Tony Horwitz <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Horwitz> was an American (Pulitzer Prize winning) journalist and travel writer. He died of a heart attack at age 61 in 2019. He was married to the Australian/American journalist and (Pulitzer Prize winning, best-selling) novelist Geraldine Brooks, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Brooks_(writer)> who, last year, published *Memorial Days,* her memoir of her life with Tony.
I didn't know Tony very well, but I did know him. Like everybody else who ever met him, I liked him a lot. But Geraldine I do know well; I consider a dear friend. I decided that I would not read her *Memorial Days* until I had read everything that Tony wrote for publication. I had already read his *Confederates in the Attic, Spying on the South, Midnight Rising *(about John Brown), *Boom* (about the Alberta tar sands), and *A Voyage Long and Strange *(retracing the steps of the first European explorers in North America). This year I read *Baghdad without a Map* (travels in the middle east in the late 1980's & early 1990's) including a terrifying first person account of the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeni, *One for the Road*, about hitchhiking into the interior of Australia and then along most of its coast, and *Blue Latitudes,* exploring the life & travels of James Cook. These books are all great. Tony was an adventurer, an outgoing person willing to talk to anybody, an astute observer, a life-loving person with a sense of humor and a quick wit, and a writer of great panache. But what many readers evidently miss is that he also had a deep sense of tragedy. The marketing copy for *Baghdad without a Map* calls it 'a comic romp,' and many reviewers wrote about how funny it is. And it is funny. But it is also heartbreaking. All that now remains on my 'Horwitz completist' list is the reporting for which he was awarded the Pulitzer <https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/tony-horwitz> in Journalism. By this time next year I hope to have read *Memorial Days* & will report on it here. I reread and very much liked the 3 novels of Anthony Burgess's 'Malayan Trilogy' *The Long Day Wanes, *set in Malaya on the eve of its independence from England, featuring dissolute British expat colonials and locals of various ethnicities, few of whom are admirable. Stories & implied politics aside (which some people find offensive, but I don't), Burgess's skill as a mimic is something else. Every character, of whichever nationality & native tongue, is instantly recognizable. I first read this work 50 years ago when I was living in the outback of post-colonial Senegal. It was interesting to read it again. *Uncle Petros & Goldbach's Conjecture* is a pleasant novella by Apostolos Doxiadis (translated from the Greek by the author), "an intellectual adventure about a proud genius and the exhilaration of pure mathematics. It is about the search for truth at all costs, and the heavy price of finding it." I liked it so much that I bought a copy of the author's graphic novel *Logocomix: An Epic Search for Truth* about Bertrand Russell, "madness and reason; love and war," the foundations of mathematics, and how they were shaken apart by Kurt Gödel. I liked this very much also. I also read 20 or 30 other books in 2025 but I think this is enough for now, ;^) jrs P.S. A few months before I met Tony & Geraldine at a small dinner party I met their then five year old son Bizu while I was standing, dressed in firefighting gear, next to a very large and loud fire truck that was parked in front of their house while other members of Tisbury Fire Department were dealing with a furnace backfire in the house across the street. Unknown to me at the time, Geraldine was watching the whole encounter between me and Bizu out her living-room window. I wrote about those & related things in this essay <https://open.substack.com/pub/johnsundman/p/every-cosmic-vacuum-is-filled-with?r=38b5x&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false>. On Tue, Dec 16, 2025 at 6:49 PM Thaths via Silklist < [email protected]> wrote: > For many years we have had a tradition here in Silklist of sharing book > recommendations around this time of the year. This is the 2025 edition. > > What are some good books you read in 2025 that you recommend? > > I quit my podcast habit (cold turkey) at the end of last year. So I find > myself with more time to read and to listen to audio books.Here are the top > memorable books I read this year (in no particular order): > > Japanese crime fiction. That's right, I am recommending an entire genre. > This year I discovered this entire genre, the master of which is Keigo > Higashino. I recommend anything by him. Maybe start with [Detective Kaga > series > <https://www.goodreads.com/series/253297-detective-kaga-english-translation>], > followed by the [Detective Galileo > <https://www.goodreads.com/series/99164-detective-galileo>] series. > > > The Years of Rice and Salt (Kim Stanley Robinson). An alternate History of > the last 600+ years if the Black Death had wiped out 99% of Europe's > population (as opposed to the 50% it did). The history is told by a handful > of "beings" that transmigrate through different milieus through the > millenia. Fascinating breadth and depth. The Chinese equivalent of San > Francisco develops (with it's own Japan Town) across the Golden gate in > Marin in this imagined past. > > > Mother Mary Comes to Me (Arundathi Roy): Equal parts memoir, biography, > score settling, and elegy > > > Bhang Journeys: Stories, Histories, Trips and Travels (Akshaya Bahibala). > A former addict writes comprehensively, though a bit piecemeal, about the > weird legal/illegal limbo of Bhang (and Ganja) in India, and approaches it > from several different angles (that of an addict, that of a "certified to > use" addict, that of bureaucrats who administer the sale in the > Government-system, that of enforcers in the Excise department trying to > control illegal farming, ....) > > > Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI (Karen Hao). > Excellent book. For those looking askance at the author's post-modernist > post-colonial look at the field it is good to remember that Hao used to > write for such communist rags as the MIT Technology Review and the Wall > Street Journal. A good look into the moral vacuum that lies in the heart of > the race to the bottom in Generative AI generally, and Open AI specifically. > > > Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth (Audrey Truschke). A slim volume that > presents the Historian's understanding of the life of Aurangzeb, not what > you would find posted by Nationalists in India or Pakistan. Trushke focuses > on what we can say with confidence, and what we can only guess from the > sources. > > > Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture (Gaiutra Bahadur). I thought I knew > about the experience of Girmityas before. This book - from the perspective > of women (and a woman - the author's great-grandmother) "coolies" - opened > my eyes to many new things. > > > The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Shehan Karunatilaka). Fun read (despite > the dark subject). But a little too long. > > > Sky Daddy (Kate Folk). Hilarious, dark, heart-warming. I am surprised I am > stringing those words together to describe this work, but they are all > appropriate. The local details of life in and around San Francisco brought > this alive for me. > > > To Lose a War: The Fall and Rise of the Taliban (Jon Lee Anderson). A > collection of essays that the author wrote for The New Yorker magazine on > Afghanistan over the years: from the anti-Soviet fight in the 80's to the > American departure (and the aftermath of the resurgence of Taliban) in the > 2020s. Reading these pieces with the benefit of hindsight the tragedy of > Afghanistan becomes clearer. The failure of the American project was there > from the seeds. > > > The Message (Ta-Nehisi Coates). Powerful. Searing. Bookended nicely in the > beginning with Coates' trip to Senegal - a "return" to a supposed place of > origin and by comparing in the end what such "return" has wrought in > Israel-Palestine. > > > Parable of the Talents (Octavia Butler). Prescient (up to including the > phrase "Make America Great Again"), scary. A candle of hope in these stormy > times. I am glad to say it left me hopeful (but immensely sad) at the end. > > > Private Revolutions: Four Women Face China's New Social Order (Yuan Yang). > Tracing the lives of 4 extraordinary women in contemporary China as they > deal with the vagaries of the government and the patriarchy. > > Thaths > -- > Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? > Carl: Nuthin'. > Homer: D'oh! > Carl: Unless you're crooked. > Homer: Woo-hoo! > -- > Silklist mailing list > [email protected] > https://mailman.panix.com/listinfo.cgi/silklist > -- *Sundman figures it out! <https://johnsundman.substack.com/>* — an ongoing autobiographical meditation.
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