Start a New Year of Reading 📚 – Orange County Register

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Happy New Year 2022 to all and welcome to the pages of the book. A New Year means a lot of things – optimistic resolutions, a hopeful start – but for our purposes, that means all the books you wanted to read in 2021 are about to be replaced by all the books you. wanted to read in 2022 (and let’s say not even talk about all the books in 2020).

Before we jump into what’s to come this New Year – and we’re already working on some great upcoming stories with great local authors – I want to talk about one of my favorite things: holiday books and reading. . I love to take advantage of the last days of the year to catch up. This year they included “Razorblade Tears” by SA Cosby, “The Copenhagen Trilogy” by Tove Ditlevsen, “Intimacies” by Katie Kitamura, which some of you have, I’m sure, read as well. I also listened to both the fun and self-referential mystery “The Word is Murder” by Anthony Horowitz, and while it is not technically a book, Paul Simon’s audio biography of Malcolm Gladwell ” Miracle and Wonder, ”which I viewed on the Hoopla Digital app (it’s free, you just need a library card), was wonderful.

As I mentioned on our first outing, I also love giving and receiving books, and this year I got some good ones: a very cool 13 year old boy I know picked “The Prophets” from Robert Jones Jr. for me; a favorite aunt sent me “The Guide” by Peter Heller; and I might have treated myself to a copy of “Nina Simone’s Gum” by Warren Ellis. I’ve also given copies of the following to some of the people on my list: “True Grit” by Charles Portis, “Tales from the Loop” by Simon StÃ¥lenhag and, using Maggie Smith’s list of fantastic poetry as a guide, “The Blues of Heaven” by Barbara Ras.

Maybe my favorite vacation reading moment was finding a nice copy of The Three Musketeers for a history-conscious 17 year old I know. I thought that would be a perfect gift, but then I thought: this is a lot of book to give as a gift to someone. So, having already bought The Teen several other books, I passed it on. And then LITERALLY the next day, I was talking to The Teen who asked me (I’m not kidding), “Have you ever read ‘The Three Musketeers?’ and if I had a copy. Ironically, the store where I had seen it had sold this copy, but I found another one and now this teenager I know the bed.

So let’s move on to this week’s list of stories, bestsellers, and a Q&A with author, filmmaker and TV personality Phillipe Cousteau. The grandson of legendary oceanographer Jacques Cousteau loves books and spoke to Peter Larsen last fall for the Pages du livre.

Go in depth with Philippe Cousteau

Q: Is there a book you like to recommend? Favorite book?

A: I would say my all time favorite book is “Zorba the Greek”. And I think it’s relevant because of its message about life and how to celebrate life in the face of adversity. I just think it’s an inspiring book. In the face of all the challenges we face in the world today, it’s just joyful, spiritually inspiring for me.

Q: Do you remember the first book, or any of the first books, that really stood out on you when you were young?

A: When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I read “The Tao of the Pooh”. And this is, to date, probably my second favorite book. But it had a great influence on me too on how to be like water, and how to let go of evil and harness the good, and find opportunity and hope. “The Pooh Tao” is something I read quite young, at a time in my life when I was struggling not to have a father and my inheritance, and you know, being a teenager.

Q: How do you choose what to read next?

A: I don’t read a lot of fiction. It’s mostly non-fiction and it’s mostly looking for things that are somehow relevant to what we’re doing. You know, books on sustainable business and the blue economy are of great interest to us. I have been involved in impact investing for many years and how do we use market based approaches to solve these issues. These are usually thematic books that will come out or people who recommend them to me as interesting to continue to broaden our thinking around these questions.

Subscribers should search for Bookish, SCNG’s premium magazine, which launched on January 30. The issue features Noteworthy, our first annual tribute to 10 local authors who made an impact in 2021. There will be a special Noteworthy edition of SCNG Bookish’s virtual program in February. 4.

How to join the event: Click here for the link.

Driving story

Author Jean Chen Ho describes how navigating the streets of Southern California inspired her. READ MORE

Remember an original

Samantha Dunn writes on the legacy of the late Joan Didion. READ MORE

Hot topic

Neal Stephenson discusses his climate change epic “Termination Shock”. READ MORE

Lost classics

Dan Epstein recalls a childhood obsession with Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators. READ MORE

What books did you read during the holidays – or, if applicable, given or received as a gift? What are you waiting for this year?

Email me with “BOOK PAGES” in the subject header and let me know: epedersen@scng.com or just tap reply to this email.

TOP SELLERS OF THE WEEK

RIGID COVER FICTION

1. Cloud Cuckoo Land: Anthony Doerr

2. Call us what we wear: Poems: Amanda Gorman

3. Beautiful people, where are you: Sally Rooney

4. Lincoln Highway: Amor Towles

5. The sentence: Louise Erdrich

Want more? Get the full week’s listings here!