Bob Dole. But it’s also because the next few novels didn’t live up to the promise of his earlier works. Often it seemed like a powerful literary gift was being wielded in the service of unworthy plots.
The Ocean and The Stars was, for me, a return to form. It is an old-fashioned novel about honor and courage and love, and a welcome respite from the cynical solipsism of the modern literary novel.
Best History Book About a Subject of Which I was Shockingly Ignorant
Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia
Michael Korda
Current historical events often influence my history reading. For example, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 inspired me to finally pluck that unread biography of Peter the Great from the shelf (and it won a Johnny Bingo that year!).
The Israel-Hamas war had me brushing up on the origins of the Middle East’s manufactured map, and made my realize how little I knew of T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia.
I don’t know if Korda’s 2011 work is the best biography, but it is thorough, well-written, and has the advantage of being written late enough to capture some recent history. (and, unlike earlier biographies, late enough to be frank about Lawrence's, oh what's the right word, unusual sex life).
There is so much to Lawrence's life. He was a critical figure - for better and worse - in the making of the modern Middle East. And you'll learn much about the unique situation the passing of the Ottoman Empire created, and how it led to the creation of problems that plague the world today.
But it is also one of the great adventure stories of all time, and perhaps a story about the first truly global celebrity. At the heart of it is the endlessly fascinating figure of T.E. Lawrence. If I ever get to host one of those ‘if you could invite anyone’ dinner parties, I’d be hard-pressed to not offer a seat to Lawrence of Arabia.
Best Book by the Best Writer
The Passenger
Cormac McCarthy
As I age, and my heroes pass, this blog runs the risk of turning into an Obituaries pages. Two of my last three posts have been tributes to Pete Rose and Dickey Betts. And yet, I never quite got around to writing an homage to my favorite writer, Cormac McCarthy, who passed in June of 2023.
In some ways, his career arc was the opposite of Helprin’s. His first 5 novels were published to critical acclaim in obscure literary journals, but found no readers. His fifth novel, the much-acclaimed Blood Meridian, had a small press run of 5000 copies.
But then he went on a run. His Border trilogy found a much larger audience, and the first book (All the Pretty Horses) was turned into a Matt Damon movie. In 2005, No Country for Old Men became an Oscar-winning Coen Brothers movie, and 2006 The Road was picked for Oprah’s book club and won The Pulitzer. This notoriously difficult writer had, against all literary odds, become a mainstream success story.
And that was it. Or so it seemed. For the next decade and a half Cormac fans waited. And then, in late 2022, McCarthy published not one, but two linked novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris. Six months later he was dead.
One night, not long after McCarthy's death, I sat on my deck with a bottle of Basil Hayden, a Montecristo cigar, and Van Morrison’s Veedon Fleece album - and contemplated the career of Cormac McCarthy. As the bottle got lighter and the ashtray filled, my thoughts got more profound, and I was struck with an epiphany about the role of the artist, and how The Passenger and Veedon Fleece were sister works of art that encapsulated both of their careers and explained Art. I jotted a bunch of notes down in my phone, stream-of-consciousness style, bursting with intellectual energy.
Apparently I didn’t save it. Oh well.
Hopefully my kids will remember that I have a first edition of Blood Meridian, and while I hope they pass it down through the generations, if they ever get in a tight financial bind, it might be worth something some day.
Honorable Mention
Here’s the full list of books I read this year, along with some quick comments on other favorites…
Napoleon: A Life, Andrew Roberts
The Passenger, Cormac McCarthy
Two Nights in Lisbon, Chris Pavone
The 39 Steps, John Buchan
Running Blind (Jack Reacher #4), Lee Child
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle,Stuart Turton
Without Fail (Jack Reacher #6), Lee Child
Stella Maris, Cormac McCarthy
Dave Barry Turns 50, Dave Barry
The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, & Happiness, Morgan Housel
Sometimes I give out an award titled "The Book Most Likely to Make My Wife Kick My Shin Under the Table", because I go on and on about lessons learned. This is one of those books.
The Power of the Dog: Power of the Dog Book 1, Don Winslow
The only reason I didn't honor Winslow again this year is that I gave his book The Force an award last year, and wrote about him with some length. But this is even better than The Force.
The Man Who Was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton
Red Sparrow: Book 1 of Red Sparrow Trilogy, Jason Matthews
The Summer Game, Roger Angell
The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting, William Goldman
A great read about screenwriting and moviemaking - or at least, screenwriting and moviemaking in the 70s and 80s. Particularly recommended if you loved Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, Malcolm Gladwell
The 6:20 Man (6:20 Man #1), David Baldacci
The Innocence of Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton
The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Andrew Roberts
Dress Her in Indigo: (Travis McGee #12), John D. MacDonald
The It Girl, Ruth Ware
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid
A fictional oral history of a Fleetwood Mac-like band. Excellent book, I should have given it a JB!
Swordpoint: The WWII Collection, Max Hennessey
Samuel Adams: The Revolutionary, Stacy Schiff
Adams is on the short list of Underrated Americans, and Schiff is on the short list of underrated historians. For more on Schiff, see my previous post about the Benjamin Franklin series on Apple TV.
A Discovery of Witches (All Souls #1), Deborah Harkness
I'm two books into this series and I haven't experienced this kind of thrill around vampires since Anne Rice's heyday.
The Edge (6:20 Man #2), David Baldacci
The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, Sebastian Junger
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
The Resurrection Walk (Lincoln Lawyer #7), Michael Connelly
The Ocean and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story, Mark Helprin
Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, Noa Tishby
The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, Keith Law
Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia, Michael Korda
Flashman (The Flashman Papers 1), George MacDonald Fraser
A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle #1), Ursula K. Le Guin
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King
Case Histories: Jackson Brodie 1, Kate Atkinson
In Sunlight and in Shadow, Mark Helprin
Think Twice: Myron Bolintar #12, Harlan Coben
The Lion's Game: John Corey #2 , Nelson DeMille
Not DeMille's best - it should be a few hundred pages shorter and perhaps have a more wrapped up ending. But DeMille passed this year, and he gave me many hours of reading pleasure. The outpouring of support on social media from the giants of thriller writers suggest he was also a beloved and generous man. Long Island really produces some winners.
Shadow of Night (All Souls #2), Debora Harkness
The Collector (Gabriel Allon #23), Daniel Silva
