This year, I increased the number of capsule reactions (1-2 paragraph write-ups) of books I read. Thus, I ended up writing about way more books than I ever have before. All told, I wrote 123 books. I’ve listed them below, along with links to the relevant blog posts. In a surprisingly large number of these cases (particularly Working, Burmese Days, Fun Home, and Frankenstein), the links go to full blog posts that discuss the work in question. In most of the others, the link goes to a page that aggregated my reactions to many books. Finally, some of the book-links go to blog posts that are mostly about other things, where I also off-handedly mentioned book and my reaction to it.
My Favorites (Amongst The Books I Blogged About)
| White Tiger |
Adiga, Aravind |
| Fun Home |
Bechdel, Alison |
| A Lost Lady |
Cather, Willa |
| Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother |
Chua, Amy |
| Alcestis |
Euripides |
| Stumbling on Happiness |
Gilbert, Daniel |
| Hard Living On Clay Street: Portraits Of Blue Collar Families |
Howells, Joseph T. |
| Darkness At Noon |
Koestler, Arthur |
| Tell Them Who I Am |
Liebow, Elliot |
| This Is Not A Novel [2] |
Markson, David |
| Wittgenstein’s Mistress |
Markson, David |
| A Bend In The River |
Naipaul, V.S. |
| Finding Time Again |
Proust, Marcel |
| The Jungle [2] |
Sinclair, Upton |
| The Grapes of Wrath |
Steinbeck, John |
| In Dubious Battle |
Steinbeck, John |
| Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do |
Terkel, Studs |
| Sleepwalk and Other Stories |
Tomine, Adrian |
| Vile Bodies |
Waugh, Evelyn |
| The Importance of Being Earnest |
Wilde, Oscar |
| Pick-Up [2] |
Willeford, Charles |
| I Married A Dead Man [2] |
Woolrich, Cornell |
| Germinal |
Zola, Emile |
| L’Assommoir |
Zola, Emile |
The Other Books I Blogged About (Which Were Mostly Pretty Good Too)
| Between The Assassinations |
Adiga, Aravind |
| Agamemnon |
Aeschylus |
| The Libation Bearers |
Aeschylus |
| The Eumenides |
Aeschylus |
| Thieves Like Us |
Anderson, Edward |
| Epic of Gilgamesh |
Anonymous |
| Mansfield Park |
Austen, Jane |
| Flaubert’s Parrot |
Barnes, Julian |
| Kitchen Confidential |
Bourdain, Anthony |
| My Booky Wook |
Brand, Russell |
| Paying For It |
Brown, Chester |
| The Postman Always Rings Twice |
Cain, James M. |
| Double Indemnity |
Cain, James M. |
| Don Quixote, Part One |
Cervantes, Miguel de |
| Farewell, My Lovely |
Chandler, Raymond |
| High Window |
Chandler, Raymond |
| Portrait Of The Addict As A Young Man |
Clegg, William |
| Candy Girl [2] |
Cody, Diablo |
| Waiting For The Barbarians |
Coetzee, J. M. |
| A Short Account Of The Destruction Of The Indies |
De Las Casas, Bartoleme |
| Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts And The Politics Of The Paraliterary |
Delany, Samuel |
| David Copperfield |
Dickens, Charles |
| Oliver Twist |
Dickens, Charles |
| Dropsie Avenue |
Eisner, Will |
| The Informers |
Ellis, Brett Easton |
| Medea |
Euripides |
| The Trojan Women |
Euripides |
| Electra |
Euripides |
| The Bacchantae |
Euripides |
| Andromache |
Euripides |
| The Big Clock |
Fearing, Kenneth |
| Bossypants |
Fey, Tina |
| Flying Colors |
Forester, C.S. |
| What The Dog Saw and other essays |
Gladwell, Malcolm |
| The Tipping Point |
Gladwell, Malcolm |
| Down There |
Goodis, David |
| Our Man In Havana |
Greene, Graham |
| Travels With My Aunt |
Greene, Graham |
| Nightmare Alley |
Gresham, William Lindsay |
| The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time |
Haddon, Mark |
| Something Happened |
Heller, Joseph |
| Real Cool Killers |
Himes, Chester |
| The Haunting Of Hill House |
Jackson, Shirley |
| We Have Always Lived In The Castle |
Jackson, Shirley |
| War |
Junger, Sebastian |
| The Castle |
Kafka, Franz |
| Lit |
Karr, Mary |
| The Geography Of Nowhere |
Kunstler, James Howard |
| Call For The Dead |
Le Carre, John |
| The Spy Who Came In From The Cold |
Le Carre, John |
| Book Of Nonsense |
Lear, Edward |
| The Last Novel |
Markson, David |
| The General In His Labyrinth |
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia |
| A Dance With Dragons [2] |
Martin, George R. R. |
| The Tale of Genji |
Murasaki, Shikibu |
| Lectures On Don Quixote |
Nabokov, Vladimir |
| Burmese Days |
Orwell, George |
| Apology |
Plato |
| Crito |
Plato |
| Protagoras |
Plato |
| Parallel Lives, Volume III |
Plutarch |
| Swann’s Way |
Proust, Marcel |
| In The Shadow Of Young Girls In Flower |
Proust, Marcel |
| Guermantes Way |
Proust, Marcel |
| Sodom and Gomorrah |
Proust, Marcel |
| The Imperfectionists |
Rachman, Tom |
| Methland |
Reading, Nick |
| Ant Farm |
Rich, Simon |
| Tropisms |
Sarraute, Nathalie |
| Barrel Fever |
Sedaris, David |
| Antony and Cleopatra |
Shakespeare, William |
| As You Like It |
Shakespeare, William |
| Much Ado About Nothing |
Shakespeare, William |
| Frankenstein |
Shelley, Mary |
| Reality Hunger |
Shields, David |
| Just Kids |
Smith, Patti |
| Tortilla Flat |
Steinbeck, John |
| Cannery Row |
Steinbeck, John |
| Harmonium |
Stevens, Wallace |
| The Game |
Strauss, Neil |
| The Black Swan |
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas |
| The Killer Inside Me |
Thompson, Jim |
| The Grifters |
Thompson, Jim |
| Pop. 1280 |
Thompson, Jim |
| The Cossacks |
Tolstoy, Leo |
| Summer Blonde |
Tomine, Adrian |
| Shortcomings |
Tomine, Adrian |
| 32 Stories: The Complete Optic Nerve Mini-Comics |
Tomine, Adrian |
| Decline and Fall |
Waugh, Evelyn |
| Scoop |
Waugh, Evelyn |
| War Of The Worlds |
Wells, H.G. |
| Custom Of The Country |
Wharton, Edith |
| The Organization Man |
Whyte, William H. |
| The Burnt Orange Heresy |
Willeford, Charles |
| Local |
Wood, Brian |
| Nana |
Zola, Emile |
Fifteen Other Books That I Read This Year And Also Liked Alot
After assembling the above lists, I realized that I had also read a bunch (100+) other books and not posted about them. In some cases (as for Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!) this was because I couldn’t think of something interesting to say about them. In other cases (like Orwell’s Fifty Essays and Charles Yu’s How To Live Safely In A Science-Fictional Universe) I had tons of stuff to say, but I never got around to sitting down and writing it all down. In any case, these unwritten-about books are not unloved. Some of my favorite books of the year are in the below category (particularly Jeffrey Eugenides’ Virgin Suicides, on which I would paste a gold-star, if I had any).
| High Rise |
Ballard, J.G. |
| The Professor’s House |
Cather, Willa |
| Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine |
Dohrmann, George |
| The Virgin Suicides |
Eugenides, Jeffrey |
| Absalom, Absalom! |
Faulkner, William |
| A Farewell to Arms |
Hemingway, Ernest |
| Confessions of an Ex-Colored Man |
Johnson, James Weldon |
| After The Apocalypse: Stories |
McHugh, Maureen |
| Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle |
Nabokov, Vladimir |
| A House For Mr. Biswas |
Naipaul, V.S. |
| Fifty Essays |
Orwell, George |
| Taming Of The Shrew |
Shakespeare, William |
| Age of Innocence |
Wharton, Edith |
| De Profundis and other writings |
Wilde, Oscar |
| How To Live Safely In A Science-Fictional Universe |
Yu, Charles |