A Year in Reading: Jonathan Lethem

At the end of last year, my brain had been steeping in mid-century Southern literature as research for South Toward Home for so long that I resolved in 2015 to read mostly books that had come out in the past five years. That mostly worked out: this year had some real dazzlers in the bunch, the kind of books that I would start reading on a Saturday morning and soon find myself cancelling weekend plans to finish by Sunday night. Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life was like that, as was Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies, Catie Disabato’s The Ghost Network, and Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, which I read greedily one summer afternoon before immediately launching into her equally excellent Bluets. In mid-summer I was derailed from my resolution by the juicy, dreamy Meanwhile There Are Letters, a collection of the correspondence between Eudora Welty and Ross MacDonald, which sent me back into Flannery O’Connor’s sharp, insightful correspondence collection The Habit of Being, the kind of book that I’m always tempted to buy extra copies of so that I can pass them out to friends. This year I first read Percival Everett, thanks to his new collection, Half an Inch of Water, and went on a collect-them-all mission until I had a good five of his books teetering on my nightstand. But one of the books that’s most stuck in my brain this year is Gold Fame Citrus, Claire Vaye Watkins’s stunner of a debut novel. I read it in the unseasonal heat of early September, when her vision of a parched, overheated, waterless country seemed particularly close at hand, but I’ve found myself reaching for it in the cooler months too, to reread passages of Watkins’s semi-apocalyptic psycho-geography of the West. It’s a fascinating piece of work, bleak and weird and unafraid to question the assumptions of American mythology, and even be a little bored by the idea of a dystopian future. Plus, there’s a huge ever-moving sand dune. It’s pretty great. More from A Year in Reading 2015 Don't miss: A Year in Reading 2014, 2013, 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.

I was first introduced to Scott at BEA in DC this past spring, and though I'd come across his blog, SlushPile.Net, in passing before, I began reading it in earnest after we met. I'm glad I did. He delivers a steady flow of commentary that is instructive and often funny. I've been enjoying it quite a bit so I'm glad he found some time to talk about the best book he read this year.I must say, it's a challenge. Sometimes I feel like I read so much that it all kind of runs together. And even though I KNOW there are great books, they kind of get dulled by all the others.Anyhow, looking back on the year, the book that I really enjoyed, and stands out because it was such a pleasant surprise was...Seaworthy by T.R. PearsonThis nonfiction book details the trans-Pacific journeys of William Willis. At an age when most people enjoy retirement, Willis built a raft by hand and sailed from South America to Australia. He set out on his first trip when he was sixty. He repeated the adventure when he was seventy. Willis was part hero, part idiot. The storyline itself is compelling enough, but Pearson's warm, sophisticated tone suits this tale impeccably.Thanks Scott!