There is a tangible shape to my year in reading: it can be plotted on a map. It’s comforting for me to think of it that way, as a path arcing out across the Atlantic, because this was my year of big transitions, and it’s easy to lose sight of where I began, and where I am now. I rang in 2013 at a bar on the Gowanus in Brooklyn, my home for the past five years (the borough, not the canal). I’m writing this from my flat in Hackney, tucked between a big, grimy thoroughfare and a slick new Overground station, on the extension of the old East London Line. New York and London sometimes feel like mirror worlds — some things here are remarkably similar to the city I left behind — but other things are deeply foreign, in a way that rattles me. I grasp for the familiar, but I’m here to look for the new. It helps, then, to root myself in the books I’ve been reading over the past 11 months: they have carried me across the ocean, as I have carried them.
Fittingly enough, I began the year with Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain, by Robert Winder. I have no memory of purchasing this book, but it appears to have been printed here in the U.K., so I imagine I picked it up on some Waterstone’s table years ago. (I’ve done stints of various lengths in the British Isles many times in the past decade, all of them characterized by too many impulse-book-buys relative to the sizes of my suitcases.) I’m an aspirational reader when it comes to nonfiction: “Oh, I’m interested in the topic!” I’ll say, super enthusiastically, but in the end I’ll barely manage to slog through the introduction. But Winder is a lively and charming writer, and the book teases out a thread that runs contrary to the popular immigration narrative in Britain: that immigration here, and the racial conflict tied with it, is a modern problem, a post-colonial problem. “Ever since the first Jute, the first Saxon, the first Roman and the first Dane leaped off their boats and planted their feet on British mud, we have been a mongrel nation,” he writes. “Our roots are neither clean nor straight; they are impossibly tangled.”
My spring reading was routine, a stockpile of books for review, some chosen by me, some assigned. So I crisscrossed the globe seemingly at random, cartography determined by publishing schedules and press releases, South Asia to southern New England, Ireland to New York. I like being assigned books, because it takes the pressure off, sometimes: save a few writers that I love and a few that I hate, most authors are new to me. I try to approach each book as an aggressively neutral third party, no preconceived notions, no agendas, no hopes for the reading experience. Of course, at some level, this is bullshit: I am all of my preconceived notions and agendas and hopes for reading packed into a single individual, and it’s impossible to separate that out. But I like the illusion of it, however temporary: the idea that I am a blank slate, open to whatever book drops through my letter box, is a sort of armor against time’s narrowing effects on my mind.
And then, it was goodbye to all that. Before the release of the collection that seemed to get all sorts of people riled up (Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York), I wrote my own ode to Joan Didion’s leaving-New York essay, as I prepared to leave New York. So I re-read Slouching Towards Bethlehem, because, well, Joan Didion. Shortly before I packed up the last of my boxes, I flew across the country to visit my little sister in Los Angeles, and I cracked open The White Album for another Didion re-read while sitting on the beach in Santa Monica. I confirmed what I’d suspected all along — I’m very bad at reading on beaches — and the book was abandoned in the sand as my shoulders burned.
The end of summer was crisp and prematurely autumnal in upstate New York, and as the racing season came to a close, I started to think about which books were making the journey overseas. I made little piles; I swapped out heavier volumes for lighter ones; I tried to think about what I wanted at my side, and the old aspirational book-gathering again — what sort of person would I be, with these books on my shelf across the ocean? I wound up in the parking lot at JFK on the hottest day in the history of man, sweating profusely as I frantically pulled out paperbacks and handed them to my mother. They would arrive, along with boots and coats and a blanket, in a battered package a month later. By then, I’d already purchased a dozen new books, falling hard on old habits, Waugh and Forster and Conan Doyle, overlarge collections of literary criticism by Edward Said and David Lodge, and a paperback of a book I already own back in the U.S., just because it was £2 and it was there sitting on a table at the store. I trekked up to the IKEA in Tottenham and bought a BILLY bookcase; I proceeded to assemble it incorrectly. It’s nearly full already, and it’s only November. At the Columbia Road Flower Market a few Sundays back I bought my first plant, to sit on top. “It’s my first plant!” I announced to a deeply unimpressed Cockney flower-seller. “Yeah, so that’s a fiver,” he repeated, holding out his hand.
I’ve ended the year with books for class — I’m here at University College London to study the digital humanities, so that’s a broad and varied body of literature, the history of mark-up and theories on user-centered design and Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. All of that will be the story of next year’s reading. For now, I’m trying to navigate my transatlanticism as well as I can. On Thanksgiving, after the American service at St Paul’s Cathedral, I walked down Fleet Street and over to Charing Cross Road, where I popped into Foyle’s and picked up Terry Eagleton’s Across the Pond: An Englishman’s View of America. On my way out the door I was stopped by a survey-taker — this country seems gripped by a frenzy of surveys right now — to whom I revealed, laughing self-consciously, that I’d come into the store and purchased the book on a whim. Her eyebrows went up when I said it, and she smiled slightly as she ticked the boxes. I didn’t tell her I had a new bookshelf to fill up.
More from A Year in Reading 2013
Don’t miss: A Year in Reading 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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…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.