136 Comments

My Antonia has some of the most beautiful prose ever written, and the characters will stay with you long after you turn the last page. It’s also a unique window into late 19th century immigration in America.

Expand full comment

I do love an immigration story!

Expand full comment

What an accomplishment in an Age of Distraction! I have greatly enjoyed your posts this year and look forward to many more to come:) With regard to classic memoir: I have not read this yet myself but am a big John Steinbeck fan and would thus suggest "Travels with Charley: In Search of America" - the summary states "With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers."

Sounds like you might enjoy it and the "American loneliness" factor has never been more relevant (I wonder what the 1961 perspective was on this).

May I venture another suggestion? The fact that you manage to read so copiously must reflect a diligent reading routine. I am sure your readers would be very interested to hear how you go about it (e.g. do you read early in the morning? How much each day? How much is audio? Do you turn your phone off? Do you take notes while you read?) Maybe you could share your secret sauce (a la Ted Gioia's Lifetime Reading Plan)?

Looking forward to next years reads!

Expand full comment

Thanks for both suggestions! I have written one piece on how to read more; maybe I could revisit that. I usually don’t think much of it; it’s just that reading and writing are my one abiding hobby :) I don’t know what I would do with myself with that.

Expand full comment

Love love love Travels with Charley.

Expand full comment

I think Death Comes for the Archbishop is Cather’s best... I love that book.

If you haven’t read Frederick Buechner’s Godric, that’s a novel I recommend to everyone!

Expand full comment

Good to know on Death Comes. I used to shelve Godric plenty in my used bookstore days, but I’ve never read it!

Expand full comment

I second Death Comes for the Archbishop!

Expand full comment

There’s a theme emerging.

Expand full comment

Comments on your 2024 list.

I've read My Antonia twice. O! Pioneers is on my short list for the near future

I loved Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines. Mr. Gaines received an honorary degree in 2000 at the college where I work and I was one of the staff members invited to join him at dinner the night before. He was an amazing man. His dear wife was there and she was a treasure as well.

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a brilliant work.

PG Wodehouse is always great.

I read All The King's Men a few years ago. It was a joy. Warren's prose is masterful. His poetry is reflected in his prose.

Expand full comment

Also, you can't go wrong with Frederick Douglas.

Expand full comment

One of my favorites.

Expand full comment

What a wonderful memory of Ernest Gaines!

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Dec 11, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Your second has been thirded and fourthed! It’s clearly a strong contender!

Expand full comment

I would vote for Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair over any of his other works (except maybe The Power and the Glory.) It’s an incredible dive into the human soul and the struggle with divine grace. It’s my favourite novel!

Expand full comment

Yes! I’d definitely pick End of the Affair or The Power and the Glory or The Heart of the Matter over Brighton Rock (probably my least favorite Greene) or The Third Man (which is really just a very good thriller/mystery).

Expand full comment

Good to know. I’ve had The Power and the Glory recommended several times over the years. Maybe I should take the hint :)

Expand full comment

I agree completely!

Expand full comment

I would love a review on The Power and the Glory! It's on my TBR for 2024.

Expand full comment

It’s a contender!

Expand full comment

I’ll put in a plug for Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South. She was a contemporary of Dickens and North and South was actually originally published in the periodical Dickens was editor of. Fantastic and fascinating read. It would be great paired with Dickens’ (short) book Hard Times because they deal with some of the same issues and were published consecutively.

Expand full comment

And "Hard Times," to my mind, is very underrated.

Expand full comment

It’s so good. I only read it a few months ago and I already want to read it again.

Expand full comment

I like the idea of a pairing. Something to consider . . .

Expand full comment

I'd like to recommend "Not without Laughter" by Langston Hughes. I just read it and loved it. One of those "where has this been all my life!?" books.

Expand full comment

I love it when a book prompts that question!

Expand full comment

Hello Joel. You may like the Journal of John Woolman and Other Essays (Moulton version seems most popular). He died in 1772. It's a Quaker classic, not for any theology, but because he EMBODIES the Quaker Testimonies of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, and equality. His essay, A Plea for the Poor, gives a sense of who he was in a few pages. If I translate any Quaker book into Swahili, it would be that one.

I so appreciate all of your great reviews! Maybe ESPECIALLY because they are diverse and from times of yore. We need that wisdom. (Yours and the books.) :) Happy holidays and New Year! Mmerikani

Expand full comment

Great suggestion! Thanks Mmerikani! Happy holidays to you as well!

Expand full comment

Death Comes for the Archbishop is my favorite of Cather's that I've read so far. Though I also liked Shadow on the Rock.

Expand full comment

My Antonia is getting several nods from others. Have you read that one yet? What did you think?

Expand full comment

Yes I've read that one and I enjoyed it, just I liked the others more.

Expand full comment

Got it. Thank you!

Expand full comment

My Ántonia is much better than O! Pioneers, although the latter is short enough to read as an add-on.

Expand full comment

I do like reading books in combination. I might do that!

Expand full comment

The full trilogy includes Song of the Lark, which is great.

Expand full comment

Yeah, My Ántonia is perfection. I’d pick it over O! Pioneers 10 times. (And that’s not to say O! Pioneers isn’t great — it is!)

Expand full comment

High praise!

Expand full comment

I am so excited to see you doing Willa Cather and The Bridge of San Luis Rey-a gem of a book. I suggest some Elizabeth Gaskell in there, North and South especially, but any of hers are wonderful. Eudora Welty is also an excellent author to try and she has some nice short novels that pack a punch besides her short stories. Finally The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, which I read for the first time this year and found fascinating, and Emile Zola’s The Ladies Paradise-which was an interesting and more than a little disturbing reflection on unrestrained capitalism and gender relations.

Expand full comment

Several people have suggested Gaskell to me, especially North and South. It’s on my radar.

Expand full comment

Glad to see My Antonia and West with the Night on your lists. Neither get enough recognition.

Expand full comment

There’s also a gorgeous reading of West with the Night by Julie Harris, who has the most perfect voice!

Expand full comment

That’s great to hear—literally. I love a good audiobook.

Expand full comment

Can I recommend two more midcentury speculative fiction authors to go with Vonnegut?

I propose two short novels: _The Lathe of Heaven_ by Ursula K. LeGuin, and _Ubik_ by Philip K. Dick. These two short novels complement each other so well; when I worked at a bookstore I often recommended them together.

I just think your reading of Vonnegut might be enriched by enjoying him along with his contemporaries. All three are giants whose writings are humane, perceptive, funny and fantastic in varying proportions.

Expand full comment

Oh, I’ve been thinking about PKD. Thanks for the reminder!

Expand full comment

I will eagerly anticipate your interaction with Charles Williams. Most of my friends give up on him after one book. Even C. S. Lewis evidently asked him repeatedly, "Williams, why do you have to be so obscure?" But I love his fiction, his Taliessen, his Dante, and his essays. I have attempted to use his 'law of substitution' as carrying one another's burdens in real life. His relationship with W. H. Auden is interesting.

Expand full comment

Ohhh, I need to know more about Williams/Auden. Where’s a good place to start reading about it?

Expand full comment

I’m interested in that question as well!

Expand full comment

What a great list - I'm thinking of joining you in reading and rereading these books. Wodehouse is one of my favorite authors; I like his Blandings Castle books a little better than Jeeves and Wooster. Something Fresh is the first one set there; Summer Lightning and Heavy Weather are excellent.

Expand full comment

I’ll look those up! Thanks!

Expand full comment

Classic memoir: Alexander Herzen's My Past and Thoughts. Isaiah Berlin called it "a literary masterpiece to be placed by the side of the novels by Herzen's contemporaries and countrymen, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky...One of the great monuments to Russian literary and psychological genius." And - you can download it off gutenberg.

Expand full comment

That sounds fantastic!

Expand full comment