Books read in 2014

All the usual qualifiers apply w/r/t re-reading, when books were started, etc. I'm very pleased that I've reached a point where I can more or less comfortably read books in Portuguese as long as I have a dictionary, so with any luck this list will feature more titles in that language in the coming years.

January
-Casanova's Return to Venice, Arthur Schnitzler (Ilsa Barea, trans.) (1.12.14)
A compelling tale of past glories, aging, and reminiscence.
-The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, Jose Saramago (Giovanni Pontiero, trans.) (1.22.14)
Bought it for the Fernando Pessoa connection, stayed for the excellent writing. I'd like to read Saramago in Portuguese.
-Notturno indiano, Antonio Tabucchi (1.29.14) (first Italian novel ever finished!)
A man searches for a friend in India, and finds everything but. It conveys the sometimes surreal nature of travel well.

February
-The Street of Crocodiles, Bruno Schulz (Celina Wieniewska, trans.) (2.12.14)
Often compared to Kafka, Schulz works in a similar central European vein, but I think his writing is much better than Kafka's.
-Silence, Shusaku Endo (William Johnston, trans.) (2.21.14)
A grim account of a Portuguese priest's encounter with faith and the lack thereof during the Tokugawa shogunate's persecution of Christians. Highly recommended.

March
-Galveston, Nick Pizzolatto (3.11.14)
A solid pulp novel from the dude who wrote the equally solid HBO series True Detective.
-Quin's Shanghai Circus, Edward Whittemore (3.21.14)
Written before his Jerusalem Quartet, this wasn't bad, but it certainly felt like an early work.
-Port Cities and Intruders: The Swahili Coast, India, and Portugal in the Early Modern Era, Michael N. Pearson (3.22.14)
I read a lot of books like this (i.e., collections of essays on a certain place/time/theme) these days, and this was a pretty good one; I didn't skip anything, and I finished it feeling a lot more informed about a part of the world of which I knew nothing.

April
-The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05, Denis Warner and Peggy Warner (4.12.14)
The weak conclusion aside, this was well-written and incredibly depressing, even by the standards of most modern war histories.
-The Portuguese in India (The New Cambridge History of India), M.N. Pearson (4.19.14)
Concise without being shallow, this is the kind of book I'd recommend to anyone considering learning more about the subject.
-The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin (4.19.14)
Yet another book I purchased however long ago, only to find myself regretting that it took so long to read it. I loved it.
-O Essencial sobre Camilo Pessanha, Paulo Franchetti (4.26.14) (First Portuguese book ever finished!)
Purchased in Macau's Livraria Portuguesa, along with more works on Pessanha. I want to re-read it now that my Portuguese is better.
-Genti di Macau, Luciana Leitão (4.26.14
Contos sobre pessoas Macaenses, escrito por uma jornalista portuguesa que morava em Macau. Muito bom!

May
-Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680, vol. 1: The Lands below the Winds, Anthony Reid (5.7.14)
I'm still working on vol. 2, which is strange, seeing as how much I liked the first one. A solid overview of SE Asia, and loaded with fascinating details.
-The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (5.18.14)
The first of the Culture series I've ever read. I dug it a lot, so I started reading more Culture books.
-Neuromancer, William Gibson (5.21.14) (reread)
I'm going to re-read every William Gibson book several times before I die. They never, ever get old.
-Knight of the Renaissance: A Biography of D. João de Castro- Soldier, Sailor, Scientist, and Viceroy of India, 1500-1548, Elaine Sanceau (5.29.14)
Very much a product of its time, and lacking in critical content, but pleasant enough to read and a decent biography in its own right.
-Against Venice, Régis Debray (John Howe, trans.) (5.31.1)
European academic railing against the hollowness of Venice and the Venetian experience. Accurate in many ways.

June
-Excession, Iain M. Banks (6.5.14)
Another pretty good sci-fi novel, but not as good as the other Banks book I read a month earlier.
-Count Zero, William Gibson (6.23.14) (reread)
See above statement re: William Gibson.
-Loving Venice, Petr Král (Christopher Moncrieff, trans.) (6.25.4)
I read this as a counterpoint to Debray's Against Venice, and barely remember anything about it. That says something about me, and/or the book.

July
-The Forbidden Kingdom, J. Slauerhoff (Paul Vincent, trans.) (7.1.14)
Slauerhoff was fascinated by Macau and Portugal, which is why I became fascinated by him. This was a neat book, and I'm trying to learn enough Dutch to read his poetry.
-Primórdios de Macau, Padre Manuel Teixeira (7.8.1)
I doubt anyone ever wrote as much about Macau as this priest, nor do I think anyone could. A short summary of the origins of the City of the Name of God in China, written in (of course) Portuguese.
-Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh (7.22.14)
Now this is how you write an historical novel! The use of Indian language(s) is worth it alone. I found this via Amazon's uncanny recommendation system.

August
-Portugual's Guerrilla Wars in Africa: Lisbon's Three Wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Portuguese Guinea 1961-74, Al J. Venter (8.2.14)
Simultaneously a valuable resource and a total mess. Shitloads of great photos, decent-to-good analysis, and neat stories are bogged down by a narrative/organizational structure that, to me, makes little sense.
-River of Smoke, Amitav Ghosh (8.12.14)
The story begun in Sea of Poppies continues in Canton and environs as the First Opium War looms. Can't wait for the next book.

September
-O Crime do Restaurante Chinês, Boris Fausto (9.8.1)
The tale of a brutal killing in Sao Paulo in the '30s delves into Brazilian race relations, Carnaval, and immigration. I'm not sure if there's an English translation.
-Opening the Hand of Thought: Approach to Zen, Kosho Uchiyama (Shohaku Okumura and Tom Wright, trans.) (9.13.14)
Started this last year. I've read a number of books on Zen Buddhism, and while this seemed promising, it kept falling flat. I think there were some translation issues.
-The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900, Rudi Matthee (9.14.14)
Any good history book shatters notions of a certain place/time/people being a certain way, and this is no exception. Here we get four centuries' worth of Islamic and Persian relationships with everything from opium and marijuana to coffee, tea, and tobacco, and never are we treated to a pat answer about any of them.
-The Coffee Trader, David Liss (9.16.14)
Liss is a writer I'd been meaning to read for years, and finally got around to doing so. This was a good, well-researched, if somewhat middle-of-the-road (i.e., not quite weird enough for me) read.
-Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750, K.N. Chaudhuri (9.21.14)
An adherent of Fernand Braudel's approach to history, Chaudhuri covers pretty much all the bases here. J'approve.
-Lovecraft's Providence & Adjacent Parts, Henry L.P. Beckwith, Jr. (9.28.14)
A guidebook to seeing Providence and environs through a Lovecraftian lens that I read before going to said city. It'd have been more useful if I'd had more time to explore on foot, but worthwhile nonetheless.

October
-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (10.6.14) (reread)
Re-read this for the first meeting of our new sci-fi book club. Didn't care for it, really.
-Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, M.R. James (10.12.14)
English ghost stories I found courtesy of David Tibet and finally finished reading years after printing out the Project Gutenberg text.
-Fidalgos in the Far East 1550-1770, C.R. Boxer (10.12.14)
Boxer is always eminently readable and incredibly knowledgeable. This is my favorite of his books so far. The chapter on Timor is a novel waiting to be written.
-Hyperion, Dan Simmons (10.22.14)
Sci-fi book club (hereafter, "SFBC") read #2, and further proof that the club is a good idea. Some chapters were frustrating or flat-out shitty, but overall pretty great.
-O português que nos pariu, Angela Dutra de Menezes (10.26.1)
A Brazilian writer covers, in a most entertaining fashion, the history of Portugal, from its days as a Roman province to the independence of Brazil. Funny as hell at times!

November
-The Peripheral, William Gibson (11.6.14)
A new William Gibson book! Set in the future! And there's time travel! I was wary, honestly, but it was good. There's something about it I still can't put my finger on, but it does feature a really cool relationship.
-An Historical and Archaeological Sketch of the City of Goa, José Nicolau da Fonseca (11.1014)
AKA "Goa: going downhill since the turn of the 17th century". This was written in the 1870s, is pretty exhaustive, and surprisingly easy to read.
-Zothique, Clark Ashton Smith (11.25.14)
If Lovecraft's prose isn't purple enough for you, try Clark Ashton Smith. That said, his prose may be purple, but that doesn't stop it from being addictive, and he writes some really good amoral sword and sorcery.
-The Space Merchants, Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth (11.28.14)
SFBC #3. Not really my thing, but not terrible. It felt like it was written in the '50s, which- gasp!- it was!

December
-Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks (12.11.14)
The first of the Culture novels, and the third I've read. You can see Banks trying to strike a balance between an action story and sci-fi world-building, with the former usually winning out, alas.
-Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Haruki Murakami (Philip Gabriel, trans.) (12.18.14)
More to the point than 1Q84, and compelling enough that I did nothing but read it for several days straight. Still, the denouement felt thin.
-Empire in Transition: The Portuguese World in the Time of Camões, Alfred Hower and Richard A. Preto-Rodas, ed. (12.28.14)
Partially in English, partially in Portuguese, I bought this, and several other books, at the Brattle Book Shop in Boston, where someone had unloaded a considerable number of Portuguese history books. Some of the essays were good, some might've been fine if I were into the subject matter; overall, an easy and informative read.


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