Unlike James, I'm not going to review every book I finished in 2008. Face it, you weren't going to read all that anyway. As explained here, I made a New Year's resolution to finish 50 books in 2008. I say finish because I counted any book I started in another year but finished now (such as Infinite Jest, which I started way back in 2005 I think) and excluded any book I started this year but have not completed (The True History of the Kelly Gang, Yonder Stands Your Orphan, etc.)
Blah blah.
Okay, my final tally for 2008? duh duh duh duh.... 64 books.
The list (in chronological order):
* Books I've read before.
1) The Aspern Papers – Henry James
2) How the Water Feels to the Fishes – Dave Eggers
3) Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape – Sarah Manguso
4) The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter
5) The Art of the Possible – Kenneth Koch
6) Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon*
7) American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
8) Erasure – Percival Everett
9) Chronicle of a Death Foretold – Marquez
10) Venus Drive – Sam Lipsyte
11) Minor Robberies – Deb Olin Unferth
12) A Fan’s Notes – Frederick Exley
13) Captain Maximus – Barry Hannah
14) The Angle of Yaw – Ben Lerner
15) The Voice at 3:00 AM – Charles Simic
16) All the Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy
17) Chord of Light – Zbigniew Herbert
18) Stars of the New Curfew – Ben Okri
19) Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
20) Men and Cartoons – Jonathan Lethem
21) Ant Farm – Simon Rich
22) 60 Poems – Charles Simic
23) In Persuasion Nation – George Saunders
24) Paradise – Donald Barthelme
25) Partial List of People to Bleach – Gary Lutz
26) McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #24
27) The Nimrod Flipout – Etgar Keret
28) The Elements of Style – Strunk and White*
29) The World Doesn’t End – Charles Simic*
30) I Killed Adolf Hitler – Jason
31) Rock Springs – Richard Ford
32) What I’d Say to the Martians – Jack Handey
33) The Wavering Knife – Brian Evenson
34) Ghost Town – Robert Coover
35) Housekeeping – Marilynne Robinson
36) Knightfall - Dixon et al*
37) i hate to see that evening sun go down – William Gay
38) Home Land – Sam Lipsyte
39) Ultramarine – Raymond Carver
40) The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
41) Flash Fiction Forward – ed. James Thomas & Robert Shapard
42) The Drowned River – Thomas Lux
43) Flash Fiction – ed. James Thomas et al
44) My Custom Van – Michael Ian Black
45) I Pass Like Knight – Jonathan Ames
46) Eternal Enemies – Adam Zagajewski
47) Der Struwwelmaakies – Tony Millionare
48) Emergence – Steven Johnson
49) The Dog of the Marriage – Amy Hempel
50) Coming Through Slaughter – Michael Ondaatje
51) Ray – Barry Hannah
52) Practice, Restraint – Laura Sims
53) CivilWarLand in Bad Decline – George Saunders
54) Novels in Three Lines – Felix Feneon
55) The Savage Detectives – Roberto Bolano
56) Best American Poetry 2008 – ed. Charles Wright
57) McSweeney’s #20
58) The Tunnel – Ernesto Sabato
59) The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. Le Guin
60) Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
61) No one belongs here more than you – Miranda July
62) A Murder of Quality – John Le Carre
63) Batman Year One – Frank Miller
64) Last Evenings on Earth – Roberto Bolano
23 Story Collections
20 Novels
10 Poetry books
6 Comics/Graphic Novels
3 Humor books
2 Non-fiction books
5 anthologies
9 books in translation (excluding anthologies)
Authors read more than once? Barry Hannah, Roberto Bolano, Sam Lipsyte, Charles Simic and George Saunders.
Top 10 Favorites (no order):
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exley
Rock Springs by Richard Ford
The World Doesn't End by Charles Simic
Ghost Town by Robert Coover
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Homeland by Sam Lipsyte
What I'd Say to the Martians by Jack Handey
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
11 Honorable mentions:
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by G. G. Marquez
Minor Robberies by Deb Olin Unferth
Ray by Barry Hannah
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
I Killed Adolf Hitler by Jason
Venus Drive by Sam Lipsyte
Stars of the New Curfew by Ben Okri
Ant Farm by Simon Rich
Novels in Three Lines by Felix Feneon
I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down by William Gay
Eternal Enemies by Adam Zagajewski
Goodreads
5 comments:
so you finished Erasure?
Yessum. I don't think I had that much left.
also unlike james, you're not going to list ones you didn't finish.
Came across your blog on MFA blog. I believe you focused on poetry at Columbia right? Anyway, when you say you read a book of poems, a Simic book for instance, how much effort goes into that reading? Personally, I give the poems I like a good two or three reads maybe more. The ones I don't like as much I read thru once or twice. Always there's that hope that you come across something that's gonna stay with you, but in a sense, I never feel like I've actually read a book of poems so much as tried a book of poems. Do you feel like this as well? Or at this point in your reading/studies/career do you feel like you pretty much own what you read?
Best to you!
Hey Mike, thanks for the comment.
Actually, I studied fiction at Columbia and I am probably totally out of my depth when reading poetry. Reading poems multiple times does seem essential, but like you I tend to only do that to the ones that grab me.
Post a Comment