In 2020, I decided to purchase only twelve books. I cheated a little and added a few caveats and provisos to skirt around this restriction, but I really didn’t purchase that many books last year.
Halfway in to 2021, I thought it would be interesting to look at my purchases and see how it went. Spoiler alert: my predictions of what “future self” will want to read are quite poor. (No kidding, look at the boxes of books in the garage).
2020, Read
- Jazz, Henri Matisse. Excellent book, in spite of the small format of the edition that was available.
- Pearls Goes Hollywood, Stephan Pastis. I always purchase the new Pearl treasuries. I adore Pastis’ warm cynical take on life.
- The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler. The novel didn’t hold up very well since it was particularly crass in its dismissal of marginalized groups. The explosion of energy that I experienced on first reading, now feels like a temper tantrum fifteen years later. There are enough classics in noir that I will be a bit choosier for future reading.
- The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler.
- Farewell My Lovely, Raymond Chandler. These two novels blend together in my memory. They have both held up better than his Chandler’s novel, even if they include some parts that would offend the touchier sensibilities of contemporary times. I’m glad I did a retrospective of my three favorite novels in the Chandler oeuvre, but I think I’ve outgrown them.
- Cheddar, Gordon Edgar. An fun exploration of cheese, industrialization, and America. Purchased at deep discount from a big Chelsea Green Publishing House sale.
- Landfill, Tim Dee. A lively meditation on of birdwatching, science, and its subjects. Purchased on deep discount from a big Chelsea Green Publishing House sale.
- What’s Michael Fatcat Collection (vol 1), Makoto Kobayashi. I bought this because my daughter had started reading a lot of Peanuts last summer, but I think I’ll wait a little bit before giving it to her.
2020, Unread
- Krazy Kat (1916-1918), George Herriman. This series is legendary and I’m debating whether to collect the entire set. I got the first one, but since I haven’t cracked it open in the past year, maybe it is not worth trying to catch them all.
- The Art of Happiness, Epicurus, George K. Strodach (translator). I was curious about his philosophy, but Epicurus turned out to be heavily focused on his speculations concerning physical physics. I quickly lost interest. I might power through the rest of the book at some point, just to get the feather in the cap.
- Growing Food in a Drier Hotter Land, Gary Nabhan. I was absolutely smitten by his first book The Desert Smells like Rain, which I discovered via an environmental literature course syllabus. Purchased as part of a big Chelsea Green Publishing House sale.
- Being Salmon, Being Human, Martin Lee Mueller. The premise sounds interesting and I hope to read this eventually though in spite of my recent turn towards ancient wisdom literature. This was on deep discount as part of a big Chelsea Green Publishing House sale.
2020 Cheats
(not counted against the limit)
- Mutts Sundays, Patrick McDonnell. With my daughter’s comics obsession I wanted her to read some Mutts to go with her Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes.
- Salt Fat Acid Heat, Samin Nosrat. An instant classic, I purchased it at the start of the quarantine (having previously read it at the library) but I haven’t referenced it a single time.
- The Art of Fermentation, Sandor Ellix Katz. I read the a library copy during quarantine and wanted my own copy. I purchased it as part of a big Chelsea Green Publishing House sale, but haven’t referenced it either.
2021 Purchases
- The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book, James D’Amato. I haven’t done anything with this book beyond wrapping it up as an extra birthday present for my daughter.
- Tiny Habits, BJ Fogg. I liked the library ebook so much that I immediately bought my own hardcopy. Like the Art of Fermentation, I haven’t cracked the cover a second time.
- Zhuangzi (inner chapters), Burton Watson (translator). This is universally acclaimed as a translation and I didn’t want to read this on the phone.
- Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, Sunzi, Ralph D. Sawyer (translator). This is a hefty book! I wanted the breadth of classical thought on this matter and by golly I got it. Now I need to read it.
- The Art of War, Sunzi, John Minford (translator). I didn’t realize that I had already listened to this book on tape. Then again, it’s hard to go wrong with a spare copy of Sunzi.
- Tao Te Ching, Laozi, John Minford (translator). I read half of this book before being forced to return it to the library. I liked the extensive commentary so I decided to get my own copy.
- Tao Te Ching, Laozi, Ursula K. Le Guin (translator). I’ve previously written about my theory about accomplished authors as translators. I also wanted a copy that wasn’t dense with commentary. This book has been the inaugural devotional on my regular I Ching practice.
- I Ching, King Wen, John Minford (translator). I liked Minford so much as a translator on his other two works that I decided to start my I Ching journey with his translation.
- I Ching, King Wen, Helmut Wilhelm / Cary Baynes (translators). This is the classic that made it a fad in the the artsy circles in the mid-20th century. Since it was good enough for Merce Cunningham and John Cage, I felt I should get my own hardcopy.
- I Ching, King Wen, Richard Lynn (translator). This translation is well regarded, especially in a very favorable review SJ Marshall of Biroco.com, calling it the yin to the yang of the Wilhem/Baynes translation. Given my big kick, I thought it was worth investing a slot to check it out.
- China, Hiroji Kubota. His Portrait of America was so good, I had to see how he handled with China just as the nation started its stratospheric ascent into becoming a superpower. I also thought it would be good for the kids to see the nation that their mother came from.
- Out of the East, Hiroji Kubota. This was a snap amazon algorithm purchase. I fear this may be a lesser work, since the price was so low, but I liked his work enough to take a flier on it.
Books on Deck
- The next Pearls Before Swine treasury. I’m not going to count it against the limit next time, since it is a regular purchase every 18 months.
- What’s Michael Fatcat Collection, Volume 2. It would be ridiculous not to complete the omnibus pairing. This will also not count against my limit.
- Calvin and Hobbes, complete box set. I have the first half of Bill Watterson’s run in trade paperback format. I think Christmas will be when I buy the series (and I suspect Christmas 2022 will be when I pick up the Far Side Collection).
- Castle of Crossed Destinies, Italo Calvino. Depending on how generous I’m feeling towards myself, I’m thinking about also buying the Visconti and Marseilles Tarot decks to go with the book. Maybe as a self-Christmas Present.
- Sixty-Four Chance Pieces, Will Buckingham. He wrote a great article about the I Ching, and as a fellow fan of Calvino, I’m curious to read his work. However, I’m going to wait till I’ve caught up to the calendar and see if I’m still into the I Ching before making such a purchase (same goes for Changing, a book of I Ching related poetry Richard Berengarten).
- Bhagavad Gita. I’ve been going through everything that is available at the library that discusses this book. Once I’ve completed project, I may purchase a hardcopy (though my lack of use for previous “follow up” purchases gives me pause). I’m eyeballing the Easwaran translation, based on a recommendation on a podcast. If I get frisky, maybe I’ll check out Easwaran’s 3 volume detailed commentary.
In all, I have plenty of reading to do, just from this list. This list highlights why I must stop purchasing books “on spec” and only buy one at a time. When I go beyond the immediate future, I’m stuck with a great book among boxes of books in the garage that haven’t been read.
After writing this draft, Libby stopped syncing across my iOS devices so I reset the devices. I had multiple tagged items that weren’t synced, and the only way to rescue the tags were to export them and then manually re-tag them after fixing the glitch. This exercise highlighted how much my interests had drifted just over a few months. All these tags carried the lingering aura of past desire, but I’ve already lost interest in almost all of them.
Given my fondness for organizing things, I followed up that exercise with sorting out my Amazon lists. These lists go back a decade, so this was an exercise in reliving the past on steroids. I’m certain all the books I listed are worthy of my time, but I’m also realizing that I’ll most likely never read any of them. The next step would be to fully relinquish and delete their entries. I’m not ready to do that just yet, but time is not my friend. I need to come to grips with the fact that there are only about 441 books left in my lifetime (12 x 36.75).