Another year, another Year In Reading. Another year, a bigger Year In Reading. The site gets older, the site continues to grow – for that we thank everyone who wrote and shared the pieces in this series, as well as everyone who read along.
The numbers this year were simply bonkers. Up from 2011, our 2012 totals amounted to a whopping 74 participants and 261 different books. These books run the gamut from graphic memoirs to cookbooks, and they were written by 238 authors – we’re happy to note that 15 of those authors submitted their own pieces in the series.
Our participants included
a finalist for this year’s National Book Award;
a past winner of the Pulitzer Prize; not
one, but
two authors whose books appeared on
The New York Times’s “10 Best Books of 2012” list; a longtime
New Yorker staff writer; and
a comedian who, for a few incredible months, made the life of
Mitt Romney’s social media director into
a living hell.
The mission of the series is to put good books – regardless of publication date – into the minds of our readers. In that regard we’ve succeeded. The “average” year of publication for all 261 books was 1992. (No doubt that date has something to do with
Michael Robbins’s recommendation of
The Temple, which dates back to 1633.) But in order to highlight the true range of the books selected, I feel there are some awards in order. So here we have it.
Presenting the 2012 edition of The Millions’s annual Year In Reading Wrap-Up Awards:
The Golden TARDIS for Excellence in Time Travel is hereby bestowed unto
Emma Straub. We recognize Emma’s ability to read in the past year
four different books that will not hit shelves until 2013. Tell us, Emma, where do you keep your flux capacitor? (I know, I know, I’m mixing time travel references here. Apologies to the nerds.) Runner-up:
Michael Robbins, who went the other way and tapped
two books from the 1600s.
The George Wallace Commemorative Airhorn for Multiple Shout Outs goes to none other than
Alexander Chee, who, before settling on
Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai as his favorite read of the year, gave much-deserved props to
no fewer than twenty-three different books and authors. Runner-up:
Kate Zambreno, who named fifteen texts – two of which are actually blogs, which is awesome – in her
Year In Reading (Apparently Everything there is to Read).
“Mr. Consistent” is from now on the epithet we’ll use to describe
Scott Esposito, who recommended
fourteen different Oulipo books. (Out of respect for Scott’s theme, none of the words in that first sentence included the letter “a”.) Runner-up:
David Haglund, who laid out
a literary and historical tour of the real Mormon faith.
The Bob Ross Memorial Golden Paintbrush is awarded to
Matt Dojny, whose Year In Reading entry is
beautiful and succinct, but also comprehensive and fresh. That book on his list from
The RZA? It wasn’t a mistake. There aren’t mistakes. Just happy accidents. Runner-up:
Chris Ware. (Duh.) Not for
his text-based Year In Reading post, but for his most recent book.
The George Washington Cup for Honesty goes, of course, to
Michael Schaub for his
elegant, heart wrenching essay about his brother, his family, and
A. M. Homes’s latest book. Thank you for this one, Michael. Runner-up:
Mark O’Connell, who finally came clean. Those books on his shelf?
Hasn’t read most of ‘em. (One additional prize is in order as well.
The “Oh Man, Please Don’t Accuse Me of Stealing Your Idea” Memorial Fruit Basket should go to
Janet Potter, whose
list of literary awards served at least in some way as inspiration for this post.)
Overall, a collection of seven books were named by more than three Year In Reading participants. These lucky few are:
Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (picked by
Edan Lepucki, Janet Potter,
Ed Park,
Michael Bourne, and
Jennifer duBois); Chris Ware’s
Building Stories (picked by
Zadie Smith, Mark O’Connell, and
Reif Larsen);
David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (picked by Janet Potter, Matt Dojny, and
Elizabeth Minkel);
Edward St. Aubyn’s The Patrick Melrose Novels (picked by
Meg Wolitzer,
Elliott Holt, and
Alix Ohlin);
Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins (picked by Emma Straub,
Roxane Gay, and
Robert Birnbaum);
Sarah Manguso’s The Guardians (picked by Alexander Chee, Ed Park, and
Antoine Wilson); and
Lauren Groff’s Arcadia (picked by Alexander Chee,
Emily St. John Mandel, and Janet Potter)
And so we come to the end of 2012. May 2013 be better than the year that led into it. May your eyes fly quickly over the page. We hope you enjoyed the time, and we’ll see you again next year.
P.S. Special shout outs are due to
C. Max Magee, founder of
The Millions, without whom none of this would be possible – and also to
Ujala Sehgal and
Adam Boretz, our tireless editors, without whom all of these posts would look horrendous. Last but not least, shout outs are owed to
Rhian Sasseen and
Thom Beckwith, both of whom have helped make this our biggest Year In Reading to date. Thanks to you all, and to all a Happy New Year!
More from A Year in Reading 2012
Don't miss: A Year in Reading 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.
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.