This is about par for the course in terms of quality and quantity of books. I'd like to increase both, but I'm pleased for the most part. I try to read what I like and also what is well regarded and I try to avoid trash.
The Winner!
Mating was the winner of the race - by far - I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading. Just an amazing work.
In Defense of Food is required in order to unclench and get shit correct about food and eating. Fiction runners-up in a pack were Amis, Price, and Chabon. I like all these authors. But Chabon lets genre have it's way with him. Amis, I've come to believe, is... overrated is the wrong word, but my how people like him! Lucky Jim is a very good book though. Price surprised me and could have taken the top spot except that Mating was just too strong a runner. I look forward to reading one of Price's more well regarded books, like Clockers.
I have to point out Michael Perry. This book - Population 485 - is funny and bittersweet and is a good take on "real Wisconsin." Like "real" anything, "real Wisconsin" doesn't exist, but Perry comes close to describing it. He's a literary celebrity in Wisconsin and he'll probably come up with a national break out book soon.
Books I Read 2009
* Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
* ????
* If I Die in a Combat Zone... by Tim O'Brien
* The Battle for America 2008 by Haynes Johnson and Dan Balz
* In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
* Home Game by Michael Lewis
* Population 485 by Michael Perry
* Matter by Iain Banks
* Tokyo Financee by Amelie Nothomb
* Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
* The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
* Brainiac by Ken Jennings
* Fun Home Allison Bechdel
* Lush Life by Richard Price
* Election by Tom Perrota
* Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
* McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes Editors of McSweeney's
* Mating by Norman Rush (!)
In my next post I'll reveal a startling goal for my reading 2010!
i think that the mystery book is actually the complete sookie stackhouse collection...or maybe the twilight series. no junk books, indeed.
ReplyDeleteI avoid trash, not junk. And I don't think Twilight's going to end up on the racing sheet for this coming year. Sorry. I might be persuaded to try this Stackhouse thing, though.
ReplyDeletestay away from the stackhouse books!!! the whole series was donated to the costume shop "library." it was like a harlequin romance for vampires, witches and shapeshifters.
ReplyDeletethey were hardback and i had to remove the steamy covers. i was ashamed of my reading compulsion, but couldn't stop. i warn you, just. stay. away.