Holiday loot

Unlike in recent years, I didn't get a ton of books this year for Christmas nor did I give any - and, no, this had nothing to do with Joe Queenan's recent screed in the New York Times against giving books as gifts - though I can see where he's coming from. Nonetheless, I did get a couple of pretty cool items. The one that I'm most thrilled about is the shiny, new Complete New Yorker that my parents - who know me well - gave me. When I first heard about this back in June, I said this: "My fear is that once I got my hands on this set, I would be compelled to consume every word of it at the expense of school and work and everything else, possibly even eating and sleeping. I may have to put myself into forced hibernation starting in October in order to keep those DVDs from falling into my hands." But now that I actually own it, I'm willing to take the risk. In fact, I can't wait to get back to Chicago so I can start digging into this thing. I'll let you know how it goes.

My brother gave me another cool "complete" set, the National Geographic Maps collection which contains every single map supplement published in the magazine from 1889 through 1999 on CD-ROM.

From my parents, I also received a collection of interviews with writers like Thomas McGuane and William Styron called Story Story Story. Mrs. Millions, meanwhile, received a weighty tome called The World's Greatest Architecture: Past and Present from her folks.

My favorite non-book gift, though, would have to be the XM Radio that Mrs. Millions gave me. I actually can't wait for our 14 hour drive back to Chicago so I can soak in all that satellite radio goodness.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:41 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading by Patrick Brown

Best Novel: The Epicure's Lament by Kate Christensen - Hugo Whittier is a 40-year-old misanthrope living in self-imposed exile at Waverly, his ancestral home on the Hudson River. Hugo is rapidly smoking himself to death, but doing it with real style. When his estranged brother separates from his wife and moves in, he drags Hugo kicking and screaming back into the company of other human beings. Will he ruin Hugo's plan to smoke himself out of existence? This book is full of dark humor and wry observations on the loneliness, isolation, and mortality. Also, Hugo is a mean cook and gives one heck of a recipe for Holiday Sauce. I stumbled upon this book through a magazine article about Ms. Christensen, and I'm very happy I did.

Runners Up (Fiction): East of Eden, by John Steinbeck (If I'm truly honest with myself, this was probably number one, but Edan already picked it, so that would be no fun. Plus, it's not like Steinbeck needs more heat.)

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
I Sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek (So sentimental, but so, so good. The best story collection I read this year.)

Best Non-Fiction: The Power Broker by Robert Caro - Next year will mark the first time in 3 years that I will have a non-Caro title as best non-fiction of the year. Unless, of course, he cranks out that fourth Lyndon Johnson book in record time. The Power Broker is impressive in its scale, its depth, and its incredible sense of drama. It's Caro's second best book (behind The Means of Ascent, Vol 2 of the Lyndon Johnson years), and worth every freakin hour it takes to read it. (As a bonus, if you don't like reading it, you can use it to tone your biceps and triceps...).

Runners Up (Non-fiction):
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

- C. Max Magee @ 8:58 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Holiday links

Hope everyone's holiday is going well. I'll be putting up one or two more "Year in Reading" posts and then The Millions will most likely be dark until the New Year. But first, a couple of links:

• One of my favorite end of year lists is the bookfinder.com "Top 10 out of print books": the main list and broken down into categories.
• Stephen King names his favorite reads of the year, including a forthcoming novel by A.M. Homes. His number one book, which he calls "the best mystery of the decade," is LBC pick, Case Histories by Kate Atkinson.
• Millions Flashback: Tis the Season

- C. Max Magee @ 5:12 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading: Winning the War on Christmas

My old friend Derek and I used to trade books back and forth in high school, and we spent many hours lurking in used book stores looking for collections of Richard Brautigan poetry and other such things. Several years later, we were roommates in Los Angeles, and one day he showed me his "blog." I thought it was a silly hobby and resolved not to be interested, but the seed had been planted and soon The Millions was born. Derek's in law school now and his blog is mostly defunct and spammy comments litter the posts, but I've been urging him to free up his schedule for another blogging endeavor. In the mean time, he graciously offered up his books for the year.

I haven't had time to actually finish a book this year, between school and work and baseball, but as my exams have approached, I've read about half of Spanking the Donkey, Matt Taibbi's book about the 2004 presidential campaign. My feelings about the book are mixed: on the one hand, Taibbi is ripping off a lot of Hunter S. Thompson's schtick, for example when he tried to interview a former ONDCP guy in a viking costume with a head full of acid; on the other hand, is that such a bad thing?, and this approach can bring out truths about the people and the process that more imbedded journalists will miss.

A head nod, also, to Man in Black, Johnny Cash's first autobiography, on the occassion of the release of a romantic comedy about his life.

The best book of next year will be the Washington Post's Nationals beat writer Barry Svrluga's take on the Nats' first season, National Pastime, due in March. Pre-Order today!!!

Spend liberally, dear readers, and with your resolve maybe America can win the War on Christmas after all.

Best, D. Howard Teslik

- C. Max Magee @ 11:17 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading: Michelle Richmond

I asked Michelle Richmond to share with us the best books she read this year. Michelle is the author of The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress and Dream of the Blue Room. She also keeps a blog, Sans Serif. She put together a really great post for us.

The Death of a Beekeeper, by Lars Gustafsson - "Kind readers," this novel begins. "Strange readers. We begin again." And so I began this book, again, for probably the fifth or sixth time. Like Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, The Death of a Beekeeper is a book I return to every couple of years when I am in need of something quiet and beautiful. The protagonist is one Lars Lennart Westin, who once taught at "the local elementary school in Ennora on the northern shore of the lake." By the time this narrative comes into our hands, Westin is dead, but during the writing of the three notebooks that comprise the novel, he is very much alive. The Yellow Notebook is concerned with beekeeping and household expenses; the Blue Notebook is a commonplace book of sorts, containing "newspaper clippings, excerpts from Westin's readings, and his own stories;" the Damaged Notebook contains telephone numbers and brief notes about the progression of Westin's cancer.

The physical and mental impact of pain, the intricate lives of bees, the frozen landscape of North Vastmanland, and the mysterious workings of a fictional galaxy called Aldebaran are detailed in equal and exquisite measure. I admire the gentle precision of Gustafsson's prose, the author's eye for odd and interesting trivia, the novel's meditative nature. This is a book of ephemera that cannot be easily categorized, a book of lists. For example, page 106 features a "Table of art forms according to their level of difficulty." Art form number one (the least difficult) is eroticism; at the other end of the spectrum is artillery (number 28). The art of the novel (number 8) is, according to our protagonist, less difficult than squash, weight lifting, high trapeze, bicycle acrobatics, and the building of fountains, but slightly more difficult than surfing and significantly more difficult than poetry, which weighs in at a humble 3.

Also on my list for the year: Here is Where We Meet by John Berger; A Cup of Coffee with My Interrogator by Ludvic Vaculik; Writing in Restaurants by David Mamet; Nice Big American Baby by Judy Budnitz; Total Fears by Bohumil Hrabal; and Summertime Waltz by Nina Payne and Gabi Swiatkowska (illustrator), which I've been reading to my son Oscar.

As always, some of my most rewarding reading experiences have been stories and essays found unexpectedly in magazines big and small, most notably a gorgeous exploration of the secret lives of New Orleans's hardy termites, published in Harper's pre-Katrina. (The essay by Duncan Murrell warned of the devastating effects of the termite infestation on the city's historic buildings. Interestingly, the flooding may have saved the city from the worst the termites had to offer).

Which brings us back, sort of, to The Moviegoer, that most perfect of books: "To become aware of the possibility of a search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair."

Thanks Michelle!

- C. Max Magee @ 1:59 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Bigfoot back

In August, Emre mentioned In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot by Graham Roumieu, a very funny book - written in Bigfoot's own voice and filled with illustrations that somehow straddle grotesque and amusing. Now Roumieu has brought Bigfoot back for another book, Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir, so Bigfoot fans can get their long-awaited Bigfoot books. These are certainly my most favorite Sasquatch-themed books. For more, visit Roumieu's Web site.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:49 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Davy Rothbart is a blogging maniac

Davy Rothbart has taken the Powell's blog by storm. He's putting together the next FOUND magazine book (a sequel to the first one), and he's taken to posting late at night, occasionally whilst drunk. He's discussed "found" stuff, Scrabble and writing to inmates as well as a number of other topics.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:04 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading by Andrew Saikali

This was the year I played catch-up. My failing as a reader has always been my near-total ignorance of contemporary authors (say, those that emerged in my own lifetime). That all changed this year thanks to some wonderful recommendations from my Millions cohorts. In no time at all I was transfixed by Alvaro Mutis (The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll) and captivated by Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex). I delved further into Ryszard Kapuscinski (Imperium), feasted on a trio of novels from the wonderful William Boyd (Brazzaville Beach, Blue Afternoon, Armadillo), and finally read Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections), Edward P. Jones (The Known World), and T.C. Boyle (The Tortilla Curtain). Most if not all of these have been written about by either Max or Emre so I'll just echo them and say READ THESE.

To this list I'd like to add one of my own. I was blown away, earlier this year, by the young Thai-American writer Rattawut Lapcharoensap and his short story collection Sightseeing. Set in Thailand, the seven stories present a vivid and engaging depiction of families and friends and day-to-day life. The locale is exotic, the sounds and smells permeate the pages, but the relationships are familiar, universal. It was a treat to read. [See also: Andrew's review of Sightseeing]

- C. Max Magee @ 8:30 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Underrated Writers

Trevor and Jeff at Syntax of Things polled a number of litbloggers to put together a fantastic list of underrated writers. From their introduction:

As you'll see, the results are interesting. We were able to compile a list of 55 writers from 15 different litbloggers who hailed from four continents (North and South America, Europe, and Australia). Of these 55 writers, we had only two who received more than one vote. In addition, the writers ranged from obscure Brazilian poets to a surrealist painter to young adult science fiction writers. Some names are familiar; others we're sure you won't recognize.

They were kind enough to ask me to participate and I contributed some names that will be familiar to long-time Millions readers: Pete Dexter, Michelle Huneven, Ryszard Kapuscinski and Alvaro Mutis. Trevor and Jeff dug up lots of great links to go along with the blurbs provided for each author, and they included one for Mutis that I hadn't seen before. It's a translation of a poem called "Tequila."

- C. Max Magee @ 12:38 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

HarperCollins starts its own little island

As the book digitizing story continues to get more complex and fragmented, HarperCollins announced yesterday that it will host its copies of digitized books on its own servers rather than Google's. The books will still be accessible via Google search, but they will not be displayed by Google.

HarperCollins deserves some praise for pushing to make its books widely accessible online, but I think a lot depends on how HarperCollins decides to implement this program. The danger here is that dozens of publishers follow HarperCollins' lead and all set up their own digital fiefdoms with different standards and different rules (and different pricing schemes if publishers decide to charge.) Depending on how well integrated these publisher sites are with Google search (read: how much power publishers decide to let Google have), finding and using these digitized books could become unnecessarily time-consuming. However, if HarperCollins decides to stay closely integrated with Google Book Search, retaining control in a way that is invisible to the reader, then the likelihood of a cumbersome, unnecessarily complex system arising is diminished. I think readers benefit a lot from a system that is unified.

Reaction has been mostly positive - primarily because HarperCollins' rhetoric has been about "openness":

• Prometheus 6 thinks HarperCollins is approaching this the right way.
• Booksquare applauds the move.
• Sarah at GalleyCat is looking forward to getting her hands on the HarperCollins archives.

- C. Max Magee @ 12:25 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Old journalism and new media

So, I'm done with journalism school. It was a quick fifteen months. I'm excited about the journalistic climate of these times; I'm very caught up in all the heady things being said about blogs and the new medium in general. It's an exciting time to be in this business. But then again I suppose journalism has always been exciting. Now that I've had the opportunity to meet a lot of journalists, I realize that they are a backward-looking bunch - which isn't to say that they are anachronisms, just that they are very conscious of their history. I don't blame them. It's a very rich history. One thing I learned in journalism school is how our newspapers are shrinking - and one day they may shrink into nothing, living only on the Internet. Newspapers used to be much bigger than today's, but high newsprint costs and the changing tastes of readers have made newspaper companies skew smaller and smaller. At the turn of the last century, though, newspapers were quite big, and, as it turns out, at least one of them was very colorful.

It's an odd experience looking at pictures from the The World on Sunday (found here and here), a New York paper from more than one hundred years ago, because I think that we're trained to think of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a black and white world. These colorful images have recently gotten some attention thanks to Nicholson Baker and his wife Margaret Brentano who rescued the papers from the refuse pile of the British Library and used them as raw material for a book that came out this fall: The World on Sunday: Graphic Art in Joseph Pulitzer's Newspaper (1898 - 1911). As Jack Shafer said in his column on Slate:

But what made this vivid copy sing was its graphic and typographical presentation. Pulitzer's people bulldozed the dreary, gray newspaper design template. The World ran headlines across a couple of columns, not just one, or completely across the page if it really wanted to provoke readers. Halftone photos, dramatic and comic illustrations, inset graphics, hand-lettered headlines, and buckets of color enlivened these artful pages.

The Internet promises photos, audio, video and all kinds of interactivity. I love that, but I'm a little sad that newspaper like The World won't be showing up on my doorstep any time soon.

Earlier this month, Ron at Beatrice.com singled out this book as great gift idea, and I have to agree. This is the perfect gift for any fan of the news (and for future journalists, as well.)

- C. Max Magee @ 8:40 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading: Marcy Dermansky

Marcy Dermansky is a New York author whose debut novel, Twins, came out this fall. It's been getting good reviews, including a mention in the New York Times this weekend. Marcy was kind enough to share with us the best book she read this year:

Notice by Heather Lewis - Not since Haruki Murakami's Underground has reading a book on the subway made me so uncomfortable. Murakami writes about the massive sarin gas attack on the Toyko subway system; Heather Lewis tells the harrowing story of one nameless young woman. Published after her suicide, Lewis's second novel takes you into the dark and sinister world of Westchester county. The prose is simple and direct. Notice is difficult to read, often repellent and horrifying, but impossible to put down.

Thanks Marcy!

- C. Max Magee @ 9:39 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Michael Chabon's update on The Yiddish Policemen's Union

In September, I posted that Michael Chabon's next book, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, his first full-length adult novel since The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, was to be released on April 11, 2006. Alas, the book has been delayed. Chabon's done with the manuscript, but there were scheduling problems with his publisher, HarperCollins. Chabon announced the delay on his Web site:

HarperCollins had been sort of rushing the thing along, over a steady but polite murmur from the author that perhaps they were moving too quickly. The manuscript was complete. It was not impossible to make the April 11 pub date. But we didn't even have a finished jacket. Many people who were selling and marketing the book hadn't had the opportunity to read it. Everything just felt too rushed and when that sense of undue haste finally caught on at the publishing house, I was able to persuade them to see reason, and wait.

The new date is now "Winter 2007."

- C. Max Magee @ 6:14 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading: No Saddies Allowed

Edan and I once ran a book club together. Once a month we would guide our herd of readers through our most recent selection. Not all of them would read the book, but we didn't mind. Our only rule was "no saddies allowed."

East of Eden (or, as I like to call it, East of Edan) by John Steinbeck - Finally, finally, I read this wonderful book and I'm so thankful. Steinbeck's sprawling novel is an intergenerational story about one family, with occasional asides about Steinbeck-the-narrator's family. There's much here about the nature of destiny, what is and isn't inherited, and the problem of monsters. The story births other smaller, connected stories, and the shifting point of view is downright brave. It's the kind of novel which gives permission for new, better novels to be written.

What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller - This British novel is narrated by an older, embittered high school teacher named Barbara Covett, who's writing a tell-all about her coworker Sheba, who has had an affair with her high school student. Barbara is a terrific narrator: she's got an unflinching gaze and she's damn funny. This book is both smart and character-driven, as well as being a quick, entertaining read.

Who Will Run The Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore - Okay. So I'm not going to hide it: I love Lorrie Moore; she's one of my favorite living short story writers. This svelte novel moves back and forth between the narrator's ailing marriage (and their trip to Paris), and an intense friendship the narrator had as a teenaged girl. The present story is characteristic Moore: comic, wry, with metaphors that will make you squeal with delight. The retrospective story is more lyrical and personal--a wonderful depiction of youth and all its confusion and devotion. This is a flawed book, but a beautiful one.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:55 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading: Kirby Gann

As the "A Year in Reading" series continues, I asked Kirby Gann, author of Our Napoleon in Rags, to share with us the best book he read all year. Here's what he said:

After thinking over what books I read this past year that have stayed with me, I think I'd have to choose A Void by Georges Perec as my best "discovery" of the year. It's one of the most cleverly effusive novels I've ever read, full of virtuosity, linguistic energy (in both the original and the translation), and unique invention. A metaphysical detective story bursting with plots and sub-plots, it tells the story of the disappearance of a man named Anton Vowl. Interestingly enough, it manages to do so without ever using the letter "e," and yet the prose never feels forced or labored in order to accomplish that lack.

The novel is a dazzling display of what a limiting structure can do toward firing the imagination, much like poetic forms such as the sonnet and ghazal do for poets. Usually I don't go for "game" novels, but this one impressed me greatly.

Thanks Kirby!

- C. Max Magee @ 10:38 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading: An Emerging Best of List

Last year, Dan Wickett, proprietor of the Emerging Writers Network and its accompanying blog sent me his list of best books by emerging writers. The post was a big hit, and he was kind enough to share this year's list with us. Enjoy:

Novels

American Purgatorio by John Haskell (interview, audio) - Haskell follows up his I Am Not Jackson Pollack with a page turner of a novel. He has adapted to the longer form with no problem at all.

Please Don't Come Back From the Moon by Dean Bakopoulos (excerpt) - This is the debut effort by Dean, who has also published many excellent short stories in literary journals the past few years.

Homeland by Sam Lipsyte (excerpt) - This one won't be unfamiliar to LitBlog readers. Lipsyte's paperback original has some great black humor and was well deserving of the attention it garnered.

Bitter Milk by John McManus (excerpt [pdf]) - John's debut novel after two well received short story collections, and it is quite original with a narrator that may or may not exist, and if he does, it could be in various relationships to the youth he narrates about.

Belly by Lisa Selin Davis (excerpt) - Another debut effort, Davis takes an interesting look at how small to mid-size American towns are changing, or Walmartizing, in the 21st Century. That she does
this and allows her readers deep into the relationships of a specific family is pretty impressive.

Garner by Kirstin Allio (excerpt) - A winner from Coffee House Press - Allio writes of a small New England town and sets her tale nearly a century in the past. Her descriptions of the landscapes and the townfolk put her readers right in their lives.

Last year's list had two authors that were established, but not nearly as much as they should have been, in Steve Yarbrough and Percival Everett. This year sees a similarity with authors Lee Martin and Walter Kirn:

The Bright Forever by Lee Martin (excerpt) - His second novel and sixth book (including a hard to find chapbook) overall, The Bright Forever is a stunning novel told in various points of view. A little girl disappears and Martin slowly allows his readers the full story - the anguish and honesty he is able to infuse his characters with as they spill this tale is incredible.

Mission to America by Walter Kirn (excerpt) - Like Martin, not a newcomer, but a well-respected author who hasn't received the sort of attention that he has with this latest effort which only boosts Kirn's reputation as one of today's better satirists. He takes on religion, new ageism, health nuts, and many others his latest.

Short Story Collections

Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (excerpt) - An excellent debut collection from this author whose name is sprinkled about in the story anthologies the past two years - Best New American Writing, BASS, O'Henry, etc.

God Lives in St. Petersburg by Tom Bissell (excerpt) - Bissell lets his experiences in the Peace Corps and as a journalist lead him into many excellent short stories mainly set throughout countries formerly part of the USSR. The best in this collection will rival the best you'll read this year.

Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami (blog) - This collection, Lalami's first, follows four Moroccans as they try to find what they hope will be better lives if they can get into Spain. The stories are very well written and the collection is set up very interestingly with the story of the attempted trip to Spain leading off, and then individual stories about each of the four characters Lalami concentrates on - first a story of each of their lives prior to the trip, and then a story of each of their lives after it.

We're in Trouble by Christopher Coake (excerpt) - Coake is a writer not afraid to tackle the longer story as this collection has a novella or two in it. He's also not afraid to tackle heartbreak and sorrow, but does so in a manner that doesn't beat his readers up. He gets right into the minds and feelings of his characters.

Copy Cats by David Crouse (excerpt) - One of this year's Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award winners. The collection has some excellent stories, including the title story which leads it off, but the big winner is a stunning novella that leads me to hoping Crouse is working on something a bit longer like a debut novel to look forward to.

Big Cats by Holiday Reinhorn (excerpt) - With her debut, Reinhorn slips into T.C. Boyle neighborhood - her opening lines completely grab the reader and let them know that the author is completely aware of her characters and their situations. The stories also tend to grab odd situations you hear of occasionally, but rarely read about, and use them to allow her characters to move their lives forward.

Non-Fiction

Orphans by Charles D'Ambrosio - (excerpt) - This collection of essays has the bonus of being an interesting little book published by Clear Cut Press. Besides the different look, and pocket size, the book has D'Ambrosio's writing which is frequently stellar. I found myself reading about religious haunted houses and mobile home inspections without being able to set the book down - a true testament to his writing. Beyond those couple of essays, there are some really interesting efforts that were previously published in a Seattle alternative newspaper about topics I'd be more inclined to read about.

House: A Memoir by Michael Ruhlman Ruhlman continues as one of the best in the non-fiction genre these days, choosing a topic and writing about it, completely covering it and allowing the reader to appreciate it in ways they may never have considered. Following past efforts that took on single sex education, cooking, and wooden boats, this time around, Ruhlman writes of a 200 year old house in Cleveland that he and his wife purchase and restore.

Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich (translated by Keith Gessen) (interview) - I don't think I set this 300 plus page book down once after I started reading it. Alexievich, at danger to her own self, visited the area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear reactor and interviewed anybody she could find who would talk - people who had been firefighters, or relatives of residents who evacuated, those who didn't, hunters of animals left behind, etc. It's absolutely fascinating to read what happened, how people found out, and the various reactions to the news.

One Last Book

The Bear Bryant Funeral Train by Brad Vice - Unless you already have a copy, or are willing to drop nearly a thousand dollars to obtain one, you'll not get a chance to read this former Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award winner. The press recalled and pulped as many of the copies as they could (and it sounds like they got most of the small print run) due to what is being referred to as plagiarism in the opening story, "Tuscaloosa Knights." It's too bad something else couldn't have been figured out as Vice is one helluva writer. If you look around, you can find many of the stories that are within the pages of the few copies floating around - at least two have been in the Algonquin Best New Stories of the South series in the past few years. A recent Five Points has the story, Mule, in it. The story that caused the trouble can be seen at www.storysouth.com (look for the link there to Thicket, where the story truly is located).{Ed: Dan recently responded to further allegations of plagiarism against Brad Vice at his blog.}

- C. Max Magee @ 7:27 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading: Conversational Reading

As the "A Year in Reading" series continues, I asked Scott, who runs one of my favorite blogs Conversational Reading, to share the best book he read all year. Not his favorite thing to do, but he indulged us nonetheless.

I hate picking my favorite of anything. I always feel like it's so arbitrary, that the reasons I like certain things are so various that it's difficult to compare and say one's better than the other. With that huge caveat, I'll say that my favorite read of the year is Yukio Mishima's Runaway Horses. It has a killer plot (I read the last 200 pages in one day) and brilliantly drawn characters, and it's the best examination of passion that I can remember reading. For those reasons, I feel like the book will never feel old, but it also happens to explore a society (Japan in the 1930s) that speaks very much to our own.

Runners-Up:

• River of Shadows by Rebecca Solnit
• The Windup Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
• Like a Fiery Elephant by Jonathan Coe
• Boredom by Alberto Moravia
• Hunger by Knut Hamsun
• Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

- C. Max Magee @ 11:38 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Yardley goes lowbrow

Jonathan Yardley, the Washington Post book critic, has named his best books of the year and - you're not going to believe this (I can hardly believe it as I'm typing this) - he singles out John Grisham (The Broker) and Michael Connelly (The Closers and The Lincoln Lawyer) for praise. Those three books mentioned above are officially on his "best books" list. Connelly I can understand, but Grisham? That's a huge surprise. I think it's great. For a critic of Yardley's stature, giving high praise to Grisham takes serious balls. Don't believe me? See for yourself.

Update: Grisham and Connelly make the Washington Post's Critic's Choices but not the Editor's Choices.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:25 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading: the Best, the Rest and the Disappointments

Among the people I asked to contribute to this year's "Year in Reading," are readers that I admire. Garth reads a great deal more than me and can digest the voluminous input impressively (just wish he'd start blogging again!). He's also the guy responsible for the great Lawrence Weschler reading list I posted early this year. Some of his reading this year comes from that list:

Top 3 Books I Read This Year:

• Tony Kushner - Angels in America: The Great American Drama? Kushner moves forward the form of the theater, but that's only what lures you in. What keeps you is that no living writer engages more fully with his characters. The Mike Nichols directed miniseries isn't bad, either.
• Joseph Mitchell: Up in the Old Hotel: An unparalleled raconteur. All of his New Yorker writings are compiled in this omnibus. His style lucid, compassionate, modest, wry, and charged with the wonder of being alive.
• Zadie Smith - On Beauty: As many have pointed out, flawed. But she rivals Kushner in her degree of empathy for her characters while, like him, never letting them off the hook.

The Best of the Rest (of Stuff I Read This Year)

• Walter Benjamin - Illuminations: The most sensitive and elliptical and sad of 20th century philosophers. One of Benjamin's ideas is worth a thousand of someone else's arguments.
• Gertrude Stein - Alice B. Toklas: Who knew I'd like Gertrude Stein? Don't believe the hype - read this book.
• Norman Mailer - The Executioner's Song: Again, who knew? In Cold Blood on amphetamines, this is a chilling, gripping, and strangely humble work. The second half opens up to depict the media machinery of which this book is brilliant!
• Patrik Ourednik - Europeana: Behind a sui generis form, itself worth the price of admission, lurks a quiet anguish at the depredations of the 20th Century.
• E.L. Doctorow - Ragtime: All it's said to be, and a great read to boot.
• Benjamin Barber - Jihad vs. McWorld: A lucid articulation of all the things you've ever suspected about late-capitalist globalism and factionalism but weren't sure how to say.
• Jonathan Lethem - The Disappointment Artist: The most complete thing Lethem has published. Not an enduring classic, but a totally charming read.

3 Disappointments

• Rick Moody - The Diviners: Bummer, man. This book has so much potential - and is definitely worth reading - but needed an editor who could say, in the end, "Something more has to happen!" Concludes not with a bang but with a whimper. But has HBO optioned the TV rights to "Werewolves of Fairfield County?"
• Charles Chadwick - It's All Right Now: Here, the whimper sets in after a completely fantastic first 180 pages - and continues for 400 more. You had me at hello, Chuck, and could have stopped after Part I. Again, where's the editor?
• Bret Easton Ellis - Lunar Park: Underrated, my ass. This book is terrible. Everything after the introduction is embarrassing. I don't know that an editor could have saved it, or why I read it. Avoid at all costs.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:27 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading: Golden Rule Jones

I asked Sam at Golden Rule Jones for the "best" book he read all year, and he came back with a literary biography that many were talking about this year (Scott, Bookish, Moorish)

I don't know about "best," but the funniest, saddest, most interesting, and most (oddly) inspiring book I read this year was Jonathan Coe's Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B. S. Johnson. Johnson wrote seven extraordinary novels between 1962 and his suicide in 1972. Coe, a novelist himself, tells the story of Johnson's life through 160 "fragments" from Johnson's own writings. For all his flaws, Johnson's energy, humor, and passion come blazing through. I loved this book.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:33 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post