An achingly beautiful read, in Giovanni’s Room we meet David, an American who has escaped to Paris to find himself. One of Baldwin’s most famous novels, Giovanni’s Room is an exquisitely written tale that I loved as soon as I started reading it, and that I have thought about ever since finishing it. Having spent the first half of 2022 reading books in something of a haphazard manner, as the second half of the year approached, I wrote down the list of books I wanted to cross off before the year had ended, and so, one grey and miserable afternoon in Bondi – of which, there have been many – I settled in to start Giovanni’s Room. It took a little over a year after recording the podcast with Cole until I would find myself in possession of a book of Baldwin’s – thanks to my friend David Wade – who lent me his copy of Giovanni’s Room. Cole said that he came to Baldwin’s work ‘embarrassingly late in life’, and I remember making a mental note to read Baldwin sooner rather than later. I think I first came across James Baldwin when author Cole Brown picked The Fire Next Time as one of his Desert Island Books.
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