Books of 2024: Memoir

Whatever else may be said about 2024, it turned out to be a grand year of reading for me.  A record-breaking year.  I read 40 books this year, a more than 40% increase over my previous high of 28 during Covid.

Although I might like to attribute the higher number to the life circumstance of the transition into what we're calling our "emptying nest" phase, we've had at least one of our sons living with us throughout the year.  Charlie graduated in May and moved back in.  He will move into his own apartment (happily, just a half-mile from us) in January.  Teddy graduated from high school in June and want off to trade school in late September.  Although the nest may be depopulating, the year itself held many events and decisions.  I was too busy for time alone to have created more space for reading.  The coming year may feature that.

The big shift came in the summer when my podcasts dried up.  As that industry has matured, its seasons have come to resemble traditional media.  Audio producers go vacation in the summer just like the rest of us!  This time, when I had few new episodes to download, I decided not to follow my prior pattern of finding more podcasts.  As a completist, discovering a new podcast with a back catalog introduces both joy and burden.  After all, my subscribed podcasts come back strong in the fall.  

So, in an effort to attack my to-read list. I took up what I call hybrid reading.  For dozens of books this year, I have borrowed both the audio book and the physical copy from the library either simultaneously or in sequence.  The most common pattern is starting the book on audio and then finishing by reading the "book book," because lower competition yields longer borrowing periods.  This steroidal boost lets me "read" while getting chores done.  That's the magic that has added to the number of books I can read.

Personally, I find fiction harder to listen to.  Maybe I've trained my brain to take in thought, analysis, and opinion via podcasts.  I find it more satisfying and attention-holding to listen to non-fiction.

With that preamble to this year's series of book posts behind us, I bring you my memoir recommendations.  Most years, I start with bad books I warn you not to read.  But that seems like a buzz kill, so I'll tuck those in later in the series.

Books of the Year: Memoir

The Pigeon Tunnel; Stories of my Life, John LeCarré, 2016

Having read 7 of John Le Carré's novels (including one the month before reading this one), I turned to this benedictory memoir, published four years after his death. It had been on my list since around the time it was first published. David Cornwell (his real name) applies his considerable gifts as a storyteller in telling his own stories here. They offer a peek behind the curtain at his method of gathering authentic details for his settings and his characters' jobs and avocations. Although he started building from his relatively short career in the British Intelligence services, he continued to get inside international milieux to keep finding people to base his characters on and in order to depict cities around the world accurately. He also shares how fame changed his life - the new assumptions people made about him and the burdens and opportunities created by his fame and considerable income from publishing deals and movie rights. Especially late in the book, he tells the unhappy story of his family. His mother abandons them.  His father the con man leaves a trail of destruction behind him and occasionally intrudes on his son's life well into his period of career success. While reading the book, I discovered from a different source that Le Carré admitted to serial infidelity in what he termed a quest for the love he didn't get at home. He comes out sounding problematically manipulative in a way that will force readers (including this one) to reckon with an artist who made great art while being on a deep-ish end of the horrible scale. I read parts and listened to parts of this book, and Le Carre's voice enhanced the latter format significantly. It's not for everybody, but his fans will enjoy it (even as they may squirm at times).

I Must Say; my Life as a Humble Comedy Legend, Martin Short, 2014

This title lingered on my to-read list for a long time. What a delight! Short's brilliance comes across throughout this memoir of growing up comedy obsessed in a raucous Canadian family and wending his way through a Hollywood career that has produced more reverence than vast wealth. Over and over, he chronicles sliding doors moments that might have made him a wealthier man. Woven through and more interesting than his career on the large and small screen and the stage is his vast web of friendships. From the enduring crew of the famous Canadian Godspell to SCTV, Saturday Night Live, the movies, and several television shows and appearances, Martin Short and his wife Nancy collected friends. The book shares many beautiful fun stories as well as some heartbreaking ones. If you don't tear up in the chapter called Kathy Lee was Right, you have a heart of stone. I conclude that Martin Short as is as smart and funny as I thought and far nicer. He also has great taste in people - Steve Martin, Paul Schaeffer, Nora Ephron, and Kurt Russell. His friendships stand him in better stead than being a millionaire would have. He's probably a millionaire too, now, I must say. I listened to the author read this as an audio book, which delighted me more than reading it on the page might have. I'll never know.