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A Year in Reading: 2024
Welcome to the 20th (!) installment of The Millions' annual Year in Reading series, which gathers together some of today's most exciting writers and thinkers to share the books that shaped their year. YIR is not a collection of yearend best-of lists; think of it, perhaps, as an assemblage of annotated bibliographies. We've invited contributors to reflect on the books they read this year—an intentionally vague prompt—and encouraged them to approach the assignment however they choose.
In writing about our reading lives, as YIR contributors are asked to do, we inevitably write about our personal lives, our inner lives. This year, a number of contributors read their way through profound grief and serious illness, through new parenthood and cross-country moves. Some found escape in frothy romances, mooring in works of theology, comfort in ancient epic poetry. More than one turned to the wisdom of Ursula K. Le Guin. Many describe a book finding them just when they needed it.
Interpretations of the assignment were wonderfully varied. One contributor, a music critic, considered the musical analogs to the books she read, while another mapped her reads from this year onto constellations. Most people's reading was guided purely by pleasure, or else a desire to better understand events unfolding in their lives or larger the world. Yet others centered their reading around a certain sense of duty: this year one contributor committed to finishing the six Philip Roth novels he had yet to read, an undertaking that he likens to “eating a six-pack of paper towels.” (Lucky for us, he included in his essay his final ranking of Roth's oeuvre.)
The books that populate these essays range widely, though the most commonly noted title this year was Tony Tulathimutte’s story collection Rejection. The work of newly minted National Book Award winner Percival Everett, particularly his acclaimed novel James, was also widely read and written about. And as the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza enters its second year, many contributors sought out Isabella Hammad’s searing, clear-eyed essay Recognizing the Stranger.
Like so many endeavors in our chronically under-resourced literary community, Year in Reading is a labor of love. The Millions is a one-person editorial operation (with an invaluable assist from SEO maven Dani Fishman), and producing YIR—and witnessing the joy it brings contributors and readers alike—has been the highlight of my tenure as editor. I’m profoundly grateful for the generosity of this year’s contributors, whose names and entries will be revealed below over the next three weeks, concluding on Wednesday, December 18. Be sure to subscribe to The Millions’ free newsletter to get the week’s entries sent straight to your inbox each Friday.
—Sophia Stewart, editor
Becca Rothfeld, author of All Things Are Too Small
Carvell Wallace, author of Another Word for Love
Charlotte Shane, author of An Honest Woman
Brianna Di Monda, writer and editor
Nell Irvin Painter, author of I Just Keep Talking
Carrie Courogen, author of Miss May Does Not Exist
Ayşegül Savaş, author of The Anthropologists
Zachary Issenberg, writer
Tony Tulathimutte, author of Rejection
Ann Powers, author of Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell
Lidia Yuknavitch, author of Reading the Waves
Nicholas Russell, writer and critic
Daniel Saldaña París, author of Planes Flying Over a Monster
Lili Anolik, author of Didion and Babitz
Deborah Ghim, editor
Emily Witt, author of Health and Safety
Nathan Thrall, author of A Day in the Life of Abed Salama
Lena Moses-Schmitt, author of True Mistakes
Jeremy Gordon, author of See Friendship
John Lee Clark, author of Touch the Future
Ellen Wayland-Smith, author of The Science of Last Things
Edwin Frank, publisher and author of Stranger Than Fiction
Sophia Stewart, editor of The Millions
A Year in Reading Archives: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
The Great Fall 2024 Book Preview
With the arrival of autumn comes a deluge of great books. Here you'll find a sampling of new and forthcoming titles that caught our eye here at The Millions, and that we think might catch yours, too. Some we’ve already perused in galley form; others we’re eager to devour based on their authors, plots, or subject matters. We hope your next fall read is among them.
—Sophia Stewart, editor
October
Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera, tr. Lisa Dillman [F]
What it is: An epic, speculative account of the 18 months that Benito Juárez spent in New Orleans in 1853-54, years before he became the first and only Indigenous president of Mexico.
Who it's for: Fans of speculative history; readers who appreciate the magic that swirls around any novel set in New Orleans. —Claire Kirch
The Black Utopians by Aaron Robertson [NF]
What it is: An exploration of Black Americans' pursuit and visions of utopia—both ideological and physical—that spans the Reconstruction era to the present day and combines history, memoir, and reportage.
Who it's for: Fans of Saidiya Hartman's Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments and Kristen R. Ghodsee's Everyday Utopia. —Sophia M. Stewart
The Third Realm by Karl Ove Knausgaard, tr. Martin Aitken [F]
What it is: The third installment in Knausgaard's Morning Star series, centered on the appearance of a mysterious new star in the skies above Norway.
Who it's for: Real Knausgaard heads only—The Wolves of Eternity and Morning Star are required reading for this one. —SMS
Brown Women Have Everything by Sayantani Dasgupta [NF]
What it is: Essays on the contradictions and complexities of life as an Indian woman in America, probing everything from hair to family to the joys of travel.
Who it's for: Readers of Durga Chew-Bose, Erika L. Sánchez, and Tajja Isen. —SMS
The Plot Against Native America by Bill Vaughn [F]
What it is: The first narrative history of Native American boarding schools— which aimed "civilize" Indigenous children by violently severing them from their culture— and their enduring, horrifying legacy.
Who it's for: Readers of Ned Blackhawk and Kathleen DuVal. —SMS
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich [F]
What it is: Erdrich's latest novel set in North Dakota's Red River Valley is a tale of the intertwined lives of ordinary people striving to survive and even thrive in their rural community, despite environmental upheavals, the 2008 financial crisis, and other obstacles.
Who it's for: Readers of cli-fi; fans of Linda LeGarde Grover and William Faulkner. —CK
The Position of Spoons by Deborah Levy [NF]
What it is: The second book from Levy in as many years, diverging from a recent streak of surrealist fiction with a collection of essays marked by exceptional observance and style.
Who it's for: Close lookers and the perennially curious. —John H. Maher
The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister [F]
What it's about: The Haddesley family has lived on the same West Virginia bog for centuries, making a supernatural bargain with the land—a generational blood sacrifice—in order to do so—until an uncovered secret changes everything.
Who it's for: Readers of Karen Russell and Jeff VanderMeer; anyone who has ever used the phrase "girl moss." —SMS
The Great When by Alan Moore [F]
What it's about: When an 18-year old book reseller comes across a copy of a book that shouldn’t exist, it threatens to upend not just an already post-war-torn London, but reality as we know it.
Who it's for: Anyone looking for a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery dipped in thaumaturgical psychedelia. —Daniella Fishman
The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates [NF]
What it's about: One of our sharpest critical thinkers on social justice returns to nonfiction, nearly a decade after Between the World and Me, visiting Dakar, to contemplate enslavement and the Middle Passage; Columbia, S.C., as a backdrop for his thoughts on Jim Crow and book bans; and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he sees contemporary segregation in the treatment of Palestinians.
Who it’s for: Fans of James Baldwin, George Orwell, and Angela Y. Davis; readers of Nikole Hannah-Jones’s The 1619 Project and Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste, to name just a few engagements with national and racial identity. —Nathalie op de Beeck
Abortion by Jessica Valenti [NF]
What it is: Columnist and memoirist Valenti, who tracks pro-choice advocacy and attacks on the right to choose in her Substack, channels feminist rage into a guide for freedom of choice advocacy.
Who it’s for: Readers of Robin Marty’s The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America, #ShoutYourAbortion proponents, and followers of Jennifer Baumgartner’s [I Had an Abortion] project. —NodB
Gifted by Suzuki Suzumi, tr. Allison Markin Powell [F]
What it's about: A young sex worker in Tokyo's red-light district muses on her life and recounts her abusive mother's final days, in what is Suzuki's first novel to be translated into English.
Who it's for: Readers of Susan Boyt and Mieko Kanai; fans of moody, introspective fiction; anyone with a fraught relationship to their mother. —SMS
Childish Literature by Alejandro Zambra, tr. Megan McDowell [F]
What it is: A wide-ranging collection of stories, essays, and poems that explore childhood, fatherhood, and family.
Who it's for: Fans of dad lit (see: Lucas Mann's Attachments, Keith Gessen's Raising Raffi, Karl Ove Knausgaard's seasons quartet, et al). —SMS
Books Are Made Out of Books ed. Michael Lynn Crews [NF]
What it is: A mining of the archives of the late Cormac McCarthy with a focus on the famously tight-lipped author's literary influences.
Who it's for: Anyone whose commonplace book contains the words "arquebus," "cordillera," or "vinegaroon." —JHM
Slaveroad by John Edgar Wideman [F]
What it is: A blend of memoir, fiction, and history that charts the "slaveroad" that runs through American history, spanning the Atlantic slave trade to the criminal justice system, from the celebrated author of Brothers and Keepers.
Who it's for: Fans of Clint Smith and Ta-Nehisi Coates. —SMS
Linguaphile by Julie Sedivy [NF]
What it's about: Linguist Sedivy reflects on a life spent loving language—its beauty, its mystery, and the essential role it plays in human existence.
Who it's for: Amateur (or professional) linguists; fans of the podcast A Way with Words (me). —SMS
An Image of My Name Enters America by Lucy Ives [NF]
What it is: A collection of interrelated essays that connect moments from Ives's life to larger questions of history, identity, and national fantasy,
Who it's for: Fans of Ives, one of our weirdest and most wondrous living writers—duh; anyone with a passing interest in My Little Pony, Cold War–era musicals, or The Three Body Problem, all of which are mined here for great effect. —SMS
Women's Hotel by Daniel Lavery [F]
What it is: A novel set in 1960s New York City, about the adventures of the residents of a hotel providing housing for young women that is very much evocative of the real-life legendary Barbizon Hotel.
Who it's for: Readers of Mary McCarthy's The Group and Rona Jaffe's The Best of Everything. —CK
The World in Books by Kenneth C. Davis [NF]
What it is: A guide to 52 of the most influential works of nonfiction ever published, spanning works from Plato to Ida B. Wells, bell hooks to Barbara Ehrenreich, and Sun Tzu to Joan Didion.
Who it's for: Lovers of nonfiction looking to cover their canonical bases. —SMS
Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantas Lobato [F]
What it's about: Through the emanating blue-glow of their computer screens, a mother and daughter, four-thousand miles apart, find solace and loneliness in their nightly Skype chats in this heartstring-pulling debut.
Who it's for: Someone who needs to be reminded to CALL YOUR MOTHER! —DF
Riding Like the Wind by Iris Jamahl Dunkle [NF]
What it is: The biography of Sanora Babb, a contemporary of John Steinbeck's whose field notes and interviews with Dust Bowl migrants Steinbeck relied upon to write The Grapes of Wrath.
Who it's for: Steinbeck fans and haters alike; readers of Kristin Hannah's The Four Winds and the New York Times Overlooked column; anyone interested in learning more about the Dust Bowl migrants who fled to California hoping for a better life. —CK
Innie Shadows by Olivia M. Coetzee [F]
What it is: a work of crime fiction set on the outskirts of Cape Town, where a community marred by violence seeks justice and connection; also the first novel to be translated from Kaaps, a dialect of Afrikaans that was until recently only a spoken language.
Who it's for: fans of sprawling, socioeconomically-attuned crime dramas a la The Wire. —SMS
Dorothy Parker in Hollywood by Gail Crowther [NF]
What it is: A history of the famous wit—and famous New Yorker—in her L.A. era, post–Algonquin Round Table and mid–Red Scare.
Who it's for: Owners of a stack of hopelessly dog-eared Joan Didion paperbacks. —JHM
The Myth of American Idealism by Noam Chomsky and Nathan J. Robinson [NF]
What it is: A potent critique of the ideology behind America's foreign interventions and its status as a global power, and an treatise on how the nation's hubristic pursuit of "spreading democracy" threatens not only the delicate balance of global peace, but the already-declining health of our planet.
Who it's for: Chomskyites; policy wonks and casual critics of American recklessness alike. —DF
Mysticism by Simon Critchley [NF]
What it is: A study of mysticism—defined as an experience, rather than religious practice—by the great British philosopher Critchley, who mines music, poetry, and literature along the way.
Who it's for: Readers of John Gray, Jorge Luis Borges, and Simone Weil. —SMS
Q&A by Adrian Tomine [NF]
What it is: The Japanese American creator of the Optic Nerve comic book series for D&Q, and of many a New Yorker cover, shares his personal history and his creative process in this illustrated unburdening.
Who it’s for: Readers of Tomine’s melancholic, sometimes cringey, and occasionally brutal collections of comics short stories including Summer Blonde, Shortcomings, and Killing and Dying. —NodB
Sonny Boy by Al Pacino [NF]
What it is: Al Pacino's memoir—end of description.
Who it's for: Cinephiles; anyone curious how he's gonna spin fumbling Diane Keaton. —SMS
Seeing Baya by Alice Kaplan [NF]
What it is: The first biography of the enigmatic and largely-forgotten Algerian artist Baya Mahieddine, who first enchanted midcentury Paris as a teenager.
Who it's for: Admirers of Leonora Carrington, Hilma af Klint, Frida Kahlo, and other belatedly-celebrated women painters. —SMS
Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer [F]
What it is: A surprise return to the Area X, the stretch of unforbidding and uncanny coastline in the hit Southern Reach trilogy.
Who it's for: Anyone who's heard this song and got the reference without Googling it. —JHM
The Four Horsemen by Nick Curtola [NF]
What it is: The much-anticipated cookbook from the team behind Brooklyn's hottest restaurant (which also happens to be co-owned by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem).
Who it's for: Oenophiles; thirty-somethings who live in north Williamsburg (derogatory). —SMS
Seeing Further by Esther Kinsky, tr. Caroline Schmidt [F]
What it's about: An unnamed German woman embarks on the colossal task of reviving a cinema in a small Hungarian village.
Who it's for: Fans of Jenny Erpenbeck; anyone charmed by Cinema Paradiso (not derogatory!). —SMS
Ripcord by Nate Lippens [NF]
What it's about: A novel of class, sex, friendship, and queer intimacy, written in delicious prose and narrated by a gay man adrift in Milwaukee.
Who it's for: Fans of Brontez Purnell, Garth Greenwell, Alexander Chee, and Wayne Koestenbaum. —SMS
The Use of Photography by Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie, tr. Alison L. Strayer [NF]
What it's about: Ernaux's love affair with Marie, a journalist, while she was undergoing treatment for cancer, and their joint project to document their romance.
Who it's for: The Ernaux hive, obviously; readers of Sontag's On Photography and Janet Malcolm's Still Pictures. —SMS
Nora Ephron at the Movies by Ilana Kaplan [NF]
What it is: Kaplan revisits Nora Ephron's cinematic watersheds—Silkwood, Heartburn, When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail, and Sleepless in Seattle—in this illustrated book. Have these iconic stories, and Ephron’s humor, weathered more than 40 years?
Who it’s for: Film history buffs who don’t mind a heteronormative HEA; listeners of the Hot and Bothered podcast; your coastal grandma. —NodB
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The Philosophy of Translation by Damion Searls [NF]
What it is: A meditation on the act and art of translation by one of today's most acclaimed practitioners, best known for his translations of Fosse, Proust, et al.
Who it's for: Regular readers of Words Without Borders and Asymptote; professional and amateur literary translators alike. —SMS
Salvage by Dionne Brand
What it is: A penetrating reevaluation of the British literary canon and the tropes once shaped Brand's reading life and sense of self—and Brand’s first major work of nonfiction since her landmark A Map to the Door of No Return.
Who it's for: Readers of Christina Sharpe's Ordinary Notes and Elizabeth Hardwick's Seduction and Betrayal. —SMS
Masquerade by Mike Fu [F]
What it's about: Housesitting for an artist friend in present-day New York, Meadow Liu stumbles on a novel whose author shares his name—the first of many strange, haunting happenings that lead up to the mysterious disappearance of Meadow's friend.
Who it's for: fans of Ed Park and Alexander Chee. —SMS
November
The Beggar Student by Osamu Dazai, tr. Sam Bett [F]
What it is: A novella in the moody vein of Dazai’s acclaimed No Longer Human, following the 30-something “fictional” Dazai into another misadventure spawned from a hubristic spat with a high schooler.
Who it's for: Longtime readers of Dazai, or new fans who discovered the midcentury Japanese novelist via TikTok and the Bungo Stray Dogs anime. —DF
In Thrall by Jane DeLynn [F]
What it is: A landmark lesbian bildungsroman about 16-year-old Lynn's love affair with her English teacher, originally published in 1982.
Who it's for: Fans of Joanna Russ's On Strike Against God and Edmund White's A Boy's Own Story —SMS
Washita Love Child by Douglas Kent Miller [NF]
What it is: The story of Jesse Ed Davis, the Indigenous musician who became on of the most sought after guitarists of the late '60s and '70s, playing alongside B.B. King, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and more.
Who it's for: readers of music history and/or Indigenous history; fans of Joy Harjo, who wrote the foreword. —SMS
Set My Heart on Fire by Izumi Suzuki, tr. Helen O'Horan [F]
What it is: Gritty, sexy, and wholly rock ’n’ roll, Suzuki’s first novel translated into English (following her story collection, Hit Parade of Tears) follows 20-year-old Izumi navigating life, love, and music in the underground scene in '70s Japan.
Who it's for: Fans of Meiko Kawakami, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Marlowe Granados's Happy Hour. —DF
Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik [NF]
What it is: A dual portrait of Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, who are so often compared to—and pitted against—each other on the basis of their mutual Los Angeles milieu.
Who it's for: Fans or haters of either writer (the book is fairly pro-Babitz, often at Didion's expense); anyone who has the Lit Hub Didion tote bag. —SMS
The Endless Refrain by David Rowell [NF]
What it's about: How the rise of music streaming, demonitizing of artist revenue, and industry tendency toward nostalgia have laid waste to the musical landscape, and the future of music culture.
Who it's for: Fans of Kyle Chayka, Spence Kornhaber, and Lindsay Zoladz. —SMS
Every Arc Bends Its Radian by Sergio De La Pava [F]
What it is: A mind- and genre-bending detective story set in Cali, Colombia, that blends high-stakes suspense with rigorous philosophy.
Who it's for: Readers of Raymond Chandler, Thomas Pynchon, and Jules Verne. —SMS
Something Close to Nothing by Tom Pyun [F]
What it’s about: At the airport with his white husband Jared, awaiting a flight to Cambodia to meet the surrogate mother carrying their adoptive child-to-be, Korean American Wynn decides parenthood isn't for him, and bad behavior ensues.
Who it’s for: Pyun’s debut is calculated to cut through saccharine depictions of queer parenthood—could pair well with Torrey Peters’s Detransition, Baby. —NodB
Rosenfeld by Maya Kessler [F]
What it is: Kessler's debut—rated R for Rosenfeld—follows one Noa Simmons through the tumultuous and ultimately profound power play that is courting (and having a lot of sex with) the titular older man who soon becomes her boss.
Who it's for: Fans of Sex and the City, Raven Leilani’s Luster, and Coco Mellor’s Cleopatra and Frankenstein. —DF
Lazarus Man by Richard Price [F]
What it is: The former The Wire writer offers yet another astute chronicle of urban life, this time of an ever-changing Harlem.
Who it's for: Fans of Colson Whitehead's Crook Manifesto and Paul Murray's The Bee Sting—and, of course, The Wire. —SMS
Stranger Than Fiction by Edwin Frank [NF]
What it is: An astute curveball of a read on the development and many manifestations of the novel throughout the tumultuous 20th century.
Who it's for: Readers who look at a book's colophon before its title. —JHM
Letters to His Neighbor by Marcel Proust, tr. Lydia Davis
What it is: A collection of Proust’s tormented—and frequently hilarious—letters to his noisy neighbor which, in a diligent translation from Davis, stand the test of time.
Who it's for: Proust lovers; people who live below heavy-steppers. —DF
Context Collapse by Ryan Ruby [NF]
What it is: A self-proclaimed "poem containing a history of poetry," from ancient Greece to the Iowa Workshop, from your favorite literary critic's favorite literary critic.
Who it's for: Anyone who read and admired Ruby's titanic 2022 essay on The Waste Land; lovers of poetry looking for a challenge. —SMS
How Sondheim Can Change Your Life by Richard Schoch [NF]
What it's about: Drama professor Schoch's tribute to Stephen Sondheim and the life lessons to be gleaned from his music.
Who it's for: Sondheim heads, former theater kids, end of list. —SMS
The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer [NF]
What it is: 2022 MacArthur fellow and botanist Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, (re)introduces audiences to a flowering, fruiting native plant beloved of foragers and gardeners.
Who it’s for: The restoration ecologist in your life, along with anyone who loved Braiding Sweetgrass and needs a nature-themed holiday gift. —NodB
My Heart Belongs in an Empty Big Mac Container Buried Beneath the Ocean Floor by Homeless [F]
What it is: A pseudonymous, tenderly comic novel of blue whales and Golden Arches, mental illness and recovery.
Who it's for: Anyone who finds Thomas Pynchon a bit too staid. —JHM
Yoke and Feather by Jessie van Eerden [NF]
What it's about: Van Eerden's braided essays explore the "everyday sacred" to tease out connections between ancient myth and contemporary life.
Who it's for: Readers of Courtney Zoffness's Spilt Milk and Jeanna Kadlec's Heretic. —SMS
Camp Jeff by Tova Reich [F]
What it's about: A "reeducation" center for sex pests in the Catskills, founded by one Jeffery Epstein (no, not that one), where the dual phenomena of #MeToo and therapyspeak collide.
Who it's for: Fans of Philip Roth and Nathan Englander; cancel culture skeptics. —SMS
Selected Amazon Reviews by Kevin Killian [NF]
What it is: A collection of 16 years of Killian’s funniest, wittiest, and most poetic Amazon reviews, the sheer number of which helped him earn the rarefied “Top 100” and “Hall of Fame” status on the site.
Who it's for: Fans of Wayne Koestenbaum and Dodie Bellamy, who wrote introduction and afterword, respectively; people who actually leave Amazon reviews. —DF
Cher by Cher [NF]
What it is: The first in a two-volume memoir, telling the story of Cher's early life and ascendent career as only she can tell it.
Who it's for: Anyone looking to fill the My Name Is Barbra–sized hole in their heart, or looking for something to tide them over until the Liza memoir drops. —SMS
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami, tr. Philip Gabriel [F]
What it is: Murakami’s first novel in over six years returns to the high-walled city from his 1985 story "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" with one man's search for his lost love—and, simultaneously, an ode to libraries and literature itself.
Who it's for: Murakami fans who have long awaited his return to fiction. —DF
American Bulk by Emily Mester [NF]
What it's about: Reflecting on what it means to "live life to the fullest," Mester explores the cultural and personal impacts of America’s culture of overconsumption, from Costco hauls to hoarding to diet culture—oh my!
Who it's for: Lovers of sustainability; haters of excess; skeptics of the title essay of Becca Rothfeld's All Things Are Too Small. —DF
The Icon and the Idealist by Stephanie Gorton [NF]
What it is: A compelling look at the rivalry between Margaret Sanger, of Planned Parenthood fame, and Mary Ware Dennett, who each held radically different visions for the future of birth control.
Who it's for: Readers of Amy Sohn's The Man Who Hated Women and Katherine Turk's The Women of NOW; anyone interested in the history of reproductive rights. —SMS
December
Rental House by Weike Wang [F]
What it's about: Married college sweethearts invite their drastically different families on a Cape Code vacation, raising questions about marriage, intimacy, and kinship.
Who it's for: Fans of Wang's trademark wit and sly humor (see: Joan Is Okay and Chemistry); anyone with an in-law problem.
Woo Woo by Ella Baxter [F]
What it's about: A neurotic conceptual artist loses her shit in the months leading up to an exhibition that she hopes will be her big breakout, poking fun at the tropes of the "art monster" and the "woman of the verge" in one fell, stylish swoop.
Who it's for: Readers of Sheena Patel's I'm a Fan and Chris Kraus's I Love Dick; any woman who is grateful to but now also sort of begrudges Jenny Offil for introducing "art monster" into the lexicon (me). —SMS
Berlin Atomized by Julia Kornberg, tr. Jack Rockwell and Julia Kornberg [F]
What it's about: Spanning 2001 to 2034, three Jewish and downwardly mobile siblings come of age in various corners of the world against the backdrop of global crisis.
Who it's for: Fans of Catherine Lacey's Biography of X and Joshua Cohen's The Netanyahus. —SMS
Sand-Catcher by Omar Khalifah, tr. Barbara Romaine [F]
What it is: A suspenseful, dark satire of memory and nation, in which four young Palestinian journalists at a Jordanian newspaper are assigned to interview an elderly witness to the Nakba, the violent 1948 expulsion of native Palestinians from Israel—but to their surprise, the survivor doesn’t want to rehash his trauma for the media.
Who it’s for: Anyone looking insight—tinged with grim humor—into the years leading up to the present political crisis in the Middle East and the decades-long goal of Palestinian autonomy. —NodB
The Shutouts by Gabrielle Korn [F]
What it's about: In the dystopian future, mysteriously connected women fight to survive on the margins of society amid worsening climate collapse.
Who it's for: Fans of Korn's Yours for the Taking, which takes place in the same universe; readers of Becky Chambers and queer-inflected sci-fi. —SMS
What in Me Is Dark by Orlando Reade [NF]
What it's about: The enduring, evolving influence of Milton's Paradise Lost on political history—and particularly on the work of 12 revolutionary readers, including Malcom X and Hannah Arendt.
Who it's for: English majors and fans of Ryan Ruby and Sarah Bakewell—but I repeat myself. —SMS
The Afterlife Is Letting Go by Brandon Shimoda [NF]
What it's about: Shimoda researches the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII, and speaks with descendants of those imprisoned, for this essay collection about the “afterlife” of cruelty and xenophobia in the U.S.
Who it’s for: Anyone to ever visit a monument, museum, or designated site of hallowed ground where traumatic events have taken place. —NodB
No Place to Bury the Dead by Karina Sainz Borgo, tr. Elizabeth Bryer [F]
What it's about: When Angustias Romero loses both her children while fleeing a mysterious disease in her unnamed Latin American country, she finds herself in a surreal, purgatorial borderland where she's soon caught in a power struggle.
Who it's for: Fans of Maríana Enriquez and Mohsin Hamid. —SMS
The Rest Is Silence by Augusto Monterroso, tr. Aaron Kerner [F]
What it is: The author of some of the shortest, and tightest, stories in Latin American literature goes long with a metafictional skewering of literary criticism in his only novel.
Who it's for: Anyone who prefers the term "palm-of-the-hand stories" to "flash fiction." —JHM
Tali Girls by Siamak Herawi, tr. Sara Khalili [F]
What it is: An intimate, harrowing, and vital look at the lives of girls and women in an Afghan mountain village under Taliban rule, based on true stories.
Who it's for: Readers of Nadia Hashimi, Akwaeke Emezi, and Maria Stepanova. —SMS
Sun City by Tove Jansson, tr. Thomas Teal [F]
What it's about: During her travels through the U.S. in the 1970s, Jansson became interested in the retirement home as a peculiarly American institution—here, she imagines the tightly knit community within one of them.
Who it's for: Fans of Jansson's other fiction for adults, much of which explores the lives of elderly folks; anyone who watched that documentary about The Villages in Florida. —SMS
Editor's note: We're always looking to make our seasonal book previews more useful to the readers, writers, and critics they're meant to serve. Got an idea for how we can improve our coverage? Tell me about it at sophia@themillions.com.
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Ten Essential Music Biographies
I am a biography junkie. I started reading them in third grade via a 1960s elementary-school series—primers on Madame Curie, Florence Nightingale, and George Washington Carver come to mind. But as a teenager, I was obsessed with rock 'n' roll and devoured the first music biography I got my hands on: Anthony Scaduto’s 1971 biography of Bob Dylan. When I moved to New York from North Carolina in search of punk rock, I became oddly fascinated with vintage honky-tonk, rockabilly, and folk, largely because I read Chet Flippo’s moving story of Hank Williams’s tragically short life, Your Cheatin’ Heart (1981), Nick Tosches’s scorching Hellfire (1982) on Jerry Lee Lewis, and Joe Klein’s masterful Woody Guthrie: A Life (1980).
Since then, I’ve read too many music memoirs, “as told to’s,” and music biographies to count. Among my all time-favorites are the Etta James/David Ritz co-write, Rage to Survive and, of course, Patti Smith’s Just Kids. Though I can easily recommend several excellent biographies of bands, particularly Evelyn McDonnell’s Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways and Bob Mehr’s Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements, I’m going to limit my Top 10 list (in alphabetical, not numerical order) to biographies of individual musicians. I’m currently reading (and enjoying) Robert Hillburn’s definitive Johnny Cash: The Life, but I’ll never finish that hefty volume in time to meet the deadline for this piece.
1. Heavier than Heaven: A Life of Kurt Cobain by Charles R. Cross
A longtime music writer based in Seattle, Cross covered Cobain’s band Nirvana from its earliest gigs, and his incisive reporting on Cobain’s broken childhood in Aberdeen, his brilliance as an artist, songwriter, and musician, and his tragically short life is powerful and heartbreaking. (Cross’s biography of another Washington State icon, Jimi Hendrix—Room Full of Mirrors—is also exceptional.)
2. Lou Reed: A Life by Anthony DeCurtis
DeCurtis’s astute analysis of Lou Reed’s lengthy career–and his empathetic coverage of the complicated artist’s walk on the wild side of life–makes this book a page turner. Reading DeCurtis’ account of Reed’s heroin addiction was helpful as I tackled this subject when writing about Janis Joplin.
3. Hickory Wind: The Life & Times of Gram Parsons by Ben Fong-Torres
Fong-Torres’s detective work uncovered the real story of the “cosmic country” pioneer’s childhood in Georgia and Florida (a tale right out of Tennessee Williams), as well as illuminating Parsons’s tragically short music career. He doesn’t let Parsons off the hook for his foibles, while giving him his due as a brilliant but flawed artist. (Full disclosure: Fong-Torres invited me along as an assistant on his research travels and taught me how to write biographies along the way.)
4. Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams – The Early Years, 1903-1940 by Gary Giddins
A novice on Crosby’s oeuvre, I read renowned jazz critic Gary Giddins’s in-depth study of one of the 20th century’s early stars to learn about the era from which my first biography subject, Gene Autry, emerged, and I wasn’t disappointed. I got quite the education—and enjoyment—from reading Giddins’ detailed account of the crooner’s first 37 years. Volume 2, Swinging on a Star: The War Years, 1940-1946, which came out last year, is on my “to-read” list (hopefully before my annual viewing of Holiday Inn and White Christmas).
5. Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley and Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick
I know. I’m cheating. But you can’t read just one of Guralnick’s beyond-comprehensive two-volume biography of the King of Rock 'n' Roll. (It would be like reading only one of Robert Caro’s LBJ bios.) The writing is eloquent, the research is deeper than deep, and both books are full of heart. After reading the second one, I vowed never again to make a fat Elvis joke.
6. Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography by Jimmy McDonough
Originally, the mercurial Canadian-born artist collaborated with McDonough on this riveting account of the prolific musician’s life but withdrew from the project and tried to stop McDonough from continuing. That story alone is worth the price of admission, but McDonough’s humorous storytelling, eye for detail, and pure persistence make this lengthy tome a must-read–and it’s much more exciting than Young’s own self-indulgent and meandering Waging Heavy Peace.
7. The One: The Life and Music of James Brown by RJ Smith
I read this fascinating account of James Brown’s turbulent life before starting a biography of Alex Chilton, and the deep background on Brown’s ancestors in Georgia inspired me to try to dig up Chilton family history in Mississippi. Smith’s writing on the Godfather of Soul’s music–including “the one,” the funk beat he invented, is sharp, while the story of his career ups and downs is mesmerizing.
8. Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer by Chris Salewicz
Reading about Strummer’s formation of the Clash was only a portion of what makes this biography a great read. Strummer’s early years and pre-and post-Clash musical lives are fascinating, and make it that much harder to accept the vibrant musician’s sudden death from an undetected heart problem on the eve of his band’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
9. Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark by Tamara Saviano
Saviano spent much time with the late Guy Clark and his songwriter/artist wife Susanna Clark, and this book is as much a portrait of the couple as it is of Clark alone. It’s a moving story and an in-depth look at one of the great Texan singer-songwriter-guitarists and the Nashville boho salon the Clarks created, which included Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, and Steve Earle, among other intriguing characters.
10. I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons
Simmons’s biography was published two years before Cohen’s death at age 82, but it’s hard to imagine a richer portrait than this one. She delves into the stories behind the songwriter’s unparalleled work, as well as his life as a seeker, which took him from Cuba and Greece to Nashville, New York, and the Buddhist monastery on Mount Baldy. Simmons’s analysis of Cohen’s singular catalogue is exceptional, her comprehensive grasp of his unusual and multi-faceted life beyond impressive.
This piece was produced in partnership with Publishers Weekly and also appeared on publishersweekly.com.
A Year in Reading: Hamilton Leithauser
My Struggle: Book Five by Karl Ove Knausgård
I see that last year I recommended books one to four, so I won’t go too much into this again. Book Five is pretty much more of the same, but mostly focuses on young adulthood. I’m looking forward to Book Six...I still have absolutely no idea what the Mien Kampf connection is. But the book is great.
Dream Boogie by Peter Guralnick
Sam Cooke had a kind of funny problem early on in his career. As a teenager, he started singing in the Chicago Gospel circuit. Everywhere he went, people noticed. His voice was angelic, and he was charming and appealing. Within a short time, Sam was invited to be a member (then soon promoted to frontman) of The Soul Stirrers -- the band he’d emulated since childhood. But Sam was also uncontrollably sexy…he couldn’t turn it off if he wanted to (and he didn’t want to). So Sam starting packing these sleepy midwestern Sunday services with young women. The pastors were in kind of a pickle: Sam was great for business, but was this their business? He wasn't doing anything wrong…but it felt a little iffy. After a few years, Sam was at a crossroads: stick with the authentic Gospel music that had made him something of a star, or dive into pop music -- offending many of his, and his family’s, religious sensibilities. Sam chose pop. This is a good read for anyone who likes Sam. I also recommend Guralnick’s Last Train to Memphis for any Elvis Presley heads out there.
10% Happier by Dan Harris
I recently became (slightly) interested in meditation. I discovered this guy’s podcast and found an interesting interview with Rivers Cuomo, who has been meditating his entire life. I actually started listening to Weezer for the first time after hearing this interview. Dan Harris came to meditation as a full-on skeptic, but found his own way of appreciating it. I can relate.
The Complete Poems: 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop is inspired. I read her when I feel uninspired. Check it out.
City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg
Full disclosure...the author is a friend/drinking companion. Unfortunately, since I have kids, I had to read this book in stops and starts. It seems like it should be done in marathon stretches, as there is a wide-ranging cast of characters, times, and places. Ultimately I pulled it together and came out with a pretty good understanding of what happened, and ultimately I found it a satisfying, cohesive novel…which is impressive, since it had like 1,000 pages to fall off the rails…it didn’t.
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ElvisLit: The River That Will Never Run Dry
1.
Elvis Presley disappeared 35 years ago today.
I choose the verb disappeared for a reason. Not because I'm a big believer in conspiracy theories or Elvis sightings -- I am not -- but because in a very real sense Elvis Presley didn't actually die on Aug. 16, 1977, he simply moved on to a different level in the ether of superstardom. When asked what he planned to do once Elvis was in the ground, his evil genius of a manager, Col. Tom Parker, said it all: "Why, I'll just go right on managing him!" As Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick put it, "RCA (records) would discover that Elvis was as great a sales phenomenon in death as in life."
Even more phenomenal than the unquenchable hunger for Elvis music, Elvis impersonators, and Elvis memorabilia (black velvet paintings, ashtrays, liquor bottles, etc.) is the relentless outpouring of books about Elvis. I call it ElvisLit -- a river of words that gives every indication, year after year after year, that it will never run dry. Guralnick described it as "the cacophony of voices that have joined together to create a chorus of informed opinion, uninformed speculation, hagiography, symbolism, and blame."
2.
The chorus of ElvisLit can be divided into several sections, beginning with straight biographies. Guralnick's two-volume bio -- Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley (1995) and Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (2000) -- definitely comes from the informed opinion section of the chorus. Running over 1,300 pages, with extensive source notes and 23 pages of bibliography that includes such heavyweights as W.J. Cash and C. Vann Woodward, it's a magisterial work of biography, the perfect melding of dogged research, deft writing, and the ability to tell one roaring hell of a story. The key to Guralnick's success, I believe, is that he was able to empathize with his subject without idolizing or patronizing him. Guralnick boils Elvis's message down to this: "the proclamation of emotions long suppressed, the embrace of a vulnerability culturally denied, the unabashed striving for freedom."
On the other end of the spectrum is Albert Goldman's 600-page pathography from 1981, Elvis, an uninterrupted airing of vignettes about the appalling side of the subject: his mother fixation, his perpetual adolescence, his balky penis, his atrocious diet, the isolation and drug use that sent him to an early grave. The book gives almost no indication that Elvis Presley possessed talent, or that he had the power to drive crowds into a foam-at-the-mouth frenzy, or that he remade the landscape of American pop culture. You'll want to take a shower after reading this book.
In between these two extremes is the respectable handiwork of a small army of fine writers, including Dave Marsh, Jerry Hopkins, Nick Tosches, Roy Blount Jr., and Bobbie Ann Mason. Here's how Mason, a native of rural Kentucky, saw Elvis: "He was one of us, a country person who spoke our language...a barometer of the culture, a sort of hillbilly voodoo doll."
A barometer of the culture...Now we're getting somewhere, now we're approaching the nut of why Elvis continues to inspire writers of all stripes, from serious scholars and artists to hacks shamelessly trying to turn a fast buck. The brilliant Greil Marcus, who wrote insightfully about Elvis when he was alive, uncorked a wicked book in 1991 called Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession. Marcus explained his motivation for writing the book in this way: "I found, or anyway decided, that Elvis contained more of America -- had swallowed whole more of its contradictions and paradoxes -- than any other figure I could think of... I understood Elvis not as a human being...but as a force, as a kind of necessity: that is, the necessity existing in every culture that leads it to produce a perfect, all-inclusive metaphor for itself." In his glowing review of the book in the L.A. Times, David Foster Wallace agreed, concluding that Elvis was a "synecdoche of America."
I would go even farther than Marcus and Wallace and argue that Elvis's life is a weirdly precise mirror of America's story. Consider the parallels. Both the man and the nation began humbly -- poor, neglected, despised. Both awoke to an inner flame, a gift, that was then harnessed to a ferocious drive. Both used that gift and that drive to create something unprecedented, something dangerous and irresistible and magnificent, which led to unimagined power and riches. Both were consumed by their power and wealth, became distrustful and insular, grew fat and sloppy, then slid into a terminal decline. Or maybe this is just a long-winded way of defining synecdoche.
But I think not. If Elvis went from man to metaphor during his life, I would argue that he has gone from metaphor to myth since his death. Every culture needs myths as much as it needs metaphors for itself, and those myths must be mutable. It helps if the source of the myth blazed early and died too soon (think of James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson), because an incomplete life is easier to re-fashion and re-imagine than a long, full one. As Elvis biographer David Luhrssen put it: "In death Elvis became whatever anyone wanted to see in him."
As the Guralnick and Goldman bios attest, two people can see a single life in very different ways. In my own case, a lifelong love/hate affair with Elvis has produced a strange strand of schizophrenia. There is so much to love -- the Sun Sessions, kinetic masterpieces like "Little Sister," the gospel stuff, the dance moves and the hair and the clothes, the pink Cadillac and the Stutz Bearcat. And there is so much to hate -- the movies, the white jumpsuits, the Vegas shtick, fat junkie Elvis. This schizophrenia has led me to do some strange things, including getting tricked out in the Vegas kit I claim to loathe, on the occasion of a 10th Anniversary party on Aug. 16, 1987. Here's the incriminating evidence:
3.
By far the largest and most telling section of ElvisLit is the long shelf of books by and about People Who Knew the King. This includes everyone from blood relatives and true intimates to people way out on the margins, and the resulting books range from revealing to mildly diverting to downright schlocky.
So far we have gotten books by and about Elvis and his: momma (Elvis and Gladys by Elaine Dundy), wife (Elvis and Me by Priscilla Beaulieu Presley), family (Elvis by the Presleys by David Ritz), step-family (Elvis, We Love You Tender by Dee Presley, Rick Stanley, Billy Stanley, and David Stanley), step-brothers (Elvis, My Brother by Billy Stanley and Life with Elvis by David Stanley), uncle (A Presley Speaks by Vester Presley), aunt (The Forgotten Family of Elvis Presley: Elvis' Aunt Lois Smith Speaks Out by Rob Hines), love interests (Baby, Let's Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him by Alanna Nash and Caught In a Trap: Elvis Presley's Tragic Lifelong Search for Love by Rick Stanley), Lord (The Two Kings: Jesus & Elvis by A.J. Jacobs), president (The Day Elvis Met Nixon by Egil Krogh), bodyguards (Elvis: What Happened? by Red West, Sonny West, and Dave Hebler, and Elvis and the Memphis Mafia by Alanna Nash, Billy Smith, Marty Lacker, and Lamar Fike), buddies (Elvis: My Best Man by George Klein, Elvis: Still Taking Care of Business by Sonny West, Good Rockin' Tonight: Twenty Years On the Road and On the Town with Elvis by Joe Esposito, and Me and a Guy named Elvis: My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley by Jerry Schilling), guitarist (That's Alright, Elvis: The Untold Story of Elvis's First Guitarist and Manager by Scotty Moore), physician (The King and Dr. Nick: What Really Happened to Elvis and Me by Dr. George Nichopoulos), manager (The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley by Alanna Nash, and Elvis and the Colonel by Dirk Vallenga and Mick Farren), maid (Inside Graceland: Elvis' Maid Remembers by Nancy Rooks), nurse (I Called Him Babe: Elvis Presley's Nurse Remembers by Marian J. Cocke), secretary (My Life With Elvis by Becky Yancey), and gofer (Elvis' Man Friday by Gene Smith). There have even been cookbooks (Are You Hungry Tonight? by Brenda Arlene Butler, and Fit For a King: The Elvis Presley Cookbook by Elizabeth McKeon, which includes a recipe for that heart-smart favorite, butterscotch pinwheels).
All the books on this far-from-exhaustive list share one thing, and it's not literary merit: they're all predicated on the reasonable assumption that there is a market for any morsel of first-hand information about Elvis Presley -- what he said, did, sang, ate, wore, read, thought, loved, feared, and loathed. In ElvisLit, no morsel is unworthy. To write this off to our culture's voyeurism and obsession with celebrity is, I think, to miss the point. In death Elvis became whatever anyone wanted to see in him. Which is another way of saying he is now free to become whatever we want to see in ourselves. No wonder the river will never run dry.
4.
The latest addition to the I-Knew-Elvis section of the chorus is a new book called Conversations with the King: Journals of a Young Apprentice by David Stanley, who, as the above bibliography shows, is a repeat contributor to the ever-expanding universe of ElvisLit. Stanley's mother, Dee, married Elvis's father less than two years after Elvis's mother died. Stanley arrived at Graceland in 1960 as a wide-eyed 4 year old, and over the next 17 years he claims Elvis became his "father figure, mentor, spiritual advisor." Stanley started accompanying Elvis on the road in 1972 as a "full-time personal aide," and he had his last conversation with his step-brother/boss on Aug. 14, 1977. On that night a fat, scared and lonely Elvis asked him, "David, who am I?" Then he added prophetically, "The next time you see me I'm going to be in a different place, on a higher plane." The next time Stanley saw him, two days later, Elvis was lying on the floor of Graceland's master bathroom in the fetal position, tongue black, face turning blue, graveyard dead.
Anyone (like me) who was hoping for more along these lines -- details of Elvis's drug intake and long decline, or the Memphis Mafia's shenanigans in Vegas and Hollywood -- will be disappointed by Conversations with the King. Stanley, according to the book's biographical note, is "a speaker in the field of self-development & authenticity," and he claims that Elvis possessed mystical powers. Elvis could, according to Stanley, command clouds to move, stop rainstorms, and cure headaches. He also conversed regularly with the spirit of his twin brother, Jesse, who was delivered stillborn. But these anecdotes are merely a peg for Stanley to hang the story of his own "hero's journey" from awestruck boy to hard-partying wildman to sobered-up evangelist to motivational smoothie. He urges us to read Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer while delivering mumbo-jumbo paragraphs like this:
My spiritual surrender made it possible for me to complete my hero's journey. This led to my epiphany, which opened me up to having my transformative labyrinth experience. This freed me to shed my isolation and enabled me to at last shed my self-destructive habits, which gave me access to the courage I had needed to fully embody the greatness of my authentic self.
Such are the vagaries of ElvisLit, an uneven corpus that makes no promises other than inviting us to pay our money and take our chances. It's a grand crapshoot. Sometimes the results are sublime, as in Guralnick's and Marcus's books. Sometimes the results are icky, as in those recipe books. And sometimes, as in Conversations with the King, they're a reminder that certain morsels are, in fact, much more worthy than others.
So the King is 35 years dead. Long live the King.
Image courtesy of the author.
A Review of Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralnick
I'm not particularly drawn to biographies, and certainly not music biographies, but I make exceptions for Elvis. I was also swayed because I have heard Peter Guralnick's books praised many times. Most satisfying about Last Train to Memphis, volume one of Guralnick's two volume biography of Elvis Presley, was Guralnick's ability to humanize his subject. The persona of Elvis, years after his death, is such a caricature, even a joke, that it can be hard to remember that there was a real, living, breathing person named Elvis Presley. The book contained what were, for me, some fantastic revelations. For one, Elvis was nearly done in when he was a youngster, not by the difficulties of his quest for fame, but by the swiftness with which it arrived. In a year's time, he went from being a nobody to being one of the most recognizable faces in the country, a man whose presence literally caused riots whenever he appeared in public. For Elvis, it was a major struggle simply to adjust to this new life. Television documentaries and magazine articles often mention in passing that Elvis' music and persona caused quite a stir, moral outrage even, when he appeared on the scene in the 1950s. Such stories sound quaint and exaggerated in this day and age, but with the context provided by Guralnick, I was able to see how groundbreaking Elvis really was, both musically and socially. Finally, I was enthralled by Guralnick's portraits of Elvis' supporting cast, quirky characters like Elvis' mother Gladys, his manager Colonel Tom Parker, and the guy who gave him his first big break, Sam Phillips. The book rekindled my love, as it surely will rekindle yours, for the early days of rock and roll, and it left me with a serious hankering to read volume two of the biography, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley sometime real soon.
A Review of The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
So, I'm back again after a week in New York. We move to Chicago in three weeks, and after a summer living out of suitcases, an apartment all our own will be a relief. Over the past few weeks I've read four books. I read them on the beach, in cafes, in cars, subways, and airplanes, and in halflit, air-conditioned rooms over the course of long, languid afternoons. This has been some serious summer reading. I plan to get to all of them this week, beginning today with the modern classic and winner of the National Book Award in 1962, The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. I had never heard of this book before I started working at the book store, and it seems to be one of those books that is half-remembered and dimly loved by those who read it decades ago. The moviegoer is Binx Bolling, a successful businessman and a member of a prominent and eccentric New Orleans family. He is unmarried and enjoys the escape that going to the movies provides. He is unable to keep himself from dating his secretaries, and he is constantly trying to hold "despair" at bay. It is an existential novel of the American suburbs where Binx tries to find meaning or hope in the midst of mundanity. But it isn't preachy or didactic, it meanders and searches, and one begins to wonder if Binx is a madman and not just a lonely bachelor. In this sense it has a lot more depth than some other books of middle-aged male suburban angst that I've read over the years, The Sportswriter and Independence Day by Richard Ford and Wheat That Springeth Green by J.F. Powers to name a few, and Binx seems far more ethereal than Frank Bascombe or Joe Hackett. It's short and cleverly written, and I recommend the book to anyone with a taste for the internal monologues of a Southern thinker.I added Adam Langer's much-praised debut, Crossing California to the reading queue, and I'm about to start reading part one of Peter Guralnick's two-part biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis. More soon!
A Reading Queue for 2004
I recently reorganized my bookshelves. I straightened and categorized the books, and I separated out all of the books that I haven't read and that I hope to read sooner rather than later. These are books that I've bought at the store, received as gifts, and unearthed on bookfinding expeditions. There are 31 of them. For a while now, I've had a quite large "to read" pile, and I add titles almost every week, it seems. The problem is that stacks of books are constantly getting pushed aside while I read whatever book I'm most excited about at the moment. There's not really anything wrong with this except that there are books that I really would like to read, but never seem to get around to it. So, since I obviously am not to be trusted, I have decided to take some of the decision making out of my hands: I have set aside a special shelf to hold my new "Reading Queue." On it are all of the books that I own and would like to read but haven't yet. From this shelf full of books, I will randomly select the next one to read. Before I get into that though, here's my reading queue, some of the books that will keep me occupied during the coming year:Without Feathers by Woody AllenThe Summer Game by Roger AngellOnce More Around the Park: A Baseball Reader by Roger AngellGame Time: A Baseball Companion by Roger AngellAn Army at Dawn by Rick AtkinsonThe Sheltering Sky by Paul BowlesThe Hole in the Flag by Andrei CodrescuDon Quixote by Miguel De CervantesParis Trout by Pete DexterThe Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre DumasThe Last Amateurs by John FeinsteinA Season on the Brink by John FeinsteinLiving to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia MarquezLast Train to Memphis by Peter GuralnickThe Great Fire by Shirley HazzardRound Rock by Michelle HunevenThe Known World by Edward P. JonesBalkan Ghosts by Robert D. KaplanShah of Shahs by Ryszard KapuscinskiThe Price of Admiralty by John KeeganEverything's Eventual by Stephen KingLiar's Poker by Michael LewisThe Coming of Rain by Richard MariusThe Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullersLooking for a Ship by John McPheeMoviegoer by Walker PercyFraud by David RakoffThe Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver SacksEast of Eden by John SteinbeckQuicksilver by Neal StephensonMr. Jefferson's University by Garry WillsOnce I had a full shelf to pick from, the only question was how to pick randomly. I thought about writing down names and picking out of hat, but that seemed like a pain, and I would have had to go look for a hat, so instead I located a random number generator to help me make my choice. I'm going back east tomorrow for two weeks, so I picked three books to take with me: Everything's Eventual, Paris Trout, and Don Quixote. I'm guessing most folks will be pretty busy over the next couple of weeks, and so will I, so I'll probably only post a couple of times while I'm gone. They should be good, though. Look for "My Year in Books" and a post about the books I gave as gifts. Happy Holidays, all.
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