A Year in Reading: Rosecrans Baldwin

December 2, 2008 | 7 books mentioned 1

Rosecrans Baldwin’s first novel, You Lost Me There is coming out soon with Riverhead Books. He’s a founding editor of The Morning News.

coverThe Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy was one of my favorite books this year. I was living in Paris and it told stories that resembled way too closely my friends’ mishaps, and Dundy wrote it in the fifties. It’s sexy, it’s funny, it’s light on its toes. I’d happily read it again tomorrow if 2666 wasn’t standing between me and the exit.

Away by Amy Bloom – fantastic! And I got to Purple Hibiscus, Adichie’s first novel before her insanely good Half of a Yellow Sun, and it’s flat-out terrific, too. Philip Kerr’s A Quiet Flame kept Bernie Gunther alive for another installment, I’m thankful for that. I discovered Peter Høeg, whom I knew from Smilla’s Sense of Snow, but hadn’t kept up with, and I lucked into The Quiet Girl; now I’ve got to go back and read his oeuvre.

Basically I’m hoping Santa brings me a Kindle this year.

More from A Year in Reading 2008

is the author of You Lost Me There (Riverhead), one of NPR’s Best Books of 2010 and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. His travel memoir, Paris, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down, is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux in April 2012. He is a co-founder of the online magazine The Morning News.