#Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
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#currently reading#Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty#empire of pain#patrick radden keefe
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My top 10 nonfiction reads of 2023 (the asterisked ones are in French with no translation as of yet) :
Belle Greene, Alexandra Lapierre
The Indomitable Marie-Antoinette, Simone Bertière
Reporter: A Memoir, Seymour Hersh
Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, Erich Schwartzel
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, Patrick Keefe
Servir les riches, Alizée Delpierre*
La Comtesse Greffulhe : L’ombre des Guermantes, Laure Hillerin*
Le Courage de la nuance, Jean Birnbaum*
The Book Collectors of Daraya, Delphine Minoui
Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement, Hawon Jung
#book recs#i haven't finished the last one yet but it's been good so far! i really admire these women's resilience and solidarity#some inspiring stories of political activism + insight into aspects of korean history i didn't know about#i wanted to do a half-fiction half-nonfiction list like last year but i've read mostly disappointing fiction this year :(#my favourites were probably kivirähk's the man who spoke snakish & catherynne valente's radiance; though it wasn't as good as orphan tales#i'm reading jacques abeille's les jardins statuaires right now and it's quite frustrating because on the one hand#it's well-written and interesting with original worldbuilding. on the other i'm 300 pages in and there have been#2 female characters. the purpose of both (so far) was to have sex with the male protagonist and only 1 has a name#which makes the read feel less original and more ''same old shit as far as i'm concerned''
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BEST OF 2022
Read:
Incarnadine, the Bloody Red of Fashionable Cosmetics and Shakespearean Poetics
Psychology, Misinformation, and the Public Square
Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny
agency/satisfaction
Actually, Let’s Not Be in the Moment
Do Brain Implants Change Your Identity?
Adam Savage on Lists, More Lists, and the Power of Checkboxes
Our Pseudonymous Selves
The skincare con
consistency is proficiency
Hundreds of Ways to Get S#!+ Done - and We Still Don’t
The digital death of collecting
The Mundanity of Excellence
Icons: Eli Keszler in Conversation with Adam Curtis
modern malaise
The Dangerous Populist Science of Yuval Noah Harari
Is There Such A Thing As Good Taste?
The Odor of Things
What It Takes To Put Our Phone Away
Personal Style Is Dead And The Algorithm Killed It
The Philosopher of Feelings
Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit
Expert by Roger Kneebone
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
The Act of Living by Frank Tallis
Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett
The Joy of Science by Jim Al-Khalili
The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel
Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created Our Mental Health Crisis by James Davies
Watched:
Literary Rendezvous at Rue Cambon: Girl.
In the library of Charlotte Casiraghi
Brave New World vs Nineteen Eighty-Four featuring Adam Gopnik and Will Self
Peaky Blinders (S6)
Killing Eve (S4)
The Decade the Rich Won
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Severance
Listened To:
Alt J’s The Dream
Beyonce’s Renaissance
Went To:
Swan Lake @ Royal Opera House
Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution @ the V&A
Ancient Greeks: Science and Wisdom @ the Science Museum
Vision & Virtuosity by Tiffany & Co. @ Saatchi Gallery
Henry Marsh in conversation with Will Self
Feminine power: the divine to the demonic @ The British Museum
#I've been making these 'consumption' lists for over 2 years now (!) but I've never done a yearly best of.#So I thought I'd try but I hate it already because I feel like I missed a lot.#It was collated from the other lists this year simply by reading through them and picking the ones that from title alone made me think#'I remember that clearly and I would read/watch/listen to it again'.#But it doesn't really work for 'listened to' because those lists are normally just random songs I liked each month.#Not the most scientific of methods by alas.#personal
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favourite nonfiction read in the first half of 2023
one of my reading resolutions this year was to read more non fiction. here are some of my recommendations from the first half of the year, which i’ve loosely grouped together. i’d recommed each as well-written, informative, and thought-provoking.
history
Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends - Linda Kintsler
Empire of Pain: the Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty - Patrick Radden Keefe
society
Sandy Hook: an American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth - Elizabeth Williamson
Men Who Hate Women: the Truth About Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All - Laura Bates
memoir
I’m Glad My Mom Died - Jennette Mccurdy
Inferno: a Memoir of Motherhood and Madness - Catherine Cho
Somebody’s Daughter - Ashley C Ford
science
The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses - Peter Brannen
Otherlands: a World in the Making - Thomas Halliday
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures - Merlin Sheldrake
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I feel like you’ve been asked this before so apologies in advance, but: what is your favorite book about history that is not about your speciality in history?
Hmm. Some excellent nonfiction and/or history books that I have recently read or think are just really worth reading include:
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson (and frankly most of what he writes)
Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera
Chernobyl by Serhii Plokhy (and again, most of what he writes)
Ghostland by Colin Dickey
In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Nonfiction history books on the TBR list that I am excited about include:
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann
Prisoners of the Castle by Ben Macintyre
Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis
The Ship Beneath The Ice by Mensun Bound
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My personal favorites of 2022
Books (Fiction)
Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (Singshong)
The Murderbot Diaries Series (Martha Wells)
In other Lands (Sarah Rees Brennan)
Nona The Ninth (Tamsyn Muir)
Carrie Soto is Back (Taylor Jenkins Reid)
Nettle and Bone (T. Kingfisher)
The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks (Mackenzi Lee)
A Wizard's Guide to defensive Baking (T. Kingfisher)
The Iliad (Homer)
The Odyssey (Homer)
Tracy Flick Can't Win (Tom Perrotta)
Amber and Clay (Laura Amy Schlitz)
Nothing to see here (Kevin Wilson)
Sorrow and Bliss (Meg Mason)
Sea of Tranquility (Emily St. John Mandel)
Books (Non-fiction)
Nothing to Envy : Ordinary Lives in North Korea (Barbara Demick)
Empire of Pain : The Secret History of The Sackler Dynasty (Patrick Radden Keefe)
On the move : a life (Oliver Sacks)
The Road to Jonestown : Jim Jones and The Peoples Temple (Jeff Guin)
This is going to hurt (Adam Kay)
Voices from Chernobyl : The Oral History of a Disaster (Svetlana Alexievich)
Rogues : True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks (Patrick Radden Keefe)
Mean Baby (Selma Blair)
An Anthropologist on mars (Oliver Sacks)
I'm glad my mom died (Jennette McCurdy)
Killers of the flower moon (David Grann)
Awakenings (Oliver Sacks)
Last Night at the Viper Room (Gavin Edwards)
The Man who mistook his wife for a hat (Oliver Sacks)
Cultish : The Language of Fanaticism (Amanda Montell)
Mangas/Manwhas/Comics
Dungeon Meshi (Ryoko Kui)
Witch Hat Atelier (Kamome Shirahama)
Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (Singshong, Sleepy-C)
Sousou no Frieren (Tsukasa Abe, Kanehito Yamada)
Beware The Villainess (Bbongdda Mask)
The Trash of The Count's Family (Yoo Ryeo Han)
The S-Classes I Raised (Geunseo)
Fun Home (Alison Bechdel)
Semantic Error (Jeo SuRi, Kim Angy)
I think our son is gay (Okura)
Villain Initialization (CuZn Moyou Tangman Culture)
Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon (Coolkyousinnjya)
Couple of Mirrors (Li Zongchen)
Antique Bakery (Fumi Yoshinaga)
Sign (Ker)
TV Shows
Severance - S01
Yellowjackets - S01
Interview with the vampire - S01
Abbott Elementary - S01-S02
The Sandman - S01
Taskmaster - S12-S14
Spy x Family - S01
Dexter : New Blood - Minisseries
Our Flag Means Death - S01
Ghosts - S01-S02 (US)
Kevin Can Fuck Himself - S02
Kotaro Lives Alone - S01
Bocchi The Rock - S01
Chernobyl - Minisseries
Beastars - S01-S02
Movies
Pearl
Encanto
Fire Island
Everything Everywhere All at Once
X
What did you eat yesterday : The Movie
Perfect Blue
Bright Lights
Luca
House of Gucci
The Last Duel
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Spiderman : No Way Home
Class Action Park
Our Father
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Get to know me better tag :D
ty for tagging me, @firewoodfigs! 🥹
three ships: TwiYor x3.
jk that's just my state of mind right now 🥴 Todochako, aaaand... hm.... oh!! GojoHime!! I think those 3 are probly accurate to me now. I could list my classic OTPs, but I don't want to read them like I want to read these atm, so i'll go with these 3 LOL
first ever ship: i could not answer this honestly if i tried bc i cannot dig that far into the catacombs of my memory. i'm going to say InuKag bc i think?? that's the the ship i was introduced to fanfic for?? but really it could be Dramione or EdWin even.
last song: Out of Time by Midnight Kids & Yueku
last movie: Expendables 4 :| I watched it bc i have never watched an expendables movie and i just wanted to experience it BUT THIS ONE WAS SO BAD. like i've heard one of them or something is stupid fun even tho it's generally bad? but this was just straight trash. it wasn't even the good kind of bad. it was just bad. made me sad bc i love jason statham LOL
the last good movie i watched was Gran Turismo. it was unexpectedly GOOD good. that movie made me want to race LMFAO
currently reading: Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
currently watching: Spy x Family ◉‿◉ （and jjk and a bunch of other stuff but i wait on the edge of my seat for sxf)
currently consuming: i scrounge like a raccoon. i actually just bought a bunch of produce and i keep intending to use it, but i end up doing something else (that i want to do more, admittedly)
currently craving: i've really been wanting pizza for a long time 🤔
tagging: @prita-world, @iridescenceoflove, @tare-chan, and anybody else who wants to 🥹 I tried not to tag anybody who was tagged in eri's, but if i've interacted with you in any way, know that i am tagging you in my heart 😂
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Reading List
to be updated constantly
Articles:
"Why Women Online Can’t Stop Reading Fairy Porn" by C.T. Jones for Rolling Stone
"They Called 911 for Help. Police and Prosecutors Used a New Junk Science to Decide They Were Liars." by Brett Murphy for ProPublica
"‘I Think My Husband Is Trashing My Novel on Goodreads!’" by Emily Gould for The Cut
"Woman in Retrograde" by Isabel Cristo for The Cut
"The unwanted Spanish soccer kiss is textbook male chauvinism. Don’t excuse it" by Moira Donegan for the Guardian
"I Started the Media Men List" by Moira Donegan for The Cut
"What Moira Donegan Did for Young Women Writers" by Jordana Rosenfeld for The Nation
"The Key Detail Missing From the Narrative About O.J. and Race" by Joel Anderson for Slate
"The Coiled Ferocity of Zendaya" by Matt Zoller Seitz for Vulture
"OJ Simpson died the comfortable death in old age that Nicole Brown should have had" by Moira Donegan for The Guardian
"Norm Macdonald Was the Hater O.J. Simpson Could Never Outrun" by Miles Klee for Rolling Stone
"Trans Stylists and Makeup Artists Are Reshaping Red Carpet Looks. Will They Get the Credit They’re Due?" by James Factora
"The ‘perfect Aryan’ child used in Nazi propaganda was actually Jewish" by Terrence McCoy for The Washington Post
"There Are Too Many Books; Or, Publishing Shouldn’t Be All About Quantity" by Maris Kreizman for Literary Hub
"An O.J. Juror on What The People v. O.J. Simpson Got Right and Wrong" by Ashley Reese for Vulture
"Super Cute Please Like" by Nicole Lipman for N + 1 Magazine
Essays:
Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture edited by Roxanne Gay
Creep: Accusations and Confessions by Myriam Gurba
"On Chappell Roan and Gen Z Pop" by Miranda Reinert
"In Memory of Nicole Brown Simpson" by Andrea Dworkin
"My Gender Is Dyke" by Alexandria Juarez for Autostraddle
"Columnists and Their Lives of Quiet Desperation" by Hamilton Nolan
Nonfiction:
Belabored: A Vindication of the Rights of Pregnant Women by Lyz Lenz
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life by Lyz Lenz
The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination by Sarah Schulman
Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession by Rachel Monroe
The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adams
Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson
Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs by David Bellos & Alexandre Montagu
The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society by Eleanor Janega
Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton
University of Nike: How Corporate Cash Bought American Higher Education by Joshua Hunt
What it Feels Like for a Girl by Paris Lees
Female Masculinity by J. Jack Halberstam
The Theory of Everything Else: A Voyage Into the World of the Weird by Dan Schreiber
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper
Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration by Alejandra Oliva
Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate by Anna Bogutskaya
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O'Meara
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
Eyeliner: A Cultural History by Zahra Hankir
Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement by Ashley Shew
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami
Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Fiction:
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Just as You Are by Camille Kellogg
Just Happy to Be Here by Naomi Kanakia
The Misadventures of an Amateur Naturalist by Ceinwen Langley
Family Meal by Bryan Washington
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera
Blackouts by Justin Torres
We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer
The Faithless by C.L. Clark
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour
Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour
Bliss Montage by Ling Ma
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
The Institute by Stephen King
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Frankenstein: Junji Ito Story Collection by Junji Ito
Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Snuff by Terry Pratchett
Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix by Aminah Mae Safi
Only a Monster by Vanessa Len
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2023 Reading Roundup
Everything what I read in 2023
I read a whole bunch.
Heartily Recommend
Visceral Bleh
Reread
*Audiobook*
Fiction
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (where is the fucking humidity in your swamp, Delia??)
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Lot by Bryan Washington
Mr. Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas
Trust by Hernan Diaz
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan
It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantell (but everyone is called Thomas)
Verity by Colleen Hoover (awful but wacky and hilariously awful)
Katalin Street by Magda Szabo
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
Animorphs #24 The Suspicion by KA Applegate (a trip)
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
The Island of Forgetting by Jasmine Sealy
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
The Trio by Johanna Hedman
At the Bottom of the River by Jamaica Kincaid
The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera
Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
Silence by Shusaku Endo
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
Babel by RF Kuang (was so disappointed by this one)
The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld
Island by Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen
The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles by Giorgio Bassani
Must I Go by Yiyun Li
The 1,000 Year Old Boy by Ross Welford
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel
Memphis by Tara M Stringfellow
The Whirlpool by Jane Urquhart
Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
A Country of Eternal Light by Paul Dalgarno
Yellowface by RF Kuang
The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani
The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
Game Misconduct by Ari Baran
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Uprooted by Naomi Novik (sorry Naomi :/ )
The Foot of the Cherry Tree by Ali Parker
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Matrix by Lauren Groff
The Twilight World by Werner Herzog
Wild by Kristen Hannah
*The Fraud by Zadie Smith*
The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai
The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
This Other Eden by Paul Harding
The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham (weirdly, one of the best depictions of a marriage I’ve read)
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Against the Loveless World by Susan Abdulhawa
North Woods by Daniel Mason
Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
Animorphs: The Hork-Bajir Chronicles by KA Applegate
Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
Animorphs #13 The Change by KA Applegate
Animorphs #14 The Unknown by KA Applegate
Animorphs #20 The Discovery by KA Applegate (snuck in two more under the wire… #20 is when shit REALLY kicks off. From there it gets darker and darker).
Poetry
Black Cat Bone by John Burnside
Women of the Harlen Renaissance (Anthology) by Various
The Analog Sea Review no. 4 by Various
The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy
Non-Fiction
Besieged: Life Under Fire on a Sarajevo Street by Barbara Demick
Atlas of Abandoned Places by Oliver Smith
Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
Wanderers: A History of Women Walking by Kerri Andrews
City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth Century London by Vic Gatrell
The Lazarus Heist: From Hollywood to High Finance by Geoff White (fully available as a podcast)
The Entangling Net: Alaska’s Commercial Fishing Women Tell Their Stories by Leslie Leyland Fields (very niche but fascinating. Transcribed interviews)
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi
Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir by Lamya H.
Freedom by Margaret Atwood (just excerpts from novels repackaged)
*Born a Crime by Trevor Noah* (Noah’s narration is superb)
The Slavic Myths by Noah Charney and Svetlana Slapšak (was expecting stories, but it was mostly academic essays)
Manga, Comics, Graphic Novels
Safe Area Goražde by Joe Sacco
The Way of the House-Husband, vol. 1 by Kousuke Oono
SAGA vol. 1-6 by Fiona Staples and Brian K Vaughan
Top of the Top:
Born a Crime was probably my favourite non ficition, and most of that probably is due to Trevor Noah's narration skills. It was very entertaining and heartfelt.
Less uplifting but just as gripping in a different way was Empire of Pain. Excellent book that went deep into the why and what and hows of Purdue Pharma. Anger inducing.
Lazarus Heist is great and available as a podcast. The book is more or less the podcast word for word.
Fictionwise: I read Trust at the start of the year and it was a bit soon to declare as favourite of the year, but it's stil made the final cut. Just very imaginative and intriguing. Just my kind of MetaFiction. Clever without being cleverclever.
Demon Copperhead I read right off the back of Empire of Pain so maybe that coloured my experience. I've not read any Dickens so loads of references no doubt flew past me, but the language was acrobatic and zingy. I loved it.
Wrapped up the year on a high with North Woods. That was so unexpected and entertaining. Again with the playful language, memorable characters and a unique approach to tying all the various stories together. One that sticks in the mind and makes the writer in me wonder how I can replicate his style (with my own personal twist of course.)
#a whole bunch of books#reading roundup#Still one day to go but i don't think i'm going to finish anything else#year in books#2023 in books
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tagged by @kelofmindelan
Last read: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. Vuong is a poet and this was his debut novel so it didn't surprise me that there would be a lot of beautiful language and imagery in this one. I loved it and tore through it in an afternoon!
Current Read: Unfortunately nothing :( I finished OEWBG yesterday, and the library was closed today but my next book is ready, so I figured I would just wait until tomorrow for it.
Next Read: Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. Fully expecting this one to be a tough read but I wanted to learn more about the topic and I've had this highly recommended to me. It also feels like a good way to engage with OEWBG because a lot of it was about the opioid crisis in the US.
tagging: @full---ofstarlight @rowingtherubicon @nochturnes @theladysarmor or whoever wants to do it <3
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Books I Read in 2022.
The Appalachian Trail: A Biography by Philip D’Anieri
Hiking Shenandoah National Park by Bert and Jane Gildart
Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans with Jeff Chu
One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin M. Kruse (audiobook)
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe (audiobook)
Bible Gender Sexuality: Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships by James V. Brownson
The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry selected by Paul Kingsnorth
Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way and Presence by Diana Butler Bass
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer (audiobook)
Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders by Kathryn Miles (audiobook)
She Come By It Natural by Sarah Smarsh (audiobook)
Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver
Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor
We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence by Becky Cooper
Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are by Jedidiah Jenkins
The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr
The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff (audiobook)
God is Here: Reimagining the Divine by Toba Spitzer
Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain (audiobook)
Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green (audiobook)
The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why by Phyllis Tickle (audiobook)
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (audiobook)
Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery (audiobook)
Milk Fed by Melissa Broder
Columbine by Dave Cullen (audiobook)
Material Methods: Researching and Thinking with Things by Sophie Woodward
The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg (audiobook)
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‘Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks’ by Patrick Radden Keefe
Patrick Radden Keefe tells us in the preface to in his new book, Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks, that the 12 long-form essays “reflect some of my abiding preoccupations: crime and corruption, secrets and lies, the permeable membrane separating licit and illicit worlds, the bonds of family, the power of denial.” In this, of course, the stories are similar to the concerns in his previous two books: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland and Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. It’s a muddied world he covers, where just about everyone is tainted, though even the most sinister rogues have some mediating human qualities.
Among the more menacing group of transgressors Keefe writes about is Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose pre-terrorist college life displayed “a painfully American banality: cinder-block dorm rooms, big-screen TVs, mammoth boxes of Cheez-Its.” Wim Holleeder, the Dutch gangster who allegedly has a hit out for his own sister, comes across as wily and even quirky during his trial — “shifting in his chair, shaking his head, taking his eyeglasses off and twirling them like a propeller” — though Keefe makes no bones about the man’s overall brutality; and drug kingpin Joaquín Guzmán Loera, “El Chapo” — at one point one of the most feared criminals in the world — “distinguished himself as a trafficker who brought an unusual sense of imagination and play to the trade.”
Then there’s Amy Bishop, a neurobiologist denied tenure at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, who, during the last department meeting of the semester, blocked the conference room door and shot six of her colleagues, killing three. Bishop grew up in a Boston suburb where she had shot and killed her brother, and Keefe thoroughly investigates this act, and its ultimate lack of consequence (the killing was ruled accidental), as a possible precursor to the later crime. Discussing whether or not the murder was intentional, Keefe writes, “When violence suddenly ruptures the course of our lives, we tend to tell ourselves stories in order to make it explicable. Confronted with scrambled pieces of evidence, we arrange them into a narrative.” Keefe concludes that “neither story” about the killing “was especially convincing,” and this willingness to live with ambiguity and irresolution is a hallmark of his journalism.
While the profiles of people who might rightly be considered villains is riveting, I found myself drawn more to the stories about genteel rogues. There is German wine forger Hardy Rodenstock, whose hustle was to convince wealthy people that the bottles he was selling were originally from the cellar of Thomas Jefferson. When uber-conservative and wine connoisseur Bill Koch, brother of Charles and David, goes mercilessly after Rodenstock, it’s hard not to side with the “bad guy” of the story. Similarly, HSBC computer technician Hervé Falciani may have broken the law when he disclosed which wealthy bank customers were laundering money and evading taxes, but our sympathies are generally with the whistleblower, whatever his motives might have been.
The book ends with a chapter on Anthony Bourdain, who is perhaps less of a rogue than the other scoundrels in the book. Though he periodically raises a cynical eyebrow over Bourdain’s antics, Keefe is clearly drawn to the celebrity chef’s star power, this man with the magnetism of “an aging rocker,” who “transformed himself into a well-heeled nomad who wanders the planet meeting fascinating people and eating delicious food,” fully enjoying his “fantasy profession.” The story was published in The New Yorker (where all these pieces first appeared) before Bourdain’s suicide, and it ends on an upbeat note, which is undercut by the tragedy that will follow. It’s an irony one can imagine that Keefe, whose profiles display a boundless interest in other people, feels deeply.
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Just read: Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
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I love your monthly lists, please keep them going! There were no fiction books in your best of 2022 so I'm wondering what your best books of 2022 by genre were?
I'm going to take some liberties in choosing my own very rough genres/categories here and put my five favourites in each.
Non-Fiction (medicine/sciences)
The Act of Living: What the Great Psychologists Can Teach Us About Surviving Discontent in an Age of Anxiety by Frank Tallis
Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis by James Davies
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Madden Keefe
Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett
The Joy of Science by Jim Al-Khalili
Honourable mentions: And Finally by Henry Marsh, How to Survive a Plague by David France, The Sleeping Beauties by Suzanne O'Sullivan.
Non-Fiction (everything else)
Expert by Roger Kneebone
Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit
The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel
How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak
Accomplishment by Michael Barber
Honourable mentions: Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism by Mariana Mazzucato, The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova, Women and Other Monsters by Jess Zimmerman.
Fiction
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
Insatiable by Daisy Buchanan
Circe by Madeline Miller
Bunny by Mona Awad
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
Honourable mentions: The Harpy by Megan Hunter, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado.
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Tagged by @acehardy thank u friend!
+ Last song: Rhett Atkins -That Ain't My Truck (I've been on a 90's country kick lately and my YouTube suggestions are currently filled with Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney, Gary Allan, George Strait & Joe Dee Messina)
+ Last movie - it was either Speed or Scream 5 (I watched them the same weekend). I did not hate the newest Scream movie but I also don't feel the need to re-watch it anytime soon. That said, the female characters in it were GREAT.
+ Currently watching - Cheers (up to s4!) and rewatching Cougar Town (just started S2 last night). Life has been rough lately and I just need shows that make me laugh. Please don't judge.
+ Currently reading - 'Empire of Pain: the secret history of the Sackler dynasty' by Patrick Radden Keefe (nonfiction) and 'Book Lovers' by Emily Henry (fiction). Both good but in very different ways.
Tag 9 people you want to get to know better: @tim-lucy @talldecafcappuccino @catty-words @ladytharen @shutterbug-12 @ballroompink @poedamerony @roadlesstraveledby @jicklet
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Reading 2023
5-January-2023: Tanizaki, Junichirō, The Maids (1963, Japan)
13-January-2023: Tevis, Walter, Mockingbird (1980, USA)
22-January-2023: Snyder, Michael, James Purdy: Life of a Contrarian Writer (2022, USA)
29-January-2023: Pressburger, Emeric, The Glass Pearls (1966, England)
31-January-2023: Mac Orlan, Pierre, A Handbook for the Perfect Adventurer (1951, France)
5-February-2023: Runciman, Steven, The First Crusade (Vol I: A History of the Crusades) (1951, England)
11-February-2023: Babitz, Eve, I Used to be Charming (1975-1997, USA)
15-February-2023: Indiana, Gary, Rent Boy (1994, USA)
26-February-2023: Zola, Émile, The Sin of Abbé Mouret (1875, France)
2-March-2023: Bennett, Alice, Alarm (Object Lessons), (2023, USA)
9-March-2023: Wyndham, John, The Kraken Wakes (1953. England)
17-March-2023: Manchette, Jean-Patrick, The Prone Gunman (1981, France)
17-March-2023: Shawn, Wallace, Night Thoughts: An Essay (2017, USA)
19-March-2023: Runciman, Steven, The Kingdom of Jerusalem (Vol II: A History of the Crusades) (1953, England)
26-March-2023: Carr, David, Final Draft: The Collected Work of David Carr (2020, USA)
5-April-2023: Manzoni, Alessandro, The Betrothed (1840, Italy)
10-April-2023: Childs, Craig, Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession (2010, USA)
16-April-2023: Butler. Octavia, Kindred (1979, USA)
22-April-2023: Liming, Sheila, Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time (2023, USA)
24-April-2023: Manchette, Jean-Patrick, Three to Kill (1976, France)
30-April-2023: Keefe, Patrick Radden, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (2021, USA)
7-May-2023: Le Carré, John, Agent Running in the Field (2019, England)
10-May-2023: Dederer, Claire, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma (2023, USA)
13-May-2023: Mortimer, Penelope, Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (1956, England)
26-May-2023: Morrison, Toni, Beloved (1987, USA)
30-May-2023: McCarthy, Cormac, The Passenger (2022, USA)
1-June-2023: Lewis, Herbert Clyde, Gentleman Overboard (1937, USA)
6-June-2023: Miéville, China, Embassytown (2011, England)
10-June-2023: McCarthy, Cormac, Stella Maris (2022, USA)
16-June-2023: Ambler, Eric, The Light of Day (1962, England)
23-June-2023: Ambler, Eric, Dirty Story (1967, England)
25-June-2023: Runciman, Steven, The Kingdom of Acre (Volume III, A History of the Crusades) (1954, England)
27-June-2023: Hartley, L.P., The Harness Room (1971, England)
4-July-2023: Motley, Willard, Knock on Any Door (1947, USA)
8-July-2023: Duras, Marguerite, The North China Lover (1991. France)
10-July-2023: Carr, J. L., A Month in the Country (1980, England)
14-July-2023: Thoreau, Henry David, Cape Cod (1865, USA)
18-July-2023: Modiano, Patrick, Missing Person (1978, France)
22-July-2023: Prime-Stevenson, Edward, Left to Themselves: The Ordeal of Philip and Gerald (1891, USA)
24-July-2023: Shakespeare, William, King Lear (1606, England)
6-August-2023: Whitehead, Colson, Crook Manifesto (2013, USA)
11-August-2023: Hampson, John, Last Night at the Greyhound (1931, England)
16-August-2023: Wyndham, John, The Midwich Cuckoos (1957, England)
19-August-2023: Ballard, J. G., The Drought (1965, England)
22-August-2023: Hines, Barry, A Kestrel for a Knave (1968, England)
31-August-2023: McPherson, William, Testing the Current (1984, USA)
10-September-2023: Pamuk, Orhan, Nights of Plague (2021, Turkey)
17-September-2023: Thoreau, Henry David, The Maine Woods (1864, USA)
20-September-2023: Thoreau, Henry David, A Plea for Captain John Brown (and other essays on abolition) (1859, USA)
24-September-2023: Kirino, Natsuo Real Life (2006, Japan)
30-September-2023: Renouard, Maël, Fragments of an Infinite Memory: My Life with the Internet (2016, France)
7-October-2023: Hamilton, Patrick, The Midnight Bell (1929, England)
12-October-2023: Hamilton, Patrick, The Siege of Pleasure (1932, England)
15-October-2023: Hamilton, Patrick, The Plains of Cement (1934, England)
21-October-2023: Kayama, Shigeru, Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again (1955, Japan)
25-October-2023: Malcolm, Janet, Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory (2023, USA)
30-October-2023: Vonnegut, Kurt, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969, USA)
5-November-2023: Warner, Sylvia Townsend, Lolly Willowes (1926, England)
26-November-2023: Ainsworth, William Harrison, The Lancashire Witches (1848, England)
2-December-2023: Ginzburg, Carlo, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath (1989, Italy)
10-December-2023: Baum, Vicki, Grand Hotel (1929, Germany)
16-December-2023: Sinykin, Dan, Big Fiction: How Conglomerates Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature (2023, USA)
24-December-2023: Warner, Sylvia Townsend, T.H. White: A Biography (1967, England)
29-December-2023: Undset, Sigrid, Olav Audunssøn, Vol 4: Winter (1927, Norway)
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