James Hynes is the author of three novels, The Wild Colonial Boy, The Lecturer’s Tale, and Kings of Infinite Space, and a book of novellas, Publish and Perish. He’s a Michigander, but he’s lived in Austin, Texas, since 1995. Hynes adds, “I have a new novel that is, if I’d only get my ass in gear, a month or two away from being finished.”James Hynes’ Top Three… No, Top Four Books of 2007Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht. I’ve been an atheist since the age of 15, when I read Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth, but since then I’ve never really bothered to examine why I believe what I believe (or don’t believe, as the case may be). So, with atheism in the air recently, I read Ms. Hecht’s wonderful popular history of skepticism, from the Greeks to the present. It’s elegant, witty, and very light on its feet, with none of the arrogance, self-righteousness, or snarkiness of the New Atheists (Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.). I learned a lot, and now, thanks to Ms. Hecht, I have purchased a small library of classics of skepticism (by Epicurus, Cicero, Spinoza, Thomas Paine, and David Hume) that I’m working through, books I should have read as a philosophy major years ago, but didn’t.Rabbit at Rest by John Updike. When I was a young, stupid, unpublished writer, I used to diss Updike for being all style and no substance – sure the sentences were lovely, but his books weren’t about anything important, the way, say, Gravity’s Rainbow was. But since my father died a few years ago and I turned fifty, suddenly it turns out Updike’s novels, the Rabbit books in particular, are about everything. I started a couple of years ago by rereading Rabbit Run, and I finished the fourth and final book just a couple of weeks ago. Updike’s pointillist rendering of an ordinary and not even especially likable ordinary guy is both unsentimental and humane, and it manages, somehow, miraculously, to make everyday life into something epic.Dance Night by Dawn Powell. I decided to try Powell because my friend Kate Christensen (author of The Epicure’s Lament and The Great Man) has always spoken highly of her. I even had Katie’s permission not to like the book. But, as it turns out, I loved it. I gather that Powell’s best known books are about bohemian life in mid-century New York, but this one is a vivid and clear-eyed rendering of some intricately intertwined lives in a small, working-class town in Ohio in the early 20th century. Apart from a few touches, this book feels surprisingly contemporary. It’s expertly and surprisingly plotted, and, like the Updike book, it somehow manages to be mercilessly honest and tender all at once. It’s like a boiled-down Dreiser novel, only much, much better written than Dreiser.No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. After I finished the first hundred pages of this, I e-mailed my friend John Marks (author of The Wall and Fangland), who had raved to me about this, and asked him what all the fuss was. It’s just a Jim Thompson novel, I said, weary sheriff versus heartless psychopath out in arid West Texas, only with a higher literary gloss than Thompson’s work. John was gracious, as always – he’s a Texan himself – but I sensed that he thought I’d missed the point on this one. Which, it turns out, I had. I finished the book – just last night, as a matter of fact – and it turns out to have more in common with Dostoevsky than with Jim Thompson, if Dostoevsky wrote lightning-paced, violent thrillers that get adapted for the screen by the Coen brothers. As a thriller, it’s first rate, but what makes it a great novel are the first person sections by Sheriff Bell, whose faith in goodness is shaken to the core by the events of the novel and who speaks in pitch-perfect Texan. I’m still not sure it’s as good as Blood Meridian (my favorite McCarthy novel), but, as we say in Texas, it’ll do till the real thing gets here.More from A Year in Reading 2007
…Nicola Barker's Darkmans. It wasn't released in the US until late November; will everyone finally catch on in 2008?
…Ian McEwan, The Child in Time. It is one of the last McEwans I had remaining, and for some reason I wasn't expecting much. Instead I got an adventurous experimental novel. The McEwan dissenters have a point with Amsterdam and Saturday — surely not here.
Well it's hard to choose. The best two books I read this year, definitely Snow and My Name is Red (idolatry of Pamuk can be found on my blog starting here) — those are probably the best two books I've read in a couple of years.
…Maugham's Razor's Edge, and Coetzee's Disgrace.
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt.
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin and
The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux. Although it wasn't noted on the list of books I've read, I also really enjoyed Garth Hallberg's A Field Guide to the North American Family. All three had great descriptions of spaces that helped me position myself within each book.
Max, good work on the blog this year!
Forgetfulness by Ward Just – one man's sober, restrained, thoughtful response to terrorism.
Tree of Smoke
by Denis Johnson
The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross. A shadow history of the 20th century through music, it is a completely absorbing read and makes one want to listen to every piece of music he describes.
An Equal Music, by Vikram Seth, Sarah Waters's Night Watch, and In the Eye of the Sun by Ahdaf Souief. All smart, original, and absorbing.
At the suggestion of Ms. Millions a long time ago, I finally read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, it took two seasons but was worth the journey. It is now considered one of my favorites! Thanks Ms. Millions!
MAN GONE DOWN by Michael Thomas, a little like James Baldwin's "Another Country" meets "Good Will Hunting," that rare African American novel of identity which is extremely well-written but not preachy and doesn't browbeat the reader. What I mean is that unlike Baldwin's novel about an interracial relationship in which a bisexual black jazz musician mentally and physically abuses his lover – a white Southern woman who goes insane after which he leaps to his death off the George Washington Bridge – Thomas is not trying to PROVE anything (Baldwin's character were meant to portend America's fate if it continued to prevent people from connecting irrespective of differences). This novel is philosophically more in tune with Ralph Ellison, I would say.
I'll also second Fredericktoo's nomination of TREE OF SMOKE by Denis Johnson, which gets really interesting around the time Skip translates the Antonin Artaud passage with its echoes of semiotics.
The worst book I read all year was I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson. Wow.
I'm bad at "bests," though, so here are several I enjoyed.
VALDEZ IS COMING, Elmore Leonard
ROCK SPRINGS, Richard Ford
THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION, Michael Chabon
ANGELS, Denis Johnson
THE ROAD, Cormac McCarthy
THE DEAD FISH MUSEUM, Charles D'Ambrosio
FAT CITY, Leonard Gardner
THE COAST OF CHICAGO, Stuart Dybek
DROWN, Junot Diaz
a tie! Both very different, both very excellent: "Then We Came to the End" by Joshua Ferris was the wonderful surprise/debut of the year, and "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy is simply a force of language that cannot be ignored.
Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Reading THE USED WORLD by Haven Kimmel was the most engrossing and divine experience I've had with a book in a long, long time.
Stoner by John Williams.
Max:
Thank you for a terrific series and for your hard work with The Millions. I enjoy the blog immensely.
My favorites for the year were The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Stunning work. And The Perfect Man by Naeem Murr — another riveting novel that sadly seems to have sunk into obscurity.
Hope you and your team have a terrific '08!
Away, by Amy Bloom. It is a female extreme adventure story and the writing is exquisite.
I have enjoyed The Millions all year. Thanks to the "ask a book question" guy for your recommendations on books set in Paris.
Can't decide between Memories of My Melancholy Whores, Forgetfulness, and Everyman
— Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (1881). I read several new (2007) novels but this one beat them all (and was also new for me).
Of 2007 works, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is impressive, but given the mix of Spanish and sf/fantasy references (Gary Gygax and Porfirio Rubirosa share pages with cuco and la ciguapa, Shelob, Dr. Zaius, Chakobsa and Dr. Gull), no wonder that, even with Pulitzer talk, very few people are attempting to read it (only 27,000 copies sold, according to a post-Christmas AP wire report at http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hAU6173HEXh_YzLoDnjQRY2yf4TwD8TQNCCO0)
I kept wishing for a genre glossary/Dominican slang dictionary stuck in the back, but a good one would probably double the size of the book and cripple the reading experience for those of us going back and forth.
A word for graphic novels in 2007:
The Courageous Princess by Rod Espinoza (http://www.amazon.com/Courageous-Princess-Rod-Espinosa/dp/159307719X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198984971&sr=8-1) is one of the better kid-friendly graphic novels to come out in 2007 and in glorious full color,too, unlike The Invention of Hugo Cabret (http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Hugo-Cabret-Brian-Selznick/dp/0439813786/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198985585&sr=1-1)
whose black and white images suit the silent film theme but never seem to rise above the overwhelming melancholy of the story.
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (http://www.amazon.com/Arrival-Shaun-Tan/dp/0439895294/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198985415&sr=1-1)is is also black and white but more open-hearted in its depiction of humanity, and the artist/writer sweeps you up in a terrific wordless depiction of the immigrant experience (it is also G-rated but adult in sensibility and visual sophistication).
Lastly, thanks for an amazing year of The Millions, Max, and all the work you put into it; your year-end contributor's lists of "Best Reads" also just keep getting better. Happy 2008!
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie.
Can't pick just one. Actually, I can't even remember them all but a few favorites were, After This by Alice McDermott, The Echo Maker by Richard Powers,and I love/hated The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale was fascinating and multi-layered; I look forward to re-reading many times. Also John Crowley's books. Thanks to The Millions for the references to both of these authors! And although not a "best", I'd recommend Nicholas Christopher's A Trip to the Stars and The Bestiary. Finally, I'd include Verlyn Klinkenborg's Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile. It's a beautifully written, quiet book unlike any other I've seen.
Thanks for promoting the concept of Trusted Fellow Readers!
Two from this year are tied for best: Montano's Malady, by Enrique Vila-Matas; and Extinction, by Thomas Bernhard.
Eat, Pray, Love which had an enormous impact on me.
Funny no one has mentioned Against the Day — what did you all think of it? I was very happy with it — it would be my favorite book of 2007 if I had not found out about Pamuk. Or were you all speedy readers and finished it in 2006?
the Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian. there's nothing else like it.
The Go Giver by Authors Bob Burg and John David Mann was my favorite read of 2007. I received it for Christmas and couldn't put it down!
The Testament of Gideon Mack, by James Robertson, tied with Bedlam by Jennifer Higgie.
I really enjoyed Divisidero by Michael Ondaatje. His diction and sense of atmosphere is beautiful…
I read so many great books this year! One of my favorite was Eat- Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. A funny, poignant, and honest story about how a woman had to go around the world to find out who she really was.