“There are so many books. Always so many. They collide in my mind.”
- Colum McCann
Another
Year in Reading is behind us, and I speak for all of us at
The Millions when I sincerely thank everyone who wrote, shared, and read our articles. It’s a bit daunting to let strangers into our private reading worlds, but it’s also quite rewarding.
There is always the temptation to dive into a new book just after finishing another. There are, as
Colum McCann says above, just “so many books” we’ve yet to read. However it’s also true that reflection can deepen appreciation: your reading timeline becomes contextualized, and its connections develop like a filmstrip in your mind. Our series, in the end, is all about such reflection.
We also recognize that it’s becoming easier than ever to rely on algorithms and lists for one’s book recommendations – and while there are some treasures to be found through such means, there is nothing quite like the warmth of an actual human being’s testimony to vouchsafe your next reading choice. We hope that these articles have turned you on to new writers – authors of books selected by others, or authors of the articles themselves.
With 72 participants naming 214 books, it’s safe to say this has been our biggest and most high profile Year in Reading yet. Our participants included
the current Poet Laureate, a
longtime candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature, the reigning winners of the IMPAC and
Pulitzer Prizes,
two authors of books named
The New York Times’ 10 Best of 2011, a
recent inductee to the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, and more Pushcart winners than I care to count.
A number of authors wrote their own Year in Reading articles as well as books chosen later on in the series. This honor roll consists of McCann,
Jennifer Egan,
Daniel Orozco,
David Vann,
Siddhartha Deb, and
Geoff Dyer.
Yet in spite of these credentials – impressive as they are – I thought it would be fun to note some statistics, and to award some further superlatives based upon the articles written for this series. (Note that all research is highly unscientific.)
By the numbers: of the 214 books named, 139 were fiction, 68 were nonfiction, 5 were poetry, and 2 were graphic novels. The average length of the books chosen was 338 pages, and the average publication year was 1994. The oldest book selected was
Moby-Dick, the longest was
Bleak House, and the shortest was
Buckdancer’s Choice. If you’re a fan of our
Post-40 Bloomers series, you’ll appreciate the fact that the average age of each book’s author, at the time their book was originally published, was 47.53 years old. Most of the books were from the United States and the UK, but many were from Ireland, Canada, France, the Russian Federation, Hungary, and Germany. Six of the seven continents were represented, and these books were published by presses ranging from the New York Review of Books to New Directions to Fantagraphics to Random House. (I won’t release the name of which house published the highest number of selections because I don’t want war to break out in New York City.)
Some favorites from the series, based on feedback from readers and links, comments, and other stats, included McCann on
The Book of Disquiet,
Jonathan Safran Foer on
The Shallows,
Ben Marcus on
Nothing,
Michael Schaub on
The Great Frustration, and Egan on
Butterfly’s Child.
Three books tied for the most popular selection this year:
Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams (selected by
Dan Kois,
David Bezmozgis, and
Adam Ross),
Edouard Levé’s Suicide (selected by
Scott Esposito,
Mark O’Connell, and
Dennis Cooper), and
Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 (selected by
Charles Baxter,
Kevin Hartnett, and
Garth Risk Hallberg). Seven more books tied for second-most popular:
Phillip Connors’ Fire Season (selected by
Chad Harbach and
yours truly),
Sheila Heti's How Should a Person Be? (selected by Harbach and
Emily Keeler),
Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad (selected by
Brooke Hauser and
A.N. Devers),
Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove (selected by Hauser and
Rosecrans Baldwin),
Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test (selected by Schaub and
Chris Baio),
Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal (selected by Hauser and
Rachel Syme) and
Helen DeWitt’s Lightning Rods (selected by Scott and Garth).
Still I am compelled to award a couple of half-serious superlatives to close this thing out:
The “Gashlycrumb Tinies” Award for Saddest Selection of Books goes to
Emma Straub for
her tear-soaked article. “Mr. Consistent” is an Award I’d like to bestow upon
Brad Listi, who
exhausted the Sarah Palin canon only to then go on to exhaust the
David Markson one. “Most Indecisive” belongs to Brooke Hauser and her 15 selections, while “Most Topical” goes to Michael Schaub because 90% of his list published in 2011. The Award for Coolest Byline undoubtedly goes to
Duff McKagan, but
the Award for Coolest Backstory (as well as my unending jealousy) goes to
Benjamin Hale. Finally, the Award for Most Valuable Participant goes to you, dear reader, for allowing us to continue our series and for helping it grow with each passing January.
Until next year, happy reading.
All best,
The Millions staff
P.S. If you’re curious as to how we put the series together, please do check out
Electric Literature’s
interview with our founder,
C. Max Magee. The series, the articles, and the site itself would not be possible without him.
This year, I spent some quality reading time with what I think of now, in retrospect, as three sad men. I began the year with a gift from one of my students, Stoner, by John Williams. I was, perhaps, somewhat late in discovering this marvelous novel of university life, first published in 1965, but I’m grateful now to have had the experience of it, to have lived William Stoner’s life: to have been the shy farm boy entranced by the power of literature, the earnest professor, the long suffering spouse and the doting father, the middle-aged lover surprised by joy. It is a kind of enchantment, to be lured so completely into the life of this character. Something of the same can be said about Per Petterson’s 2003 novel, Out Stealing Horses, an intensely hermetic account of a sixty-seven year old man’s self exile to a remote cabin in Norway. There’s as much cold, and dark introspection, and wood chopping as one might expect, but there is also tenderness and grief, and the land is beautiful. This year I also revisited Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. It was a novel I had loved in high school – as much for its portrait of pock-marked, chain-smoking, king-making Sadie Burke as for its larger-than-life depiction of “The Boss,” Willie Stark, or even its cynical and yet highly romantic, and loquacious, narrator. Having lived inside the beltway for nearly two decades now, I thought it time to reconsider, as an adult reader, whether All the King’s Men (written by a poet, after all, not a reporter) is indeed America’s best political novel. It is.
I was interested in reading Alice McDermott”s book choices, but I am far more
interested in why this site hasn’t reviewed McDermott’s “Someone,” which
was long-listed for National Book Award. I believe it to be her best work
ever; in fact, I finished the book, thought about it a lot, then sat down and read
the book for the second time only weeks after finishing it the first time.
The book is subtle–so subtle that if one doesn’t slow down and read carefully,
it’s possible to miss important character points. And the writing is gorgeous–
not lah-dee-dah gorgeous, but perfect words in perfect order gorgeous.
It’s selling well for a literary novel, and I recommend it highly. I also
recommend that this site do a piece on it.
Well, I came by here several days later, and just wanted to make note of
the fact that I’ve ordered “Stoner,” and, though I have three books in front
of it, I will read it because Ms. McDermott recommended it.
And if McDermott ever comes by and leads the commenters” responses,
please know that I treasure the way you described Big Lucy’s mother’s
trip back and forth to the mental institution every week to visit her
daughter. Wonderful.