Dear Substackers,
Thanks so much for supporting markwillwrite in 2023! I hope you plan to stick around, because I’ve got a feeling that we shall do great things together in 2024! Tune in tomorrow for details!
Pilgrimize in paperback!
In the meantime, please note that my latest travelogue, Pilgrimizing, is now available in paperback. I worked closely with designer Stewart A. Williams to create a book which is also an objet d’ art, and I’m very pleased with the result. If you liked the e-book, I think you’ll love the paperback. Order your copy today!
And now for a message from Mr. Baldwin . . .
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
Unfortunately, I was unable to devote as much time to reading in 2023 as I have in previous years. I don’t want to make excuses, but—quite apart from the kind of personal pain and heartbreak mentioned by the author of The Fire Next Time—I did change residences twice this year and was also preoccupied with the publication of a book (see above), the production of two albums, and the recording, editing, and release of numerous podcast episodes. Still, it’s something of a tradition for me to document annually my reading and research, so for what it’s worth here are the highlights of 2023:
Rhinoceros (Eugene Ionesco)
The Leader (Eugene Ionesco)
The Future Is in Eggs or It Takes All Sorts to Make a World (Eugene Ionesco)
A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century (Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein)
The Butterfly’s Burden (Mahmoud Darwish)
One Nation Under Blackmail, Volume One (Whitney Webb)
The Interpretation of Dreams (Sigmund Freud)
The Assassination of Julius Caesar (Michael Parenti)
1971: Never a Dull Moment (David Hepworth)
Of Africa (Wole Soyinka)
My Heart Laid Bare (Charles Baudelaire)
JFK and the Unspeakable (James W. Douglass)
Eroticism (Georges Bataille)
The Passenger (Cormac McCarthy)
Ten Myths About Israel (Ilan Pappe)
The Tao of Physics (Fritjof Capra)
Enough about me, though. What were the reading highlights of 2023 for you?
The best is yet to come
I don’t want to keep you from your New Year’s celebrations, so let me simply remind you to check your inbox tomorrow for details on what to expect from markwillwrite in 2024! See you next year!
MW
P.S. I confess that this end-of-year post, in accordance with the aesthetic principle of repetition variation, is, in terms of format at least, a cannibalization of last year’s. Forgive me!