Home, Marilynne Robinson: I loved Gilead, and it is a pleasure and feels like a gift to spend time with this prose. Reading Robinson, for me, takes a lot of focus, and I find myself rereading lines often, but the reward for this pace is a calmness lifting up off the pages, and a careful generous dipping into a deep and beautiful well. She is the opposite and maybe even an antidote to fast-paced technology.
Big Machine, Victor LaValle: A wonderfully interesting and resonant read. Two scenes in this book in particular are still so vivid to me that I could probably tell you about them in detail without glancing at the pages; they are etched on the brain.
When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead and The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins: Two satisfying, inventive, page-turning YA reads.
About a Mountain, John D’Agata: The momentum he builds, by the end! The layering, the surprises, the way he does not use the double space break… somehow this book feels like he’s thinking/dreaming up facts on the spot; they are that available to the prose, that effortlessly flowing along.
Dearest Creature, Amy Gerstler: There’s an amazing poem about a dog’s view on shit that is full of dignity and depth. But I kept rereading the first poem– it took awhile to move past it, I found it so moving.
The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway: I’d never read this one before– still am thinking about what a simple, deep story he tells. The story has the classic mythic feel of a long-lasting fable or tale, in how it’s hard to imagine it didn’t exist before– like he plucked it off a tree, or dug it from the ground. But it’s also a complicated study of regret and disappointment and aging, so even though the plot movement is direct and unfussy, there’s real nuance in what lingers with a reader.
More from a Year in Reading 2010
Don’t miss: A Year in Reading 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
The good stuff: The Millions’ Notable articles
The motherlode: The Millions’ Books and Reviews
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I’m surprised Aimee Bender didn’t bring up Room, since she gave the novel such a great review in NYT. Big Machine definitely seems intriguing. This year in reading feature is filling up my wish list too quickly!
Hmmmm, thank you. I’ve been on the verge of checking out LaValle’s Big Machine for a while now, I think you just pushed me over the edge . . .
Philip, Big Machine is so much fun.
“The story has the classic mythic feel of a long-lasting fable or tale, in how it’s hard to imagine it didn’t exist before” – perfect.