Perhaps the only real privilege that comes with being a writer is the chance to peer into the future and read books that have yet to be published — books that arrive in manila envelopes, unbound, or in your email as a PDF or even better, simple Word doc with only a title page for a cover. Steve Toltz’s Quicksand won’t be published until 2015, and I imagine by the time its published, I will have read it at least once more because it’s much funnier and wiser than any novel I’ve read in quite some time. And then there’s Claudia Rankine and Beth Loffreda’s The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind which will be out in early 2015, and which while reading I wished could have been published years ago, or perhaps simply every year because it starts, or better yet insists on continuing, a conversation on race and the imagination that’s too important to ignore.
And as for books published in 2014, I’ll remain grateful for many years for Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation — a book that, all too often, I found myself reading aloud from to whoever happened to be near me at that moment — and for Akhil Sharma’s Family Life, and the always extraordinary Helen Oyeyemi for Boy Snow Bird, two novels that I carried with me on many planes, across numerous borders, even after I had finished them because they were such exquisite, perfect company.
More from A Year in Reading 2014
Don’t miss: A Year in Reading 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
The good stuff: The Millions’ Notable articles
The motherlode: The Millions’ Books and Reviews
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Hey, Max. I read the interview you and the other bloggers did, and I thought it was very informative and insightful. I felt some relief when you guys admitted to spending hours composing your posts; I thought I was the only one who spent that long writing my posts (and for the longer pieces, like my reviews or my criticism, it's not unusual for me spend several days writing them). But I also take pride in my blog, and it's obvious that you and the others do as well.
And I'd like to wish you and your family happy holidays.
It took me a while, but I just finished putting together a list of all the books I read in 2006: all 110 of them! This is more than double what I read in 2005, due to various factors (explained in more detail in the post). They're broken down into categories, and I denoted the ones that I liked the best. :)
http://www.zandria.us/archives/000925.html