Whew… Ok, I feel much better now. Well rested and ready to continue:Feeding a Yen by Calvin Trillin: It’s not that I love all food writers or that I necessarily am enamored by all writing about food. I’ve just noticed these past few years that there are particular characteristics shared by a lot of food writers that attract me to them as writers. They are very knowledgeable but also self-effacing. They tend to be intrepid travelers with acquaintances on most continents who will gladly direct them to the finest cuisine in the area, and often times these writers, in order to fuel their pens, will receive the finest that these far-flung kitchens have to offer. Ideally, the reader will get an insider’s view of a place, one that he will not be able to necessarily be able to replicate, but that he might strive for. An example, when I was in Barcelona this summer, stoked by the writing of Trillin and Jeffrey Steingarten and Jonathan Gold, I was probably most intrigued by the food of the place, a regional cuisine that isn’t duplicated elsewhere. Though I might not end up at a four star spot nor be able to decipher the recipe for the grilled sardines or paella that I just ate, I can nonetheless follow in these writers’ footsteps as I strive to learn about a place by looking for and at its food. And most of all I can follow in Trillin’s footsteps as I seek out deliciousness in all its forms. There’s something wonderful about devoting yourself to seeking out the joy comes from a good meal.The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten: Steingarten shares with Trillin a love for food, but beyond that they couldn’t be more different. Trillin is folksy and innocent, while Steingarten is a brash, but hilarious, know-it-all who spends as much time writing about himself as he does about food. He puffs himself up and then lets out the air. Most often this occurs over the course of one of his kitchen experiments where he attempts to make the perfect french fry or the perfect fried chicken during which he makes an unholy mess, comes to no conclusion (which is all the more funny considering the certitude with which he undertook the venture), and fun is had by all. The Man Who Ate Everything, his first collection, is good, though a bit wearying by the end. I’ve read bits of It Must’ve Been Something I Ate, and it seems to be even better, since by this time he has really mastered his style.Yours, and Mine: Novella and Stories by Judith Rascoe and…..Last Courtesies and Other Stories by Ella Leffland: I was inspired by a couple of things to read these two books. First, I had the opportunity last summer to meet Edwin Frank, the editor of the NYRB press. We talked a lot about The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll, of course, but we also talked about how he finds titles to bring back into print. Many are books that he has long been aware of, that he has watched go out of print, and then he has stepped in and reissued them, but there are other titles that he has found by trolling the sidewalk book tables in Manhattan looking for hidden gems, a name that sounds familiar or a title that sounds intriguing. At the time, I had recently finished the collection Prize Stories of the Seventies: From the O. Henry Awards, and I though that it might be interesting to track down the long out of print books by a couple of the writers whose stories I had enjoyed, but whose names were unfamiliar. Though the books themselves were quite good, I really enjoyed reading these as an exploration of the trajectory of the American short story. There is a sorrowful decadence to these stories, a feeling that the world might be unraveling before our eyes. Leffland and Rascoe certainly deserve their places in the O. Henry collection, and it’s a shame that they cannot be more widely read today.The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen: In August, over the course of this post and this one there was a discussion here at The Millions about who currently holds the title of best young writer, and who, among those under 50, will still be read voraciously a generation or two from now. Many names were batted around, but the one book that everyone agreed upon was The Corrections. Due to my perhaps unfounded dislike of Franzen, I hadn’t yet read the book, but inspired by the discussion, I immediately went out and read the book, was pretty dazzled by it, and wrote this post about it. I hope that The Millions can be host to more great discussions like this one in 2004.Well, it looks like there will be a part four. I promise I’ll finish soon. Maybe even this afternoon!
Truman by David McCullough
The best books I’ve read all year have, for the most part, been translations: The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi, Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge, Independent People by Halldor Laxness, and The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki. And one non-translation–George Eliot’s Middlemarch. I just can’t narrow it down to one. Oh, I almost forgot–A Tomb for Boris Davidovich by Danilo Kis.
The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave
The best books I read this year were the Europa translations of Elena Ferrantes novels, Rock Island Line by David Rhodes, and The Armies by Evelio Rosero.
Best novel “rediscovered” this year was A Long, Long Way by Sebastian Barry.
Happy holidays to the Millions contributors, and look forward to reading you in 2010!
American Rust by Philipp Meyer and The Great Perhaps by Joe Meno
Not done with it yet, but Margaret Atwood’s Payback is turning out to be the most interesting book I’ve read this year. The historical, literary, anthropological, sociological, and psychological analysis of debt in essentially every meaning of the word is thought-provoking and ingenious.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell was a close second.
I am new to this blog but yet would like to post my read novels and books which I completed in the year 2009….The latest being John Grisham’s Ford County, I am happy to have ended with a thrilling short story collection…I am not a passionate reader but now with my most of the time getting consumed up on net, i prefer reading ebooks directly online from store like A1Books and purchase physical books rarely. But reading blogs like these has really aroused an interest. I hope to read more of them in the coming year 2010.
Cheers to readers!!!
Machine by Peter Adolphsen
Militant Modernism by Owen Hatherly
Impotent by Matthew Roberson
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.
But The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters deserves a special mention.
The best new book I read this year was either “lowboy” by John Wray or “Chronic City” by Jonathan Lethem.
The best book I read this year was hands down Amy Hempel’s Collected Stories. I haven’t gotten to too many new releases yet but Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor was also a great treat.
The best “new” books (new to me, at least) that I read this year include:
Mariette in Ecstasy — Ron Hansen
The Transit of Venus — Shirley Hazzard
In the Skin of a Lion — Michael Ondaatje
Also, this was the year of James Salter. Why did it take me so long to discover his work? Dusk, Last Night, Light Years, and A Sport and a Pasttime — enthralling books, every one.
Tender Is The Night.
hear, hear, Chad!
Blame by Michelle Huneven. I’m checking out the rest of her work pronto.
Call it Sleep by Henry Roth, definitely the most beautiful novel I’ve read in a long time and one that more people should know about.
Mike, I remember in the 60s when Call it Sleep got rediscovered. Time for another rediscovery.
I want to list my best books but I am away and my book list is in my computer at home. My poor memory frustrates me, maybe this thread will still be going in a few days. Elegance of the Hedgehog, The Housekeeper and the Professor, early Coetzee (Waiting for the Barbarians and Life and Times of Michael K), rereading Natalia Ginzburg, went on an immigrant short story journey (binge)–Ha Jin, David Bezmozgis, Jumpa Lahiri, Andrei Codrescu, Isaac Rosenfeld and others.
– “Revolutionary Road” by Richard Yates.
– “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murakami
– “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole
– “The Master and the Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov
– “The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy
– “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
“Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen was the best page turner I read this year.
I alos discovered “I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith and thought it was a lovely book.
But my favorite that I read this year, and one that had a great impact on me, was “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson.
Ugh, it’s impossible to pick just one book in a year in which I discovered Roberto Bolaño, Richard Yates and Hans Fallada.
Best books I read this year
Kurt Vonnegut – “Slaughterhouse V”
George R.R. Martin – “Game of Thrones”
Stephen Fry – “Moab is my Washpot”
“Everything Matters!” by Ron Currie, Jr. Followed closely by “The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet” by Reif Larsen.
I concur on the Henry Roth book, Call It Sleep. I read this in the early 80’s. It is a truly beautiful book. Another book I read about the same time–equally stunning and unforgettable–is Harriette Arnow’s masterpiece The Dollmaker. The Dollmaker is on a list that looks very intriguing–along with one of my favorites of the year (as well as being one of the best books I’ve ever read) Enchi’s The Waiting Years. The list is 500 Great Books by Women. Others included are Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Olive Schreiner’s Story of an African Farm. Those four alone are pretty high-calibre books. I’m sure the rest are just as wonderful.
“The Elegance of the Hedgehog” by Muriel Barbery.
Favorite book was “The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer and also, “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett. Both were so good, I wanted to leave parties to go home and read!
The best books I read all year:
— By Night in Chile, para Bolano
— Death in Spring, Rodoreda
— Les Fiancailles de M. Hire, par Simenon
— Henderson the Rain King, by Bellow (a name which should always be capitalized)
— The Kingdom of This World, by Carpentier
Best books I read all year:
two fiction works come to mind:
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
AND Jose Saramago’s Death with Interruptions.
Nonfiction: Richard Wolffe’s book Renegade on the Obama campaign;
Ted Kennedy’s memoir
Javier Marias, Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear
W.G. Sebald, Vertigo
Cesar Aira, Ghosts
Vic Glover, Keeping Heart on Pine Ridge
Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice
Max Geert, Europa
George Eliot, Middlemarch
Homer, The Odyssey (Fagles translation)
Mary Beard, The Fires of Vesuvius
Oops, that’s more than one.
One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurtson
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay, a Canadian writer. Won the ScotiaBank Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious literary award. I’ve also read her novels A Student of Weather and Garbo Laughs. Elizabeth Hay ranks right up there with Alice Munro. Gave a copy of LNOA to a friend for Christmas–she thought the writing was first-rate.
Forgive me everyone. I am starting Best of 2010 because I just finished the most brilliant amazing enthralling book: The Humans who Went Extinct: Why Neanderthals Died Out and We survived by Clive Finlayson. I am reeling.
The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Peace by Gene Wolfe
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
Best Re-Read: The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
Two standouts in 2009 — The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters and Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden.