Well, this is a bit late. I was going to write this the week after Christmas, but events (good ones!) intervened.
Mostly for myself, I wanted to summarize my 2023 reading. As you probably know, I make a social reading app called Bookship, and I use it to track my solo reading as well as my group / book club reading.
I’m also writing a book. It’s medieval historical fiction, set during the time of Richard the Lionheart. You can follow along on my Substack, where I’m writing specifically about the history of the period:
Richard the Lionheart – A Medieval Newsletter | Mark Watkins | Substack
An exploration of Richard the Lionheart’s world and era, from his childhood in France to the Crusades in the Holy Land. Click to read Richard the Lionheart – A Medieval Newsletter, a Substack publication. Launched 2 years ago.
As you might imagine, I read a lot of medieval books this year, both history and historical fiction. A lot of those books require deep focus and aren’t necessarily ‘easy reads’. So, I also did a lot of lighter reading, as that was what I had the energy for. Surprisingly, even modern novels found a way to make pointers to what I’m working on. Here’s the fun stuff:
I finally got around to reading Dune Messiah, the sequel to Dune. It is nowhere near as long as Dune but it is a fun read. But I don’t think it has the power of Dune. (<Checks notes> Apparently I read this book in 2009 but I literally had no memory of that. Ruh-rho). I re-read Count Zero, perhaps my favorite of William Gibson’s cyberpunk/ sci fi novels. I also re-read Declare, by Tim Powers, another of one of my favorite novels, an espionage / supernatural combo. Seriously. I seem to have done a lot of re-reading last year.
In books I had NOT read before :), I read many mysteries, including Knots & Crosses by Ian Rankin, a re-read of The Blackhouse, Peter May’s unbelievably good book set on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, and his Extraordinary People. This last book, though a modern mystery, popped up some fascinating medieval details that dovetailed with my work-in-progress book. Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone was a quick read, enjoyable but leaving no lasting impression. Knots & Crosses was my first Ian Rankin book and it was good quick fun.
https://www.thehawaiiproject.com/book/The-Transmigration-of-Bodies–by–Yuri-Herrera–191405
Yuri Herrera’s The Transmigration of Bodies is a wonderful, fun, short, hallucinogenic masterpiece of a novel of a pandemic. Short, fantastic.
I also managed a re-read of The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien. This time, my reading was forensic – I was trying to understand the nature of the power of his writing. That is probably a separate post someday. In a similar vein, and for a similar reason, I re-read Patricia McKillip’s Harpist in the Wind trilogy: Harpist in the Wind, The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip, and Heir of Sea and Fire. These books are masterpieces. If you have not read them, they are worth your consideration.
The Whispering Muse by Sjón and The Last Song of Orpheus by Robert Silverberg are fun, myth-driven works. The Sjón book, in particular, is short and easily digested.
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes, is a devastating novel of Vietnam. It’s also very hefty. It is a commitment, but it’s worth it if you want a real sense of what the Vietnam War was like.
For book club
I’m in a book club. :). We read many books widely praised in the press and the book universe, and frankly, many felt very average to me. I think my reading tastes have (unsurprisingly perhaps) diverged from what the New York Times, the London Review, and BookTok all think are great books. Sorry, The Candy House by Jennifer Egan, I could not even finish you. Nuclear Family by Joseph Han was a bit better, and at least it was grounded in Hawaii where I live, but I struggled with that as well. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka was uneven but very good in spots, and as I’ve been to Sri Lanka I found it a bit easier to maintain reading momentum.
The thing I love about book club, besides the people themselves, is that it gets me reading books I would not otherwise read. See No Stranger by Valarie Kaur was touching, but I had trouble sustaining attention; the message of the book was solid but it often felt repetitive. We read Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, probably the most controversial book published in many years. I have mixed feelings about it. I found it (as an adult) a touching memoir of someone with a lot of pain in their life, who struggled with being different. But I also totally get why conservative school districts did not want it in their schools (grade school libraries? really?). I’m glad I read it, at least I know what all the fuss is about.
Two standouts for me from book club were Hawaiki Rising by Sam Low, which covered the Hawaiian Renaissance and the history of the Hōkūleʻa, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which I had not read since high school.
Writing on Writing
As I’m writing a book and have never done it before, I’ve also been reading books about writing, mostly by authors I admire. On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner, The Art of Fiction by James Salter ( a writer I especially admire), Writing Tough Writing Tender by my friend Kelly Simmons, and Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin all gave me interesting perspectives of one sort or another.
Works in progress: I’m currently in various stages of reading The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, Ironfire by David Ball, and a WWII book, The Thin Read Line by James Jones.
Medieval historical fiction
The bulk of my reading time this year has been medieval. Essex Dogs, by the well-known popular historian Dan Jones, is an earthy, grim take on the Hundred Years War. Company of Liars by Karen Maitland is a riff on the Canterbury Tales, with a cast of interesting characters and a lot of medieval backdrop. 1356 by Bernard Cornwell covers the Battle of Poitiers, also during the Hundred Years War.
In the general medieval history category, A World Lit Only by Fire by William Manchester is very famous. Tom Hanks says it is his favorite book. It made me crazy, it is so wrong about the medieval era. More on that here. Try Mortimer’s A Time Traveler’s Guide to the Medieval Era instead.
Medieval History
I read a number of contemporary histories of the Third Crusade, written during or shortly after the Crusade, many of the books I read not for the first time:
My constant companion this year was The History of the Holy War by Ambroise, translated by Maryanne Ailes. It was written by a French cleric/jongleur/minstrel, Ambroise, who was on campaign with Richard. Great fun. Well, not fun really, it’s pretty grim, but it is an amazing first-hand history of the Third Crusade. Also: The Itinerarium of Richard de Templo and The Annals of Roger de Hoveden, also both first-hand accounts of the Third Crusade (I produced eBook editions of these last two works that are available on Amazon, details here). And The Life of Saladin, by Baha al-Din, a compatriot of Saladin who was with him for much of his life.
The History of William Marshal by Nigel Bryant is a wonderful contemporary history of “England’s Greatest Knight”, William Marshal. It was written just after the Marshal died, and its discovery in 1861 (not that long ago) is something of a historical miracle.
In modern works of history, about Richard, I read:
Richard I by John Gillingham, The Troubadour’s Song by David Boyle, Richard The Lionheart by David Miller, and Richard the Lionheart by W. B. Bartlett. About Saladin: The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin by Jonathan Phillips and Saladin, by Geoffrey Hindley.
General histories of the Crusades I found particularly interesting: How to Plan a Crusade by Christopher Tyerman, a study of the logistics of getting tens of thousands of men across the ocean and supplied for war for many years. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf provides a welcome balance to the Christian-centric histories we often read of the Crusades, and The Siege of Acre by John D. Hosler is an in-depth study of one of the most famous battles of the war.
I also found time to make an edition of the Arthurian Lays of Marie de France for Standard eBooks. The stories are good fun, particularly if you’re interested in Arthurian things. And they’re FREE!
Lastly, I read bits and pieces of Nicholson’s Women and the Crusades, King John by W. L. Warren, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs by Adrienne Mayor, The Once and Future Sex by Janega, Crusaders by Dan Jones, and probably a dozen other books about various aspects of the Crusades.
Standouts: Brave New World. Hawaiki Rising. The History of the Holy War. Count Zero. The Transmigration of Bodies. Gender Queer. The Harpist trilogy. Declare. Matterhorn. All well worth your time if your tastes run that way.