by Benoit Clerc

In the midst of this newly conceived Dylan obsession, I read a compendium of every David Bowie song ever recorded. Well, most of it. I don’t like his later period (post-LET’S DANCE)… I just can’t get into any of the albums of the 90s and later. Too jazzy, or something. I do have his final album, BLACKSTAR, which I listen to respectfully, because it was his last. And I really felt moved to come to the end of this book and read about his final work, because of the way he went out. Bowie kept his illness secret from the public and never stopped working. He died two days after his last album came out. A lot of artists I love are dead, but the loss of Bowie really moved me.

by Ian McGilchrist

And we have a winner for best non-fiction of 2024. This is really a game-changing book for me.

The right brain is primary, and the left brain merely its emissary; yet the left brain often takes over, thinks HE is the master, and becomes a bully. All these decades I’ve thought of myself as left-brained, extremely so, maybe pathologically so. Maybe I just have to get the thing back on a leash. Maybe it just went haywire in my adolescence and I let it start getting away with murder.

The book begins with neuroscience and then deep dives – deep, DEEP dives – into the history of civilization, art, and science. I had no choice but to zone out for a lot of it; artistic discussions over my head, foreign language quotes not translated until the endnotes. This was 600 pages of heavy duty. But when I could glean what he was saying, it was a fascinating perspective.

My New Year’s resolution – in addition to “stop getting mad when people call me” – is to see if I can put my left brain back in its place. You serve at my pleasure, left brain.

by Jane Austen

Annotated – re-read

What new did I discover on this nth re-read? It deserves to be Austen’s best known and beloved. I hope Mary and Kitty married well.

by Charles M. Schulz

This may be Peak Peanuts. It’s definitely peak cuteness. Linus is still crawling when the year starts. Snoopy is starting to do “impressions”, but he’s still a dog.

This doesn’t look like it’s going to be one of my peak years for book reading, quantity-wise. WOLF HALL took up a shitload of time, and since then I seem to be abandoning long books halfway through. It’s hard to read other stuff after WOLF HALL.

by Ian McEwan

SPOILER

Two friends agree that if either one of them ever starts to go downhill, particularly mentally, the other will help him to end it all.

SPOILER NOW!

What happens then is they get into a big fight and hate each other. So each invites the other to meet up with him in Amsterdam; and each one has the other killed.

by Hilary Mantel

They sure chopped off a lot of heads back in the day.

Seriously, what can I say after devouring this entire trilogy in a couple of months? This is surely a new classic.

by Junot Diaz

The first section is about Oscar as a young boy – Dominican immigrant, nerdy, overweight, cannot attract a girlfriend. This is the story that grabbed me.

The second section is about his sister Lola – tough, raped at the age of eight and nobody cared, steely, strong, mother hates her, they fight, she rebels. Now I was REALLY into it.

The third section is about the mother’s backstory in the Dominican Republic. It’s all about how the mother has big tits. She has an affair with a general. I couldn’t wait for this section to end, and was starting to feel bait-and-switched. The footnotes were growing thicker and harder to read.

Thankfully, we do come back to Oscar, from the perspective of his erstwhile college roommate and erstwhile boyfriend of Lola. I really liked this character. From here, we bounced around the various characters until the big climax that led to Oscar’s life being so brief.

There was a great deal of violence. I hated how men treated women and how women treated themselves. It did not end up being the book I signed up for and I would not recommend it.

by Ann Angel

A big picture-book bio of Janis for kids or young adults. Knew it all, probably seen all the pictures too; but gave me an excuse to spend time with her. Love, Janis.

by Oliver Burkeman

I subscribe to Burkeman’s email list, so I had kind of already read a lot of these.

I can’t believe he gave a shout-out to someone who advocates the mantra, “I choose to live in Easy World, where everything is easy.” I get the spirit of what he was trying to say; but I went to that woman’s website, and talk about woo-woo out the wazoo.

One of my favorite topics, arguing with myself about how bad a person I am, is covered (on Day 17). “Does anyone imagine that Vladmir Putin lies awake at night, worrying if he’s really as caring and thoughtful a person as he’d like to believe?” See? You’re better than Vladmir Putin. Reducto at Putinum.

by Kenneth M. Cadow

I liked it. The story kept me interested. Loved the character, and his resourcefulness.