My 2010 reading list
Starred books are ones I loved; ones with crosses I wouldn’t recommend.
Too Much Happiness*
Alice Munro
Invisible
Paul Auster
Timbuktu*
Paul Auster
A Gate at the Stairs
Lorrie Moore
I love Lorrie Moore, but felt this novel was uneven. At times it had her pitch-perfect dialogue and wonderful sensibility, but at other times the characters and situations felt almost stereotypical. Still, a less-than-perfect Lorrie Moore novel beats almost any other read.
Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken
Laura Schenone
Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout
The Zookeeper’s Daughter*
Diane Ackerman
Diane Ackerman did a wonderful job of writing a non-fiction account with a strong narrative, sticking to historical facts by deftly adding phrases like, “we can imagine,” that let the readers know what was based on historical record and what was assumed by circumstances. A lovely and humane story where the writer was perfectly suited to the historical material.
The Yacoubian Building*
Alaa Al Aswany
Engaging book about different classes in modern Egypt, all residing in the same building. Reads like updated Mahfouz, a compassionate, detailed, Dickensian look at the people who populate another world.
Cutting for Stone*
Abraham Verghese
I couldn’t put down this story about twin brothers in Ethiopia who both become doctors. It’s a good old-fashioned sweeping narrative, with fascinating medicine, and a political backdrop.
Wench*
Dolen Parkins-Valdez
This book uncovers a chilling historical moment: a resort in Ohio that catered to Southern men and their mistress/slaves, “wenches.” Written by one of the women, it’s an intimate portrait of slavery, full of heart, imagination, and horrifying detail. Another gem for Amistad editor Dawn Davis.
Generosity
Richard Powers
The “gene” in “generosity” is the topic of this fast-paced read, which makes us reflect on whether the structure of narrative is as important in determining a story as genes are to determining temperament. Richard Powers’ novel offers wiggle room in both cases. Has-been writer/adjunct creative writing teacher encounters an unreasonably happy young woman whose joy comes to the attention of a geneticist whose research leads him to announce the genotype for happiness, whereupon the hounded Miss Generosity loses a lot of her happiness. Writer ponders and decries narrative while writing a book with a taut plot, climax, and denoument. No one’s really happy in the end, or maybe everyone is.
Pictures at an Exhibition*
Sara Houghteling
Pictures at an Exhibition is a wonderful debut by a young woman who teaches high school English about the looting of art in Paris during World War II. Sara Houghteling has an amazing grasp of history, art, and the human heart.
Boys and Girls Like You and Me*
Aryn Kyle
Aryn Kyle’s stories are full of a lot of troubled young women in painful situations, which is probably why I liked it. Full of humor, loneliness, longing, mean girls, bad boyfriends, worse dads. Writing occasionally has that predictable MFA style, but I’m a fan.
Under the Volcano*
Malcolm Lowry
Drunk in Mexico. Stream of consciousness. Fabulous description. Drunk again.
Beatrice and Virgil*
Yann Martel
An ambitious allegory, a la Animal Farm, of the Holocaust. The main characters are stuffed animals in a taxidermy named Beatrice and Virgil, who are our guides through heaven and, increasingly toward the end of the book, hell. Metafictional, self-conscious storytelling with bits of memoir, Dante, and Beckettian dialogue, make it difficult to become completely absorbed, but the book is thoughtful, admirable, and well worth reading.
Life of Pi*
Yann Martel
A joy to read again.
Death with Interruptions*
Jose Saramago
Another one of Saramago’s books where he takes one aspect of reality and shows how people react to it–in this case, death takes a vacation for two weeks. I loved the first half of the book, liked less the part where Death falls in love with a cellist.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog*
Muriel Barbery
Loved the book, felt like the ending undermined the rest of the story.
Where the God of Love Hangs Out
Amy Bloom
Wonderfully emotional, spare writing, but hard to like the perverse characters.
More of This World or Maybe Another*
Barb Johnson
Memorable characters in pre-Katrina New Orleans, completely satisfying.
Private Life
Jane Smiley
Sweeping novel with a depressing arc. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is evoked at one point, and Margaret’s life and journey seem almost as confined. But I wondered whether she was too smart a character to live with what she lived with for so long without taking any action on her own behalf.
The Desert*
JMG LeClezio
Nobel Prize-winning author’s tale of two Algerian desert people, a boy many years ago, and a contemporary girl of his tribe, and their struggles to exist against the forces first of colonialism and then globalization. Lovely.
The Night of the Gun*
David Carr
NYT writer investigates his drug-addled past, raising meta-questions about the nature of truth and memoir. Great book as long as he stayed on the theme of overcoming addiction; once safely back in the world, it verges on name-dropping and narcissism. Interviewing the wife and current boss? Not the same as the interviews with the druggies of the past.
The Lovers
Vendela Vida
I admire Vendela’s spare prose and stark emotional landscapes. This book, though, left me a bit cold.
Little Bee*
Chris Cleave
Thoughtful look at clash of cultures and refugees from a brutal problem the UK doesn’t want to recognize. Hard to like one of the protagonists, especially when the other was so wonderful. Bang-up ending with too many easy coincidences.
A Visit from the Goon Squad*
Jennifer Egan
Mish-mash of story relating to rock and roll and aging. Unlikeable characters, but very likeable book.
Anthropology of an American Girl*
Hilary Thayer Hamann
The Imperfectionists
Tom Rachman
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao*
Junot Diaz
Just Kids*
Patti Smith
Great read. And I’m a huge fan. But National Book Award?
Home*
Marilynne Robinson
Men and Dogs*
Katie Crouch
Full Catastrophe Living*
Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson
Freedom*
Jonathan Franzen
Let the Great World Spin*
Colum McCann
Nashville Chrome
Rick Bass
Lies My Mother Never Told Me*
Kaylie Jones
Dry*
Augusten Burroughs
Life
Keith Richards
Tedious, insider-baseball with a few juicy parts.
Garlic & Sapphires*
Ruth Reichl
All is Forgotten, Nothing Lost*
Lan Samantha Change
The Lacuna
Barbara Kingsolver
Wonderful first half, then it fell off a cliff.
The Company She Keeps
Mary McCarthy*
My 2009 Reading List
The Fig Eater
Jody Shields
Strawberry Fields*
Marina Lewycka
Ahab’s Wife*
Sena Jeter Naslund
The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Bridge of Sighs*
Richard Russo
How We Decide*
Jonah Lehrer
A Free Life*
Ha Jin
Goldengrove
Francine Prose
The Know-It-All*
AJ Jacobs
Jim the Boy*
Tony Earley
American Wife*
Curtis Sittenfeld
The Story of a Marriage
Andrew Sean Greer
The Mayfields
Annie Dillard
Brooklyn*
Colm Toibin
Obabakoak*
Bernard Atxago
Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard*
Isak Dinesen
The Accordianist’s Son*
Bernardo Atxago
Amsterdam: A Literary Traveler’s Companion
Manfred Wolf, ed.
We Used to Own the Bronx
Eve Pell
Writing Places*
William Zinsser
That Old Cape Magic
Richard Russo
The Angel’s Game
Carlos Luis Zafron
Await Your Reply*
Dan Chaon
I See You Everywhere
Julia Glass
The Help*
Kathryn Stockett
The Seamstress*
Frances de Pontes Peebles
Eat the Document
Dana Spiotta
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders*
Daniyal Mueenuddin
Juliet, Naked
Nick Hornby
Chronic City*
Jonathan Lethem
The Ramen King and I
Andy Raskin
Epitaph for a Peach*
David Mas Masumoto
Lit*
Mary Karr
My 2008 Reading List
Divisadero
Michael Ondaatje
Anil’s Ghost
Michael Ondaatje
The Unlikely Lavender Queen
Jeannie Ralston
Until I Find You
John Irving
The Spectator Bird*
Wallace Stegner
A Long Way Down
Nick Hornby
Imagining Argentina
Lawrence Thornton
Any Place I Hang My Hat
Susan Isaacs
The Double Bind
Chris Bohjalian
Summer*
Edith Wharton
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name*
Vendela Vida
Ten Days in the Hills
Jane Smiley
Summer
Edith Wharton
Emma*
Jane Austen
Eleven Minutes
Paolo Coehlo
Night Train to Lisbon*
Pascal Mercier
The Bright Forever
Lee Martin
Lush Life*
Richard Price
Away*
Amy Bloom
Girls in Trucks*
Katie Crouch
Summer Crossing
Truman Capote
All the Sad Young Literary Men
Keith Gesson
Foreign Affairs*
Alison Lurie
Unfinished Season*
Ward Just
Acts of God
Mary Morris
The Ministry of Special Cases*
Nathan Englander
America, America*
Ethan Canin
Truth & Beauty*
Ann Patchett
Do the Windows Open?
Julie Hecht
The Hunters*
Claire Messud
The Keep*
Jennifer Egan
The Birth of Venus
Sarah Dunant
Amsterdam*
Ian McEwan
Echo House*
Ward Just
The Year of Magical Thinking*
Joan Didion
Flights of Love
Bernhard Schlink
Dreams From My Father*
Barack Obama
The Hungry Tide*
Amitov Ghosh
Truth & Consequences
Alison Lurie
Taft
Ann Patchett
Feast of Love*
Charles Baxter
The Double*
Jose Saramago
Bonk:The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex*
Mary Roach
Easter Parade*
Richard Yates
My 2007 Reading List
Saturday*
Ian McEwan
On Mexican Time
Tony Cohan
Broken for You*
Stephanie Kallos
Social Intelligence
Daniel Goleman
Devil’s Highway*
Luis Alberto Ullea
The Tender Bar*
JR Moehdringer
The Wonder Spot
Melissa Bank
The Inheritance of Loss*
Kiran Desai
The Emperor’s Children*
Claire Messud
The Elephant Vanishes
Haruki Murakami
Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert
No Direction Home*
Marisa Silver
Oil on the Brain*
Lisa Margonelli
The History of Love*
Nicole Krauss
The View from Castle Rock
Alice Munro
I Feel Bad About My Neck
Nora Ephron
Lost City Radio*
Daniel Alarcón
The Diviners†
Rick Moody
You Don’t Love Me Yet†
Jonathan Lethem
The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell
Special Topics in Calamity Physics*
Marisha Pessl
What is the What*
Dave Eggers
Rise and Shine
Anna Quindlen
The Magician’s Assistant
Ann Patchett
Testimone Inconsapevole*
Gianrico Carofiglio
The Jane Austen Book Club†
Karen Joy Fowler
Year of Wonders
Geraldine Brooks
Five Skies
Ron Carlson
Ad Occhi Chiusi
Gianrico Carofiglio
The Lay of the Land*
Richard Ford
No One Belongs Here More than You*
Miranda July
Midwives*
Chris Bohjalian
Covergirl†
Maura Moynihan
Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell
The Descendants*
Kaui Hart Hemmings
Running with Scissors
Augusten Burroughs
Ordinary Love and Good Will
Jane Smiley
The Whole World Over
Julia Glass
Audrey Hepburn’s Neck
Alan Brown
Magical Thinking
Augusten Burroughs
The Lost Night*
Rachel Howard
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
The Law of Similars
Chris Bohjalian
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini
Suite Francaise*
Irene Nemirovsky
Nice Work
David Lodge
Forgetfulness*
Ward Just
My 2006 Reading List
Interesting Women
Andrea Lee
The White Masai
Corinne Hofmann
Cold Comfort Farm*
Stella Gibbons
The Ha-ha*
Dave King
The Lives of the Muses
Francine Prose
Among the Missing*
Dan Chaon
Lunar Park*
Bret Easton Ellis
On Beauty*
Zadie Smith
A Sense of the World*
Jason Roberts
The Accidental
Ali Smith
Intelligence in Nature*
Jeremy Narby
Gilead*
Marilynne Robinson
Ex Libris*
Anne Fadiman
War by Candlelight*
Daniel Alarcón
Last Night*
James Salter
Out of Africa and
Shadows in the Grass
Isak Dineson
West with the Night*
Beryl Markham
The Snows of Kilimanjaro*
Ernest Hemingway
North of South
V.S. Naipaul
Prep
Curtis Settenfeld
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families*
Philip Gourevitch
Conspiracy of Murder: The Rwandan Genocide
Linda Melvern
The Sad Truth About Happiness†
Anne Giardini
Never Let Me Go*
Kazuo Ishiguro
The Unsettling
Peter Rock
Dusk and Other Stories*
James Salter
At the Jim Bridger*
Ron Carlson
The Brooklyn Follies
Paul Auster
The Return of Mavala Shikongo*
Peter Orner
Indecision*
Benjamin Kunkel
Everyman*
Philip Roth
Veronica*
Mary Gaitskill
Lightning Field*
Dana Spiotta
Devil’s Teeth
Susan Casey
Vietnam Now: A Reporter Returns
David Lamb
The Quiet American*
Graham Greene
The Things They Carried*
Tim O’Brien
How to be Good
Nick Hornby
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain*
Robert Olen Butler
Over the Moat*
James Sullivan
Happy Baby*
Stephen Elliott
The River King
Alice Hoffman
Garlic and Sapphires
Ruth Reichl
Dispatches*
Michael Herr
The Omnivore’s Dilemma*
Michael Pollan
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Rebecca Solnit
King Leopold’s Ghost*
Adam Hochschild
The House on Dream Street*
Dana Sachs
Fire in the Lake*
Frances Fitzgerald