#1 & A Recap & A Few More Best Reads of 2023

Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life was a doorstop of a book, coming in at 688 pages, but I wouldn’t have wanted it to be any shorter than it was. Eig produced one of the first big biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr. in a while.

Producing such a bio can be hairy, especially with a figure like MLK who can easily be obscured by hagiography. Eig never lets King slip behind that curtain. Along with a mountain of interviews, he includes new revelations from J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI recordings that show King as his closest friends and advisors knew him.

I came away from this work with an admiration for King’s tenacity, theological vision, and ability to withstand the volatile winds all around him. But I also felt for the man who was constantly beset with thoughts of his death. And I appreciated the stories of King associates like Bayard Rustin, who deserve more attention than they are usually given. (Though Rustin did get his own biopic this year.)

And with that…the Best Reads list is complete. But I’ll leave you with a few that could have made the list and a recap. Best reading wishes for 2024!

Also recommended:

A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death & Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

The Creative Life: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin

An Immense World: How Animal Sense Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong

And the recap:

#1 – King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

#2 – big wonderful thing by Stephen Harrigan

#3 – All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby

#4 – The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

#5 – Lone Women by Victor Lavalle

#6 – I, Julian by Claire Gilbert

#7 – Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard

#8 – The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

#9 – Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles

#10 – 24 Hours in Charlottesville by Nora Neus