Throughout the year, I post a short review of the book I finish reading on my goodreads page as soon as I come to the end, so that:

• I write about the book before I lose that feeling I’m left with as I read the last sentence
• I know I might not do it later
• When the year is over, I can very quickly create this post
• And keep a copy of what I thought about the books I read that year in one tidy place

This year I’m writing this as the year ends. As usual, the books that have not been translated to English will have their write ups in Turkish.

Fiction

Not many fiction books this year, although Les Mis could count as 4. The world is changing so fast and I feel I need to read about the people in charge, things that change us, and try to make sense of it. This takes up from my fiction time.

Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy (☆ ☆ ☆ ☆)

This was a very difficult book. Not only because it’s gory and that he does not use much punctuation, but because he tries very hard to get the reader to do work to appreciate his effort. There are many historic references to the Spanish American war, obscure vocabulary, untranslated Spanish spoken, and a lot of symbolism. In some cases I read the same very long sentence 5 times and gave up.

Still I tried hard, I used 2 books I found as pdfs online to understand Blood Meridian better: A Reader’s Guide to BM and Notes on BM. I did not read them cover to cover but used them as a reference here and there and made ChatGPT read them to ask questions about them to ChatGPT. Still, I feel like I it wasn’t enough, but I did not have the energy to read 2 more books to fully understand Blood Meridian, sorry Mr McCarthy (RIP).  

Having complained enough, I must add that the book is beautiful. I grew up with Western comics (mostly Italian fumetti ones translated to Turkish in the 70s and the 80s) which helped me understand the situation better although I should have read more Kinowa!

Most characters are transitory and quite 2 dimensional but the kid, the judge, and Glanton are very interesting and deep. I still think I might have nightmares about the judge at some point of my life.  

And it would make a great film if viewers can stand the bloodshed. Tarantino would find the book too bloody to direct.

This was the last book from the Backstory Non-Fiction Book Club that sadly no longer exists.

It is a gut wrenching book, a very painful read, but I would still go back and reread it. 

It’s about the aftermath of a terrible kindergarten bus crash in greater Jerusalem. The moral of the story is that the people who live there are ignored and shackled by Israel and are sort of governed by a corrupt Palestinian Authority.

Another testament for the depressing argument that this is an insolvable problem with people having very limited options if they are born on the wrong side of a wall.

Fasa Fiso – Teoman (☆ ☆ ☆ ☆)

Teoman’ın yarı otobiyografik romanı Sayın Bay Rock Yıldızı üzerine okuyunca iyi bir kombinasyon oldu.

Bundan %80, öteki kitaptan %20 alınca Teoman’ın şarkı sözleri, şiirleri, konserleri, gazete haberleri, skandalları, Twitter ve Instagram kişiliğini daha iyi anladım. Komik ve tatlı bir adammış.

Yine güzel yazmış, yıllarca edebiyat ile iç içe olmasının etkisi bariz. Belki daha kişisel olduğundan bazı kritik kısımları hızlı geçmiş. Evlenme ve baba olma aşamalarını daha fazla anlamak isterdim.

The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization – Peter Zeihan (☆ ☆ ☆ ☆)

A sweeping political economy book full of pessimistic scenarios of the results of an ending globalised world. If it turns out to be 10% correct, we’re screwed until (his prediction) 2040.

The gist is: North America (assuming Canada and Mexico being friendly with the US) will be fine because they are self sufficient and have no enemies around; China is finished because of debt, demographics and their dependence on trade for food and energy; Europe is a mixed bag, Turkey is one of the places to be.

This was written in 2022 but the parts about Chinese (army, navy, tech) are already dated. Ditto (at least for now) Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

Still quite a good read, I learned a lot especially from the chapters on finance & transport.

I regularly listen to his podcast now which is frequent and concise.

How to Write One Song – Jeff Tweedy (☆ ☆ ☆)

I read this while trying to write a song and failing at it because my lyrics are terrible and I hate terrible lyrics.

There were some good ideas, a couple of inspiration exercises but this is not at all what I expected from the title and the blurbs. Too much fluff like, “You don’t have to like your voice, you should not be embarrassed”.

But at least it was reasonable in length so I finished it during a few flights.

Global Piyasalar – Şant Manukyan (☆ ☆ ☆ ☆)

Kitap geçmiş (krizler ve Fed), günümüz (2022 post kovid) ve gelecek (Bretton Woods sonrası potansiyel dünya, kripto ve EFT’ler) etrafında yazılmış. Okurken çok şey öğrendim, Şant’ın yazılarının kriptik kısımlarını daha iyi anlamaya başladım.

Bir sonraki baskıda grafikler biraz daha büyütülse yaşlı okurlar için iyi olur!

Option B – Sheryl Sandberg, Adam M. Grant (☆ ☆ ☆ ☆)

This book is centred around Sheryl Sandberg’s sudden loss of her husband (who seems have been a very nice guy), her bereavement process with her kids, and how she carries on.

It is co-written by Prof Adam M. Grant who adds in the science around her narrative to make the book a lot more valuable than a tech bro celebrity name dropping account of a horrible, difficult time.

Thoughtfully gifted by Yal who warned about Sheryl Sandberg’s agenda. There were parts that I cringed while reading, but I too found it very helpful while trying to process my loss.

Apparently she paid a comedian to take the book and make it more palatable, which has worked up to a point.

The Journal of Best Practices – David Finch (☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆)

I bought this book as my summer punishment from my wife, and it turned out to be great. Similar to The Rosie Project which I also loved and gifted to many friends, but real and at least as funny.

This book is a memoir of a husband and father who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome (now called Level 1 autism) and his path to “improvement” in an aspergerian manner and detail.

Dave Finch structures the book around a journal of best practices, each chapter loosely tethered to one solution he takes up along the way. We also understand his inner world which explains the why. I sympathised with him and gained insights about some good friends and myself.

It should be made into a film, please.

The MANIAC – Benjamin Lebatut (☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆)

The MANIAC in the title is a computer built by Von Neumann and the one of the anti-heroes of the book: tech which we are unable to understand and control.

This book might be in my favourite genre: narrative non-fiction, and it talks about 3 people: Paul Ehrenfest, John von Neumann and Lee Sedol.

Ehrenfest chapters are about how maths and physics change to become more difficult to conceptualise (Quantum Mechanics). Maths which is the foundation of humanity is understood to be a paradox. This drives Paul to suicide.

John chapters are the biography of von Neumann fictionlally told by others who interact with him, focusing on how he builds “intelligent” machines that surpass humans and lets them stretch their boundaries while ceding control. Which leads to…

The Lee chapters written like a New Yorker article on the Go matches between Lee Sedol and AlphaGo, the AI model built to play Go better than humans, almost with a Godlike style.

I couldn’t put it down during my short holidays this summer and finished it in a few days on the beach. My only critique would be that the 3 parts don’t follow a common style (but that’s my OCD talking).

Confidence Man – Maggie Haberman (☆ ☆ ☆)

It’s 3 stars (would have been 3.5 if it was possible) because the book starts well and is excellent until Trump becomes president in 2016.

After that it’s too chronological, full of names that get more and more confusing, rather like a documentary than a character analysis (which is what I was looking for).

But still I was able to make a list of his traits, his playbook, but not enough to understand well why he’s such a “narcissist drama seeker with a bullying tendency”.

Still a must read in this day and age, and I couldn’t find a better book to read on The Donald.

New Essays on The Great Gatsby – Matthew J. Bruccoli (☆ ☆ ☆)

I had bought this book the first time I read Gatsby, but never got around to reading it. It consists of 6 essays, pretty much what you expect.

It helped me understand The Great Gatsby better. The essays are quite accessible and illuminating and worth a quick read to go deeper on this amazing book.

Keepers of the Golden Shore – Michael Quentin Morton (☆ ☆ ☆ ☆)

I wanted to learn more about the UAE before my first trip there. I was mostly curious about how and why the leaders decided to change the country in such a profound way and what difficulties they had.

There are very few books on the UAE, surprising given how popular it’s been in the past 10 years. And I thought it was interesting that I could not see this book in an excellent Dubai bookshop. I wonder if it’s not sold there for political reasons.

The book is a clear, concise and sometimes funny history of the UAE and the region. From when Dubai and Abu Dhabi were small fishing villages of 10,000 inhabitants just a 100 years ago to today.

I wish he had longer chapters about the final 25 years when the growth has been both explosive and intermittent.

The Contrarian – Max Chafkin (☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆)

Peter Thiel is so interesting that if there’s another good book on his beliefs and influences I’d read that as well.

But regardless, The Contrarian is written well and is quite objective, perhaps it might be called a bit biased against Thiel but I do not find that surprising.

The author’s main point is that Thiel is working hard to sculpt an image of himself as a contrarian and use it to shift his stance and hedge his positions accordingly. He spreads his bets but obviously chooses them well and supports the companies with his vast influence and network.

After understanding him better with this book, I no longer take all his “ideas” at face value but pay attention to what he chooses to voice to try to understand his motives.

Adana’da Piç Olmak – Sevilay Sabancı (☆ ☆ ☆)

Kitabı Levent 2 sene önce hediye ettiğinde başkasının aile dedikodusu gibi görüp hafif merakımı da bastırarak kenara koymuştum. Şimdi bir proje için okumamım faydalı olacağına karar verip elime aldım ve 24 saatte bitirdim.

Etkileyici ve çok cesur bir hikaye. Şaşırmam diye düşünürken yazılanların bu kadar ağır ve iddialı olacağını düşünmemiştim. Kitap yayınlandığında Sakıp Sabancı hayatta olsa ne olurdu acaba?

Knife – Salman Rushdie (☆ ☆ ☆ ☆)

Even with the depressing subject of this book (his nearly fatal knife attack due to the famous fatwa), Rushdie can be funny and writes very well.

The middle of the book contains a great imagined dialogue between him and his attacker whom he calls A.

I started the book a week before attending his talk on his latest book of shortish stories (The Eleventh Hour) and finished it during the tube ride back home.

Salman Rushdie in person was just as I had expected him to be: a funny, slightly dirty uncle. The talk was excellent with questions about his whole oeuvre and a little bit on the fatwa, obviously.

I’m very happy to see that he has recovered and is back with a new book I’m looking forward to reading.

I realised I missed 3 of his latest books and I promise I’ll be back to read them.