DEE WILSON CONSULTING

Some of the best recent books I read in 2024 were published in 2022-2023. As in the past few years, my list is weighted toward non-fiction. I read or reread several novels published decades ago, especially three of Jane Smiley's novels, Greenlanders, a masterpiece of historical fiction, Moo, a comic novel set in a Midwestern agricultural college, and Horse Heaven, an exceptional novel that defies easy classification, the ultimate insider's novel about horse racing. 

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Fiction

 

Novels published in 2024: 

James, by Percival Everett is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the slave, Jim's, perspective, most memorable for Everett's analysis of the strategies and purposes of 19th century Black dialect.

Entitlement by Rumaan Alam is a novel about a young Black woman who becomes psychologically and ethically undone by her relationship with a billionaire philanthropist seeking to give away his fortune before his death. Reading this novel was like taking a cold shower: no fun, but definitely a means of waking up.

I also read, and liked (with more mixed feelings), Colored Television, by Danzy Senna. This is another take on how easy it is to become emotionally addled and ethically undone when working for powerful and wealthy people.

Elizabeth Strout's novel, Tell Me Everything, is about the means, motives and various emotional effects of probing the mysteries of other lives, including the early lives and inner lives of intimate partners and friends.  Strout patiently deepens the theme of delving into the unknown or hidden parts of troubled souls, with empathy, malice or dispassion as the case may be.  

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Non-Fiction

 

I read so much excellent non fiction during the past year that choosing a few best books was difficult. I read and reread Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life (2024), by Ferris Jabr, a book I recently reviewed at length. Becoming Earth is a detailed account of how Life (in the aggregate) over billions of years has shaped the Earth's atmosphere, crust, soil and oceans, i.e., shaped the natural world in which some species have flourished and others vanished through natural selection. Without a doubt, the main character is this four billion year process has been microbes, which exist in inconceivable numbers and are able to act in concert, with tremendous effect over vast time spans. Jabr tells this fantastic story with great skill and insight. He's written one of the best books on a scientific theme I've ever read.  

 

Things That Go Bump in the Universe: How Astronomers Decode Cosmic Chaos (2023) by C. Renee James is an extraordinary book about cosmic phenomena that explode with unfathomable energy such as supernovae, neutron stars, gamma ray bursts, quasars. One example: James asserts that "The Sun ... will steadily generate a grand total of 1.2 bethes (or "foes") of energy over its 10 billion year lifetime. ... The most luminous quasar ( i.e. "an active galactic nuclei powered by a black hole") is home not just to ultra-massive black hole, weighing in at 12 billion times the mass of the sun ... it glows with the energy of 400 trillion suns (not a misprint). That's over 100 foes per day, every day, until the whirlpool feeding it runs dry." In other words, a quasar at almost the maximum observable distance from the Earth -- 13 billion years -- has generated almost 100 times the energy of our sun's entire eventual 10 billion existence in one day, and then the next day, etc. James' book is full of cosmological 'believe it or not' tidbits such as the following assertion re the Big Bang: : "Somewhere between birth (of the universe) and a hundred millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth (not a misprint) second later .. our universe ballooned to trillions upon trillions its original size." I read this book in a state of amazement. 

 

Raiders, Rulers and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires (2024), by David Chaffetz, is by far the best history I've read regarding the importance of horses in human history, with the caveat that Chaffetz mostly writes about horses, war and empires on the vast Eurasian steppe. Chaffetz makes a strong case that ".. humans have a relationship with horses unlike that of any other animal." As Chaffetz explains with exceptional clarity and story telling ability, when peoples of the steppe, Scythians, Celestial Turks, Khitens, Jurchens and Mongols learned to fight from horseback, warfare was utterly changed and empires fell, conquered by armies that required continually expanding territory to feed their many thousands of horses. Chaffetz states: "The Mongols could securely conquer and rule any territory where pastoralists could flourish." Chaffetz also has much to say re traders on the Silk Road and on horse trading over many centuries.  This book is a must read for anyone interested in the rise and fall of empires in the ancient world. 

 

How We Live Is How We Die (2023) by Pema Chodron, arguably the best living author of self help books on spiritual subjects. Chodron is Tibetan Buddhist. How We Live Is How We Die is a compelling summary of The Tibetan Book of The Dead, a description of the process of dying and the bardo, i.e., in Tibetan Buddhism the realm between death and rebirth. However, a reader does not have to believe in life after death to benefit from Chodron's extraordinary book, or to understand and accept the lesson of the book's title. Chrodron explains that, in Buddhist thinking, every moment, every experience, is a bardo of sorts, i.e., a transition, or that the Cosmos offers humans one opportunity after another to wake up and experience the world with curiosity and joy. For readers (like myself) approaching the end of life, Chodron offers some useful information re the bardo after death, e.g., it's possible to die without understanding that one is dead, and that it's helpful to remind loved ones that they have died for 49 days!  For anyone interested in a humorous and intriguing account of the bardo, I highly recommend J. Robert Lennon's novel, Subdivision (2021).   

 

The Creative Act: A Way of Being ( 2023) by Rick Rubin is of exceptional interest to persons (like myself) who believe that the best brief description of the Cosmos is "creative." Rubin connects the dots between 'creative Cosmos' and artistic creation (or scientific creativity) with remarkable insight. Rubin believes that all creativity draws on messages from Source, that are reduced by a filter that makes them suitable for a Vessel, e.g., the human mind. Rubin has interesting and insightful things to say on just about every page re guidelines for fostering creativity. For readers who have long since given up on the idea that current philosophy has anything of importance to say to anyone who is not an academic philosopher, I urge you to read this inspired book, which is not analysis or argument, and which draws on the artistic process to understand creation.   

 

Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich 1945-1955 (2022), by Harold Jahner, is one of the best histories I've read on any subject in recent years. This is a story of vast migration across Europe, of hunger and the daily struggle for survival, of a surge of vitality embodied in a dance craze in Germany, of an adamant refusal of the great majority of Germans to accept responsibility for W.W. II or for the Holocaust, of economic revival and of acceptance of Allied authority in post- war Germany. Jahner's history answers the question: What happens when a country that conquered Europe and killed millions of Jews is itself conquered and virtually destroyed accepts defeat? The answer: life springs anew while a moral and ethical accounting is suppressed, put off for a future time. In addition to being a great historian, there is something restorative in the balanced, astute and unblinking way Jahner writes this history, an example for the next generation of historians.    

                  

Best Books - 2024

 

Fiction                                                                        Non- fiction  

James by Percival Everett                                         Becoming Earth by Ferris Jabr 

Entitlement by Rumaan Alam                                 Things That Go Bump in the Universe by C. Renee James  

Colored Television by Danzy Senna                       Raiders, Rulers and Traders by David Chaffetz 

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout                  How We Live Is How We Die by Pema Chodron 

                                                                                     The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin 

                                                                                     Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich 1945-1955 by Harold Jahner         

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-- Dee Wilson

 

deewilson13@aol.com