Year-end reading wrap-up
I found it a bit more difficult than usual to compile my year-end reading list this year. I'm usually very orderly about my reading--one book at a time, from start to finish--but that reading style isn't really compatible with having lots and lots of required reading for school. There were many books that I just skimmed or read in bits and pieces, and my careful record keeping sort of went out the window. So here, as best as I can reconstruct it, is a list of the books that I read in something close to their entirety in 2008:
1. Writing in the Asylum by Jennifer McCormick
2. The Circuit Writer by Margot Fortunato Galt
3. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
4. On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt
5. June Jordan's Poetry for the People, Laura Muller and the Blueprint Collective, eds.
6. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
7. I Am a Pencil by Sam Swope
8. Moab Is My Washpot by Stephen Fry
9. Affinity by Sarah Waters
10. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
11. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
12. Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
13. Life Class by Pat Barker
14. The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
15. Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy
16. The Liar's Club by Mary Karr
17. Newspaper Days by H.L. Mencken
18. Ecological Literacy by David Orr
19. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
20. Developing Ecological Consciousness by Christopher Uhl
21. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
22. The Crack-Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Ecological Identity by Mitchell Thomashow
24. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
25. Meeting the Tree of Life: a Teacher's Path by John Tallmadge
26: Jumping Over Fire by Nahid Rachlin
27. Ovenman by Jeff Parker
28. Writing and Healing: Toward an Informed Practice, Charles M. Anderson and Marion M. MacCurdy, eds.
29. Darkness Visible by William Styron
30. Cruddy by Lynda Barry
I'm disappointed in how few books I read "for pleasure" this year (some of the assigned reading was pleasurable, of course, but it's somehow not quite the same.) Only nos. 8-14 were my own choices. But it's always been very hard for me to do outside reading when I'm in school, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. I am surprised at how little fiction I read--only about one third of the titles on the list are novels, a shocking development when you consider the fact that my reading lists are usually at least 97% fiction. I did read a lot of short fiction that isn't represented here (mostly in The New Yorker, but from a few other places too), but it's still a much smaller amount of fiction than usual. I know that this is because I took two classes that required a lot of reading about pedagogy and one where the reading list was entirely autobiographies, but I'd really like to make sure I get back to reading more novels in 2009.
The lack of variety in my list makes it difficult to do my usual awards show format, with different categories and all the rest, so instead I'll just name a few of the best books of the year.
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson: This book is beautiful and quiet, perfectly suited to the dark and the cold. I suppose it's no wonder that I liked it, since it hits on a couple of my big themes: aging and memory and family history.
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein: I had never read a full-length work by Gertrude Stein before this one, and I was intimidated going into it, but I ended up really liking the book. Stein creates a vivid depiction of her and Alice's life in Paris. I was surprised by how funny the book was, and also by the way it forms a sort of slyly moving portrait of their long life together.
Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy: I loved McCarthy's voice in her autobiography: erudite, clever, curious, matter-of-fact, and thoughtful. This book also served as my inspiration for an essay on family history and place that I've been working on for a while now.
Cruddy by Lynda Barry: It's difficult to hold a book that I only finished two days ago up against books that have had months to settle in my mind, so perhaps I'll change my mind on this at some point, but I was really into this book. It is a glimpse into a dark, violent, sexualized childhood and its aftermath that was totally engrossing. I kept finding myself in bed at night saying "One more chapter. Okay, now just one more chapter..." I haven't written a proper post about this book, but I'm planning to do it very soon.
The two worst books of the year were The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta and The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The Perrotta was absolutely flaccid and boring, and The Mistress of Spices was nothing but cheap exoticism and non-credible romance. To be avoided!
1. Writing in the Asylum by Jennifer McCormick
2. The Circuit Writer by Margot Fortunato Galt
3. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
4. On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt
5. June Jordan's Poetry for the People, Laura Muller and the Blueprint Collective, eds.
6. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
7. I Am a Pencil by Sam Swope
8. Moab Is My Washpot by Stephen Fry
9. Affinity by Sarah Waters
10. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
11. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
12. Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
13. Life Class by Pat Barker
14. The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
15. Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy
16. The Liar's Club by Mary Karr
17. Newspaper Days by H.L. Mencken
18. Ecological Literacy by David Orr
19. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
20. Developing Ecological Consciousness by Christopher Uhl
21. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
22. The Crack-Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Ecological Identity by Mitchell Thomashow
24. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
25. Meeting the Tree of Life: a Teacher's Path by John Tallmadge
26: Jumping Over Fire by Nahid Rachlin
27. Ovenman by Jeff Parker
28. Writing and Healing: Toward an Informed Practice, Charles M. Anderson and Marion M. MacCurdy, eds.
29. Darkness Visible by William Styron
30. Cruddy by Lynda Barry
I'm disappointed in how few books I read "for pleasure" this year (some of the assigned reading was pleasurable, of course, but it's somehow not quite the same.) Only nos. 8-14 were my own choices. But it's always been very hard for me to do outside reading when I'm in school, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. I am surprised at how little fiction I read--only about one third of the titles on the list are novels, a shocking development when you consider the fact that my reading lists are usually at least 97% fiction. I did read a lot of short fiction that isn't represented here (mostly in The New Yorker, but from a few other places too), but it's still a much smaller amount of fiction than usual. I know that this is because I took two classes that required a lot of reading about pedagogy and one where the reading list was entirely autobiographies, but I'd really like to make sure I get back to reading more novels in 2009.
The lack of variety in my list makes it difficult to do my usual awards show format, with different categories and all the rest, so instead I'll just name a few of the best books of the year.
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson: This book is beautiful and quiet, perfectly suited to the dark and the cold. I suppose it's no wonder that I liked it, since it hits on a couple of my big themes: aging and memory and family history.
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein: I had never read a full-length work by Gertrude Stein before this one, and I was intimidated going into it, but I ended up really liking the book. Stein creates a vivid depiction of her and Alice's life in Paris. I was surprised by how funny the book was, and also by the way it forms a sort of slyly moving portrait of their long life together.
Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy: I loved McCarthy's voice in her autobiography: erudite, clever, curious, matter-of-fact, and thoughtful. This book also served as my inspiration for an essay on family history and place that I've been working on for a while now.
Cruddy by Lynda Barry: It's difficult to hold a book that I only finished two days ago up against books that have had months to settle in my mind, so perhaps I'll change my mind on this at some point, but I was really into this book. It is a glimpse into a dark, violent, sexualized childhood and its aftermath that was totally engrossing. I kept finding myself in bed at night saying "One more chapter. Okay, now just one more chapter..." I haven't written a proper post about this book, but I'm planning to do it very soon.
The two worst books of the year were The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta and The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The Perrotta was absolutely flaccid and boring, and The Mistress of Spices was nothing but cheap exoticism and non-credible romance. To be avoided!