Maybe You're into Fiction, Instead, Chuck?
If your reading preferences lean toward fiction—and the non-fiction titles I suggested don’t pique your interest—maybe it would be better for me to let you in on some of the books (from the world of fiction) that have been shaping my thinking for the last few years.
I’ll start with the big four—the ones that have been my daily companions since early COVID:
THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt rightfully won the Pulitzer in 2014. It is a story of life and death and the choices we make in a world we do not control. The audiobook is voiced by David Pittu, who, himself, won a top award for his narration of this, perhaps, my favorite book.
That’s how I found Jonathan Franzen’s CROSSROADS, published in late 2021: through David Pittu, who skillfully narrates the story of the Hildebrandt family who, it seems from time to time, I feel like I know better than my own. Stunning in its honesty about hypocrisy and shame, this book is a gift from a great thinker who deeply loves his flawed human characters.
INFINITE JEST started as a personal challenge. Any fictional story with extensive footnoting is the sort of story I wanted to read. Evidently, DFW was intentional in his use of said footnotes to prove to the reader how very distractible we all are in our lives. (Note: he’s proving this meta-point to readers who have already strapped in for the ride through his 981 pages of dense, dense prose—like no white space anywhere but the margins for page upon page—and the accompanying 388 footnotes, themselves running for 96 pages.)
Finally, FREEDOM because JF is, today, my favorite writer.
The above four books are my “playlist.”
If I’m listening to an audiobook, it’s going to be one of those four. Over and over and over.
Now, as for recent fictional reads, I’m in a book club that selects its titles from Pulitzer winners.
Did you know that the Pulitzer goes to an American writer writing about any aspect of American life? Yep, that’s all it takes: an American story written by an American.
In 2023, Hernan Diaz wrote about great wealth and won the Pulitzer:
Barbara Kingsolver also won the Pulitzer in 2023, in her retelling of Charles Dickens’s DAVID COPPERFIELD as a modern-day tragedy of the opioid epidemic that killed half a million Americans. In truth, she wrote about great poverty:
And then there’s William Kennedy’s IRONWOOD (1984/poverty and homelessness), Alison Lurie’s FOREIGN AFFAIRS (1985/wealth and travel), John Kennedy Toole’s A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES (1981/poverty and state oppression), Andrew Sean Greer’s LESS (2018/wealth and travel), N Scott Momaday’s HOUSE MADE OF DAWN (1969/poverty and state oppression), Coleson Whitehead’s THE NICKLE BOYS (2020/poverty and state oppression), and Edith Wharton’s AGE OF INNOCENCE (1921/so, so much wealth).
It’s who we are, don’t you think, Chuck?
We are a people interested in stories about human life—American life—through the lens of the Almighty Dollar.
I think about these things a lot, Chuck and thought I should share, in case non-fiction’s not your jam.
With only 13 days until Candidates’ Night, it might have to be Cliff Notes for you,
Jenna