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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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Rocker Lit
First there was Keith Richards's autobiography, Life. Now he is writing a children's book, complete with illustrations by his daughter. Gus & Me tells the story of Richards's bond with his grandfather, which is slightly more normal than snorting his dad's ashes.
Are Run-On Subtitles Literature’s New Flop Sweat?
1.
While writing my very first blurb recently – it was for an old friend's new book about the creation of America's interstate highways – I was delighted to discover that this otherwise very strong piece of work had just two weak points. One was the title, The Big Roads, which strikes me as a big snore. The other was the subtitle, a panting pileup of purplish prose: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways.
Suddenly, every time I walked into a bookstore or read a review, I started noticing similarly breathless subtitles. What had struck me initially as an unfortunate decision by the publisher of The Big Roads now began to look like a full-blown trend. Two books in particular fed this dawning revelation – Moby Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost At Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them; and Man Down!: Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fun Managers, and Just About Everything Else.
After discovering dozens of run-on subtitles, I naturally began to wonder what was at work here. My initial theory was that this sudden gush of wordiness is a natural by-product of book publishing's desperate times. In a marketplace glutted with too many titles – and in a culture that makes books more marginal by the day – publishers seem to think that if they just shout loudly enough, people will notice their products, then buy them. In other words, the run-on subtitle is literature's equivalent of flop sweat, that stinky slime that coats the skin of every comedian, actor and novelist who has ever gotten ready to step in front of a live audience knowing, in the pit of his stomach, that he's going to bomb. But when I asked around, my flop sweat theory started to hold less and less water.
2.
John Valentine co-founded The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, N.C., more than thirty years ago. Since then he has helped build it into a beloved cultural institution in the so-called "Triangle" of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, where there just might be more writers per-capita than in any other place on the planet outside select zip codes in Brooklyn and Manhattan's Upper West Side.
"I'd say about three years ago I started noticing more words on covers, more buzzwords," Valentine told me when I dropped by the shop recently. When I ran my flop sweat theory past him, he shook his head. "I think it's driven by Search – with a capital S – whether it's Google or Amazon or whatever. A lot of our customers hear about books on NPR, and when they come in the store they can't always remember the author or the title. The more words a customer might remember, the more keywords we can use to Google it. If a word is rather unique, we're more likely to find it. With the river of books – with the river of everything – most people want to have more unique words associated with their product."
Most people, maybe, but not all people. Valentine has noticed another trend running counter to the run-on subtitle. "The converse of it," he says, "is publishers and authors who feel confident. They tend to go small." He waved at several examples on a shelf near the front of the store – Cleopatra: A Life by Pulitzer-Prize winner Stacy Schiff; Just Kids by Patti Smith, which won a National Book Award; Frank: The Voice by James Kaplan; Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus III; and Life by Keith Richards. It doesn't get much more concise than that. Maybe It by Stephen King.
And there are exceptions to Valentine's theory. Simon Winchester, who scored a major hit in 2005 with The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, has just published Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories. Maybe Winchester simply believes in sticking with a winning formula. Tina Rosenberg, who has won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize, is out with Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World.
While not overly wordy, Rosenberg's subtitle falls into what I call the "Tao of How" category – books that promise to show us how the world really works, and how we can use that knowledge to transform our humdrum lives into epic experiences full of bliss, friends, great sex, wisdom and/or bags of money. Recent efforts include Connected: How Your Friends' Friends' Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think and Do by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler; and Jane McGonigal's Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World.
3.
While working as an editor at Houghton Mifflin (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Eamon Dolan bought the concept that eventually became The Big Roads. Dolan, who has since become vice president and editor-in-chief at The Penguin Press, contends that verbose subtitles have always been with us and probably always will be. He also believes that subtitles have become an especially valuable marketing tool in our digital age, echoing John Valentine's theory.
"I'd say that subtitles are important enough to the success of a nonfiction book that hardly any such book is published without one," Dolan said in an e-mail. "Traditionally (and still), the subtitle explicitly states the book's subject and purpose and implicitly tries to signal who its audience is. In the 21st century, the subtitle has a more pointed intent as well – to offer keywords that might come up in web searches. While we do not design subtitles with this particular goal in mind, it is a use that suggests subtitles are as essential now as ever they were."
Dolan doesn't believe you can judge the effectiveness of a subtitle merely by looking at its length. Some pithy ones are perfect, he contends, while a long freight train can be just as effective. To prove his point, Dolan cites the very different subtitles on two books he edited. "A favorite subtitle of mine right now is the one for Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer – The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. Its lyricism, clarity and faux-grandiosity beautifully and efficiently convey the book's ambitious scope and endearing tone. Often the author, editor, publisher, et al, brainstorm and/or wrangle at length over titles and subtitles, but these came directly from the author even before the manuscript was complete. And we knew right away that we couldn't improve on them. Brevity is often a goal in this realm because shorter subtitles enter the mind more readily and are easier to incorporate into a jacket design."
That said, he added, "Another of my favorite subtitles is an exception that proves the rule. Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis was subtitled Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. It's double-wide, to be sure, but it earns every inch of the real estate it takes up. I love how its two halves rub against each other in a way that sparks a reader's interest. How could such lofty qualities as heartbreak, genius, etc., arise in such a nerdy arena as a Scrabble contest? To me, and to many, many other readers, this has proven an irresistible question."
That sweaty wrestling match Dolan describes – the author, editor, publisher, et al, locked in a room wrangling over potential titles and subtitles – is familiar to most authors of non-fiction books, and to more than a few writers of fiction. But when Malcolm Jones, a culture writer at Newsweek/The Daily Beast, was getting ready to publish a memoir, the wrestling match was fairly painless. "On my book, we – I think this discussion finally involved my editor, agent and wife – we tried a subtitle but it just sounded like a second title," Jones said by e-mail. "So we figured we'd label it 'a memoir' and let people work it out. This, of course, resulted in the stampede of sales." The book's cover is elegant in its simplicity, just the words Little Boy Blues: A Memoir and a photograph of the author at the age of 10 or so, reading a newspaper and pretending to smoke an unlit pipe, the picture of future literary sophistication. It echoes the beautiful economy of the cover of Experience: A Memoir by Martin Amis, which shows the author as a tow-headed pre-teen with a scowl on his face and a cigarette clenched between his lips. That scowl and that cigarette leave no doubt that this is one bad, bad lad.
Why is such gorgeous restraint the exception in contemporary publishing? "I'm tempted to go with your flop sweat theory," Jones says. "Having made the initial error to publish way more than they should, publishers cravenly attempt at the last minute to adorn their hundreds of titles with some sham distinction in the baseless hope that, yes, this will attract a reader or two. Or maybe some of it has to do with playing to the computer's power to aggregate. I wish this were more far-fetched than it sounds."
4.
Which brings us, finally, to Earl Swift, my friend who wrote The Big Roads. He describes the creation of the book's title and subtitle not as a wrestling match but as a "collaborative process" between himself, his editors and the publishing house's marketing people. In the end, they agreed on a title that they felt was less opaque and more self-explanatory than the dozens of possibilities they'd bounced back and forth.
"Some publishers go for short titles so that you can stack the words vertically on the cover," says Swift, the author of three previous non-fiction books. "That allows you to go with bigger type and give the book more visual impact. But some short titles are so obscure or general that they require amplification."
When it came time to compose a subtitle that would help readers understand what The Big Roads was about, Swift said his main goal was to debunk a common misconception. "I thought we had to telegraph to potential readers that they don't know the story as well as they think they do. You say 'interstate highways' and most people immediately think 'Eisenhower.' So I thought we had to signal that the people responsible for those highways are people you've probably never heard of."
And so it came to pass that author and publisher agreed on a subtitle that might have once sounded breathless to me but, on second thought, actually does accomplish what it set out to do. It alerts readers to the fact that our interstate highways did not pop fully formed out of Dwight Eisenhower's vacuous skull. For that reason, among many others, I hope the book sells faster than Krispy Kremes.
(Image: Untitled from joost-ijmuiden's photostream)
A Year In Reading: Jenny Davidson
Fifteen things about my year in reading:
1. My most immersive reading experience of the year took place in late January and February as I embarked upon Dorothy Dunnett’s House of Niccolo series, followed by the Lymond Chronicles. Twelve long and involved and completely transporting books later, I closed the cover of the final installment with a profound sense of loss.
2. My other most immersive reading experience, magically transporting in a perfectly satisfying fashion: rereading War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
3. The book I read this year that I most wish I had written myself: Elif Batuman’s The Possessed.
4. The book I read this year that I don’t understand why I hadn’t read sooner, it is so much exactly what I like: Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend.
5. Three excellent novels I read for the second or third or fourth time this year and found just as fantastically good as I had the last time: Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai, Cintra Wilson’s Colors Insulting to Nature, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty.
6. Another important reread: Mary Renault’s trio of novels about Alexander the Great. The influence Renault’s books had on me as a young teenager cannot be overstated.
7. The indispensable and fascinating nonfiction book that I think everyone should read: Randy Frost and Gail Steketee’s Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things.
8. The most intellectually stimulating nonfiction book I read this year: Pervasive Games: Theory and Design. The only other book I read this year that is likely to have such a pronounced effect on my next novel (The Bacchae excluded) is Andrew Dolkart’s architectural history of Morningside Heights.
9. The most intellectually stimulating book I reread this year: Genette’s Figures of Literary Discourse. In a similar vein, I also reimmersed myself in the writings of Victor Shklovsky and read Scott McCloud’s inspired Understanding Comics.)
10. I found Keith Richards’ Life incomparably more interesting (a better book!) than Patti Smith’s Just Kids. The latter also suffers in comparison to Kristin Hersh’s Rat Girl, which I highly recommend.
11. Some of the top-caliber crime writers whose books I read for the first time this year: Arnaldur Indridason, Liz Rigbey, Caroline Carver, Deon Meyer, Ake Edwardson, Asa Larsson, C. J. Sansom, Jo Nesbo.
12. Writers whose new books I devoured this year because I like their previous ones so much: Lee Child, Sigrid Nunez, Kate Atkinson, Robert Crais, Ken Bruen, Diana Wynne Jones, Terry Pratchett, Jilly Cooper, Joe Hill, Tana French, Jo Walton, Connie Willis, Joshilyn Jackson.
13. Top 2010 guilty pleasure reading, both in its guiltiness and in its pleasurability: Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel books. (Richard Kadrey’s books are too well-written to count as a guilty pleasure, but they are immensely pleasurable.)
14. I found Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom excellent, but it did not have a deep effect on me.
15. In September, I got a Kindle. It has saved me a lot of neckache while traveling, some dollars that might have been spent on full-price hardbacks and the pain of reading poor-quality mass-market paperbacks when I can’t find anything better. The best value-for-money discovery: Lewis Shiner’s superb novel Black & White, available at his website as a free PDF.
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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A Year in Reading: Hamilton Leithauser
Life by Keith Richards: Any Stones fan will enjoy this. The only problem is you have to get through the drug-filled later 70’s and 80’s, which are kind of a rock-n-roll fantasy drag. I wish there’d been a little more talk about the records and a little less of the drogas, but what are you gonna do. He really warms up by the end though, and even has a recipe for bangers and mash. Most of the history is stuff you’ve heard before, but it’s fun to hear it from Keith’s mouth. It’s most interesting to hear him talk about the other dudes…I guess he does love Mick like a brother--although they’ve had their differences--he adores Charlie, hates Bill, and had an antagonistic, but mutually respectful relationship with Brian. Mick Taylor is aloof, and Ronnie is a hard-core Stone. I’m so surprised that Mick wrote the "Brown Sugar" riff.
Stoner by John Williams: My favorite book I read this year. He has a plain-Jane, perfectly mild style that is so satisfying. It’s like a great roasted chicken. It’s the life story of a guy named Stoner, who comes to work in the academic world, and is basically screwed over from all sides time and time again. Between his wife and the dean of students, he’s just not catching any breaks. There is less humor here than, say the Coen brothers' A Serious Man, but the matter-of-fact storytelling hooked me like a fish. I didn’t know a thing about John Williams beforehand, but after reading Stoner, I picked up Augustus (which I also recommend) and Butcher’s Crossing (which I haven’t yet read).
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah: The author was lost in the wars of Sierra Leone and picked up by roving packs of guerilla warriors. At something like the age of 13 he was given an AK-47 and enough drugs to numb himself to the massacres he then unleashed. His reintroduction to society is actually the most interesting part.
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens: Hitchens is an atheist who is basically making the claim that religion—and thus God--are man-made inventions that are more excuses for violence, repression, and intolerance than anything else. Science and reason are his new dogma. It is a very interesting read because he is articulate and funny, and he has many things to say about discrediting the foundations of the Bible, the Koran, and the Torah (among others). The histories of all religions are so jam-packed with violence and abuse, the point is hammered home a little too hard at times…and I’d be left wondering “what about the people who didn’t kill or molest anyone?” He’s a really brilliant guy though and even if I wasn’t necessarily convinced, I think it’s worth the read.
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
Like what you see? Learn about 5 insanely easy ways to Support The Millions
Tuesday New Release Day
New releases this week include Keith Richard’s rock memoir Life, reviewed for The Millions by Jim Santel, Michael Caine’s The Elephant to Hollywood, an "unabashedly old-school celebrity memoir” according to its New York Times review, and Stephen Sondheim’s songwriting book Finishing the Hat.
No Satisfaction: Keith Richards and the Rock Memoir
Rock-and-roll memoirs are among the most persistently disappointing of literary subgenres. Like athletes, rock musicians are rarely articulate about their craft. Both groups have easy recourse to common bodies of stale jargon—athletes give glory to God and say they “just went out and gave 110%”; rockers are all about the music, are glad to be clean, and didn’t really mean to suggest in their last interview that they were ambivalent about success. Genius that relies on fleeting inspiration, gut feeling, and unthinking improvisation is ill suited to the slow, reflective process of writing. It takes an outsider to get inside. Observers like John McPhee, John Updike, and Gay Talese have done this with sports. But rock music has eluded even serious writers. When Rolling Stone sent Truman Capote on tour with the Rolling Stones in 1972, he complained that there was simply nothing to write about, and never filed.
Capote’s work ethic had certainly eroded by then, but even the canonical body of book-length rock writing, by the likes of Greil Marcus, Stanley Booth, and Nick Tosches, never feels like more than the musings of very smart devotees about frequently inane artists. Nothing essential is transmitted. Read Updike’s Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, and you understand baseball. Read Marcus’s Lipstick Traces, and you have a headache. If something essential about rock music eludes capture by writers as fine as the ones I’ve listed, it positively dissipates when the musicians themselves try to explain it.
Into the long and prosaic line of rock star autobiographies comes Life, by Keith Richards (co-written by James Fox), which will be released on October 26th and which is excerpted in the most recent issue Rolling Stone. I’ve had high hopes for Keith’s autobiography, and not only because I’m a Stones fan. Rock autobiographies that aren’t Bob Dylan’s Chronicles fall into two equally hollow categories:
1.) The sentimental redemption tale, in which our hero discovers the blues in his small town in rural England or northern Minnesota, finds success, finds that this success comes too early and too fast, uses a lot of drugs and alienates a lot of people, finally cleans up, and unconvincingly assures us that he now knows what satisfaction is. Eric Clapton’s recent autobiography and the popular film adaptations of the lives of Ray Charles and Johnny Cash fall into this category.
2.) The raunchy, no-apologies tell-all, in which the rock star has a lot of sex, takes a lot of drugs, and refuses to repent doing either. Gene Simmons’s Kiss and Make-Up is the benchmark here, though elements of the tell-all are essential to any mainstream rock autobiography.
Keith’s life presents a chance to avoid the dual-track stagnation. For one thing, Keith Richards doesn’t deal in redemption; survival is his game. He’s cleaned up but still seems like an outlaw. This isn’t because he refuses to apologize, but because, by force of personality, he’s kept beyond the cultural discourse wherein fans simultaneously crave tales of backstage debauchery and demand apologies for them. Only Dylan has been so successful at staying above the public’s wildly oscillating morals. And while we’re speaking of debauchery, Keith’s addictions could be legitimate points of interest. The needles-and-groupies portions of most rock books tend to devolve into numbly pornographic lists. But Keith’s sustained cocaine and heroin usage has become so legendary that it might be interesting to know how he didn't die.
As it turns out, the answer makes Keith sound like Warren Buffett telling you how he made his money. Richards and Fox write:
It’s not only the high quality of drugs I had that I attribute my survival to. I was very meticulous about how much I took. I’d never put more in to get a little higher. That’s where most people fuck up on drugs. It’s the greed involved that never really affected me…Maybe that’s a measure of control, and maybe I’m rare in that respect. Maybe there I have an advantage.
That’s it. Keith Richards survived because he had a sense of moderation, and because he could afford the really good stuff.
Not only is this passage laughably anticlimactic, it just doesn’t sound like Keith. This is not to fault James Fox; his task was nigh impossible. Richards is one of the better interviews in rock and roll. His memories change a lot from interview to interview, but he is amusing and tries to be honest. His appeal, however, depends on his gravelly voice and his erratic deportment. Abstracted to the page and filtered through a co-author, things Keith would say tend to sound silly: “The travelling physician we’ll call Dr. Bill, to give it a Burroughsian ring.” Just as often, the excerpts don’t sound like Keith at all, as when he suddenly morphs into a frat boy: “No wonder I’m famous for partying! The ultimate party, if it’s any good, you can’t remember it.”
As that last quote suggests, Life does not refrain from the obligatory relation of prurient details. There is indeed a lot of sex in the Rolling Stone excerpts. Even the sex that might have been interesting is degraded. Of his relationship with Anita Pallenberg, whom he stole from soon-to-be-deceased bandmate Brian Jones, Keith says, “I still remember the smell of the orange trees in Valencia. When you get laid with Anita Pallenberg for the first time, you remember things.” Spoken like someone who doesn’t remember; everyone knows Valencia smells like oranges. Of another sexual encounter with Pallenberg, Keith says, “Phew.”
The excerpts do offer insight into another of Keith’s tortured and talked-about relationships: the one he’s maintained for forty years with Mick Jagger. The Glimmer Twins’ dynamic tends to be inscrutable, and Keith offers a bit of directness. Jagger, he muses, was jealous of Keith’s friendships with other men. He felt like he owned Keith. “…I love the man dearly; I’m still his mate,” Richards says. “But he makes it very difficult to be his friend.” Now we’re getting somewhere.
Or are we? As interesting as all this is, anyone who’s read even a few interviews with Jagger or Richards knows that there is no easy way to describe their friendship; the pair is always saying, “Yes, but…” Every blanket statement that makes for a nice block quote comes with a qualifier that does not. This is true of any subject, from Keith Richards to George Washington. Good biographers use nuance to approximate a life; they bring us closer to how a person lived. And a serious autobiographer can draw us even nearer to understanding, for no barriers of consciousness need surmounting; the author is already inside. But rock stars are subject to a specific set of demands, and by the nature of their work, they’re disposed to give us what we want. And as long as we desire accountings of every grain of cocaine and tallies of every groupie, we will remain in the audience, watching.
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