It's not enough to say that I read these books: I survived them. Survival was, even while reading, the year's ambition.
In no particular order:
- Hurricane Season, by Fernanda Melchor
- Die, My Love, by Ariana Harwicz
- Cleanness, by Garth Greenwell
- Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, by Elaine Pagels
- Strength to Love, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Trump, by Alain Badiou
- Freud and Man's Soul, by Bruno Bettelheim
- The Stoic Challenge, by William B. Irvine
- The Art of War, by Sun Tzu, as translated by Michael Nylan
- Beowulf, as translated by Maria Dahvana Headley
- Self-Portrait in Black and White, by Thomas Chatterton Williams
- The Fat Years, by Chan Koonchung
- They Will Drown in Their Mothers' Tears, by Johannes Anyuru
- Ghost Image, by Hervé Guibert
- Dostoyevsky Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts into Tears, by László F. Földényi
- Like Flies from Afar, by K. Ferrari
- Everything Flows, by Vassily Grossman
- Fracture, by Andrés Neuman
Of those I re-read, The Plague, by Albert Camus, was the most felicitous.
Of those I added to my library, Dirt Road Epiphanies, by David Treanor, was the most sacred.
Finally: How Fascism Works, by Jason Stanley, terrified me with its unnerving urgency. Please, everyone: if you haven't read it, immediately, yes, do. The hour is upon us. Read this book.
