I was going to say that the books I found most striking in 2009 were nonfiction, but as I think about it, that’s not completely true. Yes, I would say that the “best” books I read this year (whatever that means) fall into this category: William Vollmann’s Imperial and Dave Cullen’s Columbine, both of which used a combination of reporting, reflection and narrative to undercut pervasive myths about their subjects and get at the more complicated stories underneath. But equally compelling were a trio of small books — B.H. Fairchild’s poetry collection Usher, Lydia Millet’s short story collection Love in Infant Monkeys, and Ted Kooser’s brief memoir Lights on a Ground of Darkness — that each in its own way reordered my inner world. What connects all of these books, including “Imperial” and “Columbine,” is the depth of their observation, their tendency to nuance and detail, the way they have of slowing down the moment so that we can see it fresh.
A Year in Reading: David L. Ulin
A Year in Reading: Scaachi Koul
Oh my god, would you believe that we didn’t die this year? It’s an achievement. You really did your best in the hellfire of 2017. Treat yourself! Get a big juice.
●
●
●
A Year in Reading: Kelly Link
Duplex by Kathryn Davis
An astonishing, peculiar experience, reading Davis, like being pricked all over so that every bit of the strangeness of this book can seep into you. The kind of writer who makes me want to corner strangers on buses, so I can read whole paragraphs at them. This book is haunting me.
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
I read Mr. Fox last year, and then I picked it up and read it again this summer. Loop-the-loop, whip-smart fairytale stuff, reminiscent of Angela Carter and Joanna Russ and Grace Paley.
Remember Why You Fear Me by Robert Shearman
My absolute favorite thing: a collection of really, really horrible and unsettling stories. Best read late at night, when no one else is home.
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
Expansive, character-, and idea-driven science fiction. I'm still reading this, actually, as slowly as possible. And then I'll start his latest novel, Shaman.
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh
One of my favorite writers. Dogs, childhood, depression, cake.
Twin Spica Volume 12 by Kou Yagima
Final book in a really terrific manga series about kids, ghosts, and space academy.
Oh! And one more, at the very last minute. One of my favorite books this year was Kelly Braffett's Save Yourself, a book I bought when it first came out, then misplaced, then finally (hallelujah!) found again. Save Yourself did a number on my heart and my brain. I love it in the same way that I love Tana French's In the Woods, Dan Chaon's work, and Asa Larssen's thrillers.
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
Like what you see? Learn about 5 insanely easy ways to Support The Millions, and follow The Millions on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr.
A Year in Reading: Maria Semple
Maria Semple wrote for Arrested Development, Mad About You and Ellen. Her first novel, This One is Mine, is being published by Little, Brown in December 2008. Read more about it at www.mariasemple.com.Having my first novel coming out this year, I ended up becoming kind of obsessed with the "New Arrival" fiction table at bookstores. Of the dozens of books I bought, my favorite was When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale. It's the story of a mentally ill woman dragging her children around Europe, written from the point of view of her nine year old son, Lawrence. The voice is so charming and poignant that months later, it melts my heart just thinking about it. Still, the story is a harrowing one. Another favorite was Two Marriages by Philip Lopate. I'm a fan of anything Lopate writes, so it was a real thrill to devour these two novellas. Speaking of an unforgettable first-person voice, the narrator of the gripping "The Skeptic's Marriage" is both pitiful and maddening. Lopate manages to have great compassion for his stuffy narrator while knocking him around in a wild and hilarious plot that's full of surprises. More from A Year in Reading 2008
●
●
●
2 comments:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
A Year In Reading: Michael Schaub
Kinnell was something like a connoisseur of loss, both actual and anticipated. And he anticipated his own, often.
●
●
A Year in Reading: Carolyn Kellogg
Carolyn Kellogg is a book critic and the lead blogger at the LA Times book blog Jacket Copy. She recently got www.carolynkellogg.com to call her very own.Dracula by Bram Stoker. There are Goths and there are Vampire Weekend fanatics, but I'm not among them; I wouldn't have re-read Dracula if I hadn't had to for a literature class in graduate school. But wow. Written in 1897, Dracula is a fractured, multifaceted narrative told in journals, letters, diaries and newspaper clippings, from the point of view of four different characters. If I'd turned in such a thing in workshop, I would have been accused of the crime of postmodernism. Anyway. It's a terrific crime novel that chases the villain across Europe, and Mina Murray is one ballsy Victorian heroine.The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman he Loved by Judith Freeman. Judith Freeman tries to get to the heart of Raymond Chandler's relationship with his wife Cissy - she was eighteen years his senior, a fact that was kept secret, even, for some time, from Chandler himself. During her research, Freeman begins to stalk his ghost: she goes from house to house across Southern California, trying to see how the couple's many moves inflected what Chandler wrote. I did not always agree with her read of Los Angeles and its neighborhoods, but as a work of biography The Long Embrace is more honest than most. Freeman's obsessions are a frame for her work; she exposes them where more formal biographies keep them under wraps. Yes, she loves reading Raymond Chandler; yes, she is entranced by his marriage; and no, she will never get close enough.More from A Year in Reading 2008
●
●
A Year in Reading: Rick Moody
Is it really a novel? Or is it a prose-poem? Or is it a work of non-fiction written by deranged, and eccentric genius somewhere out in the deep woods of the South, while slapping a mosquitoes and lamenting, generally, a life lived on the outside?
●
●
A Year in Reading: Liz Moore
Liz Moore graduated from Barnard College in 2005. Her first novel, The Words of Every Song, centers on a fictional record company in New York City and the lives of a broad set of characters connected to it. A musician herself, Moore has performed at many of New York's institutions. She released her first album, Backyards, now available on iTunes and CDBaby, in September. Her websites are www.lizmooremusic.com and www.myspace.com/lizmooremusic.I quit my full-time job and started an MFA program this year, which has given me the opportunity to both read a lot of great stuff and berate myself daily for not being as literate as my classmates.Nevertheless, here are some books I have read and enjoyed this year: Ishiguro's Remains of the Day; Goodnight Sisters, selected columns by Irish journalist Nell McCafferty; and, because quitting my job has caused me to take up babysitting, quite an assortment of children's books. My favorite are the Fancy Nancy series and every Barbie book ever written, mainly because some of them include photographs of actual plastic Barbie dolls stiffly pursuing various leisure activities, such as tennis and baking, and I cannot emphasize enough how incredibly weird and awesome this looks.I also re-read Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. These are my desert-island books: I could read them monthly, I think, and still come up with new visions and versions of his beautifully imagined characters and their intertwined lives.More from A Year in Reading 2007
●
●
I can’t find a good place to jump in with a general comment so this is the latest My Year in Reading so I’ll jump in here.
I love this chain of writers/readers/writers/readers. So many interesting books to put on hold at the library, books I never would have found on my own. This is why I love The Millions.
Also, or But–I wish pop culture (junk to me) didn’t get sentences and paragraphs here. RIP Susan Sontag, it’s really tricky to write about pop culture or its context and have it be truly interesting. As David Ulin says above, all of his selections in some way “reordered his inner world.” That’s what I want and Jackie Chan, Madonna or Beyonce will never ever do this for me. Others disagree. Just my two shekels.
I agree that “reordered my inner world” is a phrase both lovely and precise for that thing that happens when a book moves/changes you. I’m going to be quoting that for a while.