And another year of reading begins; once again, I’m not going to stress if I don’t make it to 52 books this year, though I am trying to avoid my usual go-to authors this year and avoid repeat readings as much as I can. I’m also, for some arbitrary reason, trying to read more male authors this year but trying not to be dogmatic about this or any rule I give myself. If you have recommendations, please let me know. This year, I’m using blue to represent audiobooks and orange to represent re-reads.
1. The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson
I love these crazy mid-century travel narratives. The form invented and perfected by the Lost Generation’s great male authors – especially Ernest Hemingway – is continued with few surprises but much delight by wonderful authors like Thompson and Kerouac, and imitations are attempted at the author’s peril. This one, started in 1959 when Thompson was only 22, is great fun to read in part because despite the wild narrative, the author’s dedication to his craft never wavers; he keeps the story on the rails at all times.
2. The Dangerous Book For Boys by Conn Iggulden & Hal Iggulden
This is such an awesome book; a repository of the knowledge we all should have as men, everything from the stories of history’s greatest battles, to how to tie knots and skin a rabbit, how to grow sunflowers and use proper grammar. It came along at the perfect time for me, as I feel like I’m really growing into what it means to be male in an entirely new way of late. I have to be honest, though; I haven’t finished reading through it, because I want to savor it, and it’s not the kind of book you just read straight through. Still, guys, I can’t recommend it highly enough no matter how old you are. The instructions on how to build a treehouse have seriously got me pondering a trip to Home Depot.
3. Making A Literary Life by Carolyn See
I knew from the first chapter that this book would occupy a special place in my heart, on my bookshelf, and in the physical, mental and spiritual toolbox I keep around me as a writer. But it was the last chapter, the painful, beautiful last chapter, and specifically the book’s final sentence, which I now have on an index card on my desk and is the finest final sentence of any book I’ve read, that will nourish my spirit and my will to write for years to come. In response to this book I can only say Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.
4. FDR: The First Hundred Days by Anthony J. Badger
A fascinating and thorough look at the challenges that greeted FDR when he took office, but I am officially giving up on trying to listen to books on history, at least during workouts. I need to go through this one again in print to really appreciate it.
5. Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen
A wonderful collection of poems, many written during Cohen’s stay at a SoCal Buddhist monastery in the late 1990s. This is one to be read and reread and reread, like any good collection of poetry.
6. The Innocent Man by John Grisham
I’ve never read anything by John Grisham, but this true tale of the miscarriage of justice in a small-town courtroom held my interest at first because it took place in Oklahoma, it is a sobering and terrifying look at how difficult it is to get a fair trial without money in this country. A must-read if you’ve ever even questioned whether or not the death penalty is just.
7. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
This is about the fifth time I’ve tried to read this, and though the writing itself, the craft, the wordplay, are all top-notch, the tone, the story, the characters – I totally hated it. I found every single character tiresome and unsympathetic, and the only one I did feel sympathy for, I felt like I wasn’t supposed to. I really hate this whole genre of literature where man’s greatest foe is clinical depression and his greatest hell is the suburb – yawn.
8. Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
LOOOOOOOVED this. I love Carrie Fisher’s other works, especially Postcards From The Edge, and listening to this book, which started as a performance piece, was a really good way to go. I listened to this during a day working in the garden and I found myself constantly having to lean on my shovel and crack up.
9. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
It will be hard for another book I read this year to stack up to this one. I’d given up on Michael Chabon after feeling sort of blase about The Final Solution and really disliking The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. But every time I told someone I didn’t like those books, they said I HAD to read this one. HAD. TO. So, I did, and I loved it. A tale of the beginnings of comic book superheroes, set against the lead-up to the U.S.’s entry into World War II, this story is at turns heartbreaking, hilarious, and beautiful. It deserves every accolade it gets.
10. The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson
A sweet, hilarious book about Pluto’s declassification as a planet, from the story of its discovery, rumors of a mysterious "Planet X" somewhere out beyond it, and the museum exhibit changes that started the whole brouhaha, this book finds Neil deGrasse Tyson, the man at least partially responsible for Pluto’s demotion, in rare form explaining that we know so much less about the solar system and our place in it than we think we do. Highly recommended.
11. Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards by Jim Ottaviani and Big Time Attic
I had such high hopes for this book. A graphic novel about the "Bone Wars" of the late 19th century, when rival teams of paleontologists scoured the western U.S. for dinosaur bones, reburied some of them to cause one another to make taxonomic errors, and in one case, basically went mad due to the stress of it all. But the book itself was a disappointment – a graphic novel in black and white? What is this, the 1920′s? The story was far less engaging than it could have been, and frankly, it doesn’t take much creativity to see how the artist and writer could’ve fit some actual dinosaurs into this big ink splot. Not worth anyone’s time, unfortunately.
12. Animal Farm by George Orwell
This has been on my "MUST READ BEFORE I DIE" list since I was 14, and now that I’m twice as old as I was when I decided to read it, it seems proper that I finally did. This was the first book I read using the Kindle app for the iPhone, which was enjoyable in itself, but I loved this story. Would that I’d have read it sooner than I did. The story of Manor Farm – renamed Animal Farm – and the animal Rebellion, is a pitch-perfect vision of Hegel’s dialectic, at least for an old philosophy salt like me. A short read, this one would be sad to miss.
13. The Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
I heard the movie sucked and never to see it. Then I heard it was the best thing ever and that if I didn’t see it within five minutes I would die a horrible death, smothered by puppies and nerd farts. So I took the middle path, which WHAT A COINCIDENCE turned out to be the one of least resistance. I can’t speak to the movie, because I still haven’t seen it, but the graphic novel is a work of beauty and depth, sadness and tragedy and if you don’t think that graphic novels count as real literature, then you should read this. I haven’t seen the film yet because I tend to agree with Alan Moore that this is unflimable, that there’s too much here to make a good movie. But the book is great.
14. On Writing by Stephen King
A wonderful book about writing with a lot of really actionable, practical tips about how to get stuff done, liberally inlaid with the story of Stephen King’s life and especially the car accident that almost killed him. This time around I listened to this on audiobook, and I have to say, as good as it is, Stephen King’s voice is pretty creepy.
15. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson; 16. Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson; 17. Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
I started reading the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson because the first book, Red Mars, was free on the Kindle store and I wanted something long-ish to see if I could get through an entire book on the Kindle app for the iPhone. These books are a fantastic fictional account of the lives of the first settlers on Mars, and though the story quite often gets bogged down in deep, deep science or politics – at one point when the characters are writing a Constitution for Mars, Robinson gives us a run-down of what each committee in the Constitutional Congress is working on and I almost gave up – you have to give him props for being so well-read and knowledgeable that he’s able to give such meticulous detail about the issues facing Mars settlers and terraformers. And anyway, I found myself willing to power through the boggier parts because I liked and cared about the characters, and that’s no mean feat for an author.
18. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Though I read this for the first time in the ninth grade, this particular copy was a birthday gift from my buddy K.C., and I read it every few years to remind myself why I do what I do. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t read it, but if you haven’t, well, then it sucks to be you. Seriously, pick it up; your life will never be the same.
19. The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
A fascinating look at the long-term effect that our presence on the planet has and how we’re changing it, and what happens when and if we ever disappear from the planet. A very sobering image emerged as I read this book of the unwitting stamp I leave and how long it will last after me. It has given me a lot to think about.
20. Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle
As far as practical advice on writing and creating goes, this book is not a wealth of information. But it’s one of the top three books in my "writer’s toolkit," because it talks about the kind of character and outlook one must cultivate toward one’s work in order to be open to inspiration. Subtitled "Reflections on Faith and Art," it’s ostensibly a book about being a Christian writer, but I think the truths L’Engle shares can apply to anyone who is trying to forge a life of the mind, a spirit of creativity within themselves.
21. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
I’m not sure what to say about this book except that it’s one of those that’s so good that it makes me want to abandon all future attempts at writing because I’m not sure if this book can ever be measured up against. It was so good that I was able to ignore the fact that I’d been forced to buy the movie tie-in version. If you haven’t read this book yet, you really, really should.
22. How The Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘N’ Roll by Elijah Wald
This book is, on one hand, a fascinating look at the music history of the first half of the twentieth century, and on the other, a whole load of crap. While it does emphasize that the development of recording technology effectively neutralized the tradition whereby music was passed down via oral tradition and enjoyed by families wherein everyone grew up knowing, at least a little, how to play an instrument, it also says so little about the Beatles, and rock and roll, for that matter, that you find yourself grinding your teeth in irritation that the author clearly chose the title as a means to generate controversy and sell books.
23. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Okay, look. For me this book could maybe be considered like the Elvis Presley of 20th Century English Literature. I get why it represented such a paradigm shift, why it was so revolutionary and why it was considered so great, but I personally can’t stand it. Maybe that makes it the Nirvana of … you know, I think the analogy is good either way. Brilliant and long-winded and stream-of-conscious but sort of interminably boring and English, and frankly I was glad when it ended. Feel free to revoke my bachelor’s degree now.
24. 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense by Michael Brooks
From dark matter and dark energy, to the question of free will versus biological determinism, to a mysterious signal from outer space that may have been from another civilization, to the placebo effect and homeopathy, this book delves deep into a baker’s dozen of the greatest mysteries in science today, with at once a skeptical eye and an open mind. It might make your head explode. I totally dug it. But then again, I’m sort of a science nerd. The kind of science nerd who hasn’t taken anything but college Astronomy in the last 10 years, but.
25. McCarthy’s Bar by Pete McCarthy
I took forever to finish this book, not because it was hard or boring but because I LOVED IT. We first saw it in July when we were in Castletownbere, Ireland, having lunch in McCarthy’s Bar, that is, the McCarthy’s Bar that appears on the cover of the book. Reading like a 21st-century Irish version of On The Road, McCarthy’s story of his travels across his ancestral homeland – he’s an Englishman with Irish roots – endlessly asks the question, how can a person who is not genuinely Irish feel so deeply at home in Ireland? It’s a question that has plagued me ever since my first trip there in 1999, and I love his handling of it as he travels all around the Irish countryside, from Beara to Lough Derg. You’ve got to read this book.
26. Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin
Now, look. I loves me some Kathy Griffin. I love her show and I dig her standup; I think she’s great. But you never know how these celebrity tell-alls are going to go. So I got this on audiobook thinking I’d take it to the gym for a week and have something to listen to. Instead, I finished the whole thing on my iPod in a day and never once made it to the gym. That’s because, unlike other audiobooks where the author – or narrator – is just reading directly from the text, this audiobook has the feel of sitting down across a table from Kathy Griffin and having her tell you her life story. It doesn’t sound at all like she sat in a booth and read the book, but rather that she sat in the booth with some notes and just started talking. The tone is conversational and casual, interspersed with Kathy’s trademark side notes and the occasional private laugh or welling up of emotion. It’s a hilarious book, but also touching and sweet. I haven’t picked up the print version, but if you can I’d say go with the audiobook. It’s wonderful.
27. Things I’ve Learned From Women Who Dumped Me by Ben Karlin (editor)
You’ve got to listen to the audiobook of this. It features the contributions of such wonderful writers as Stephen Colbert, Andy Richter, Nick Hornby, Bob Odenkirk, Dan Savage and Patton Oswalt, read in their own voices (except in the case of Hornby, who humorously gets a ghost-reader) their hysterical and heartbreaking stories of love gone wrong. My favorite among the collection, however, comes from Ben Karlin himself, the former editor of The Onion and executive producer of The Colbert Report, who also co-wrote another of my favorites, America: The Book, whose essay involves a cross-country road trip with a recently exed girlfriend. Great stuff.
28. This Is Water by David Foster Wallace
Listened to this in 24 minutes at the gym. I wish someone had read me these words on my first day of college, and then again on my last. I loved it.
29. Cahokia by Timothy R. Pauketat
BORING! An article in Salon made it sound like this book would be utterly fascinating, but … nope. Not that the material itself isn’t interesting – it completely is. Just read the Salon article. But the book itself? A total snooze.
30. Life Among the Lutherans by Garrison Keillor
I love Garrison Keillor; he’s one of my literary and radio heroes. This book, a collection of Lake Wobegon remembrances all having to do with subjects of religion, may not be quite as compelling or downright hysterical as Keillor’s Lake Wobegon novels, but I can’t ever say no to a collection of short stories, and if you’re just wading into the Wobegon world, this would be a great place to start.
31. I Am The New Black by Tracy Morgan
Like the Kathy Griffin book that came out earlier this year, I couldn’t be happier that I listened to this on audiobook instead of just reading it. Like Kathy’s recording, this is less an audiobook than it is a four-hour monologue by Tracy Morgan, one of the funniest people on television. And again like Kathy’s book, it comes off very conversational and personal. You always suspected that Tracy Morgan had a rough upbringing, and that there was far more to him than what you saw on 30 Rock and SNL, but the depths of how much more took me by surprise. This is a guy with a huge talent and a big heart, and listening to him narrate his life story in all his quirky tics and trills is a delight. Get the audiobook.
32-33-34-35. Homecoming, The Farther Shore, Before Dishonor, Full Circle
Do you ever get stuck in a Wikipedia hole? I get stuck in 2-3 of them a week. On the day that the new Star Trek movie came out on iTunes, I got stuck in a Star Trek-themed Wikipedia hole. This happily coincided with the beginning of my Thanksgiving break, and so I spent the day before Thanksgiving reading three Star Trek novels, all centering around the Voyager franchise, which was always my favorite. What? Have I made some sort of secret of my nerdish tendencies? Anyway, I ended up reading the first 3 of these within 24 hours on the Kindle app for iPhone. I read the fourth a week later.
36. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! by Jonathan Goldstein
OH DEAR LORD did I love this book. It’s a collection of stories from the Bible, stories we all know, from Genesis and the Fall, to Cain and Abel, the Flood, the live of King David, Jonah and the Whale right up to Joseph the Nazorean carpenter. Goldstein handles the material perfectly – it’s cheeky and occasionally irreverent without mocking or putting down religion or the stories themselves. Like the Bible, these are the stories of people. An absolute delight.
37. Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I haven’t read The Great Gatsby since high school, which is a shame because I remember loving the hell out of that book. This collection of short stories brought all that back – the Roaring Twenties really were a uniquely fascinating time in American history, and reading about them in this collection was a real treat.
38. Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin
39. The Future’s So Bright, I Can’t Bear To Look by Tom Tomorrow
I love This Modern World; it’s one of my favorite things on the internet, and I look forward to every Monday night/Tuesday morning when I get to read it on Salon. So when – for no apparent reason whatsoever – Salon sent me this book in the mail, I was stoked. Reading it was a surreal experience, a re-hashing of the last four years of the Bush Administration, and all the horror and bafflement that entailed. The book is hilarious, and makes so many great points so well that it’s occasionally scary, though in my current state of utter cynicism about the political process in America, it was occasionally disheartening to read some of these.
40. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
I think when I was younger it’s possible I’d have liked this. I continually think I should start to write Young Adult fiction, because of how much most of it sucks balls. This doesn’t suck; it just wasn’t my taste, if you will. I get that young people are more or less impervious to subtlety, but I don’t really like books that make their point with a sledgehammer. If you have a tween girl who is struggling with body issues this book would probably be great to give her; personally I didn’t care for it.