Breathe
By Pamela Cerdeira
There is a corner in my head that is like that junk space where you put things you don't even remember you had, I put there names of movies, names of actors and sometimes even the plots. Suddenly something, like another similar story, makes me remember what I kept there, sometimes not even that. To avoid this, or at least to index my clutter, this year I decided to keep a list of the books I read, and thanks to the Kindle, also save some of my favorite phrases. So here goes my 2024 in books.
InJanuary I had the opportunity to visit China thanks to an invitation from Huawei. There are not enough words in the dictionary to describe everything that came to my mind, let's say I'm still digesting the trip. In short, it knocked down all the ideas I had about the country. There are several Chinas: the one we think it is, the one we see as tourists, the one we live and the one of the official narrative. Ana Fuentes' book tells the vision of the Chinese from different places: the juniors, those persecuted by the government, the women who agree to marry gay men to calm social pressure, and more.
Irreplaceable, by Sebastián Tonda.Sebastián is an entrepreneur, co-founder of Igualdad, and passionate about technology. His book must be the only one written by a Mexican that addresses the moment we are in, the future we are going to and the fears that this provokes. If you like technology, you have to read it; if you are terrified of being out of work thanks to artificial intelligence, you also have to read it; if you wonder what technological advances are coming in the future, you also have to read it. And for all the pessimists who believe that we humans will end up being the useless slaves of a robot, Tonda will give you a lot of peace.
Women who run with wolves, Clarissa Pinkola.Whenever I am asked what changed my life, I always answer that Women who run with wolves. But I also confess that it changed my life when I was about 20% or so into it, and that I didn't finish it until this year, just twenty years after I started it. Through the stories, Clarissa, a brilliant writer, psychologist and feminist, teaches us to reconnect with our wild side, our instinct. It is not a self-help book, it has no magic recipes. It took me twenty years to finish it, and I think it will take me another twenty to fully understand it. It should be required reading for all women from the age of 15.
Books find you, they have a life of their own, they hide when it is not their time to be read and reappear at the right moment. Sometimes they are arranged by themes, things that you don't notice until you have finished them. This combo that includes novel, biography and political science is totally worthwhile. The central theme is the culture of cancellation and its consequences. In The Visionary, by Abel Quentin, we meet a writer who in his youth was an anti-discrimination activist and ends up cancelled in old age for having written a book about a black poet, without being one himself. Knife, by Salman Rushdie, tells how he experienced the attack he suffered on August 12, 2022, encouraged by the 1989 fatwa issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, supreme leader of Iran at the time, after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses. And, finally, Left is not woke, by Susan Neiman. The next time you are tempted to participate in the cancellation culture, you will think twice.
Sad tiger, by Neige Sinno.I have a whole column dedicated to the book, so you'd better get over there and read it.https://www.opinion51.com/pamela-cerdeira-2412-literatura-exorcismo/
By the way, I didn't put Opinion 51 columnists in these five recommendations because I'm sure I would end up looking bad to someone, because, as I say: the dark corner in my head. As I go through my list, I see that I forgot to write Elon Musk's biography, for example. But I'm going to make an exception: The Two Hemispheres of Lucca, by Barbara Anderson. And my recommendation is not to read the book, but to listen to it. It is written and narrated by Barbara herself, who is equally good at doing both. She tells the story of her trip to India to treat Lucca, her oldest son who lives with cerebral palsy. Listening to her is like walking into her home, hotel room in India or crying with her in the car. Does she narrate anything in a car, or was I the one crying while listening? It doesn't matter. And my exception is because, also, next year the movie of this book is being released on Netflix. So when it's a hit, you'll be able to say with all the snobbery we love: I already read the book.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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