Others write about the best books of the year. I choose to focus on other superlatives when remembering my year of reading. Here are my choices for 2023.
Most Important Book: "I Talk to the Trees" is a song from Paint Your Wagon. In The Power of Trees, Peter Wohlleben argues that we should let the trees talk to us. We might learn something about saving the planet.
Most Daunting Book: I tried reading Charles Dickens's massive classic Bleak House while I was in college. This year I finally read it through, and with pleasure.
Wisest Book: In Letter to the American Church, Eric Metaxas compares the American church today to the German church in the 1930s, too reluctant to speak out against the social and political changes that threaten our culture.
Most Familiar Book: This year I reread Bel Kaufman's Up the Down Staircase, which raised a stir back in the 1960s. It still seems innovative and still gives pleasure.
Most Incomprehensible Book: Michio Kaku wrote Physics of the Impossible for the common reader, but it's still physics and much of it I found incomprehensible. Yet I loved the book.
Most Beautiful Book: There are many contenders for this prize, but I give it to Charlotte McConaghy's Once There Were Wolves, which is about a woman's attempt to reintroduce wolves to the Scottish Highlands and then becoming involved in a murder case.
Most Surprising Book: Steven Johnson surprised me in How We Got to Now by pointing out, to cite one example, how the telephone made skyscrapers possible.
Most Unpleasant Book: I found Mark Twain's racist comments in Following the Equator most unpleasant.
Most Luminous Book: I expected to like Karen Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves because I enjoyed her other novels, but I didn't expect to love it as much as I do. It's wonderful.
My niece played the game; avid reader she is..myself, my data drive is crowded and not enough storage to remember what i read; i must right it down
ReplyDeleteDescribe yourself: Open Book
How do you feel: It’s Not Supposed to be This Way
Describe where you currently live: The House in the Cerulean Sea
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The Camino-a Journey of the Spirit
Your favorite form of transportation: Long Walk to Freedom
Your best friend is: The Girl with the Louding Voice
You and your friends are: Conditional Citizens
What's the weather like where you are: Hello Beautiful
What is the best advice that you could give: Trust
Thought for the day: Wrong Place Wrong Time
How would you like to die: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
What is your soul's present condition: Remarkably Bright Creature(s)