28.Nov.2009 at 28 | jspeyton
Wherein I Add Several Books to My TBR List
On the Times’ 100 notables of 2009:
Yesterday was a big, fat no man’s land day for me. I wasn’t a part of the rampaging crowds mobbing the stores on the Black Friday (just the thought of it gives me goosebumps *shivers*) and obviously I didn’t post. What did I do yesterday? Read. I’m pretty sure I read, although I’d be hard-pressed to tell you what, if you asked me. I’m pretty sure it was a little Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, some How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken, and a bit of Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories (I learned that M.R. James read his stories to friends during the holiday season, most particularly on Christmas; I knew there was something perfect about reading these stories this time of year.)
This morning I woke up to the great news that the New York Times had published their 100 Notable Books of 2009 list. I love and hate this list. I love it because it reminds me of all the wonderful books I’d planned to read this year and I hate it because… well, it reminds me of all the wonderful books I’d planned to read this year. Here’s a break-down of the books on this list that I’ve read/am reading, books that I’ve already bought, those that I’d already added to my TBR list, and those books that I added only after reading the NY Times’ list:
Read/Currently Reading:
Sag Harbor by Colsen Whitehead. ”Benji, the well-off 15-year-old black hero of Whitehead’s memoiristic fourth novel, lives in a world where life doesn’t assault him but rather affords him the time to figure out who he wants to be. (Doubleday, $24.95.)” — Reading
One book. One book! Out of the 100 Notable books of the year, I’ll have read only one of them. Sigh. Here’s another reason why I hate this list – it always reminds me of how poor I’m doing at keeping up. *hanging head in shame*
But I do try…
Purchased, but Unread:
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower. “This polished story collection takes its sustenance from class conflict, rough men and strong women, and the intersection between hotheads and cool customers. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24.)”
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. “Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the twin towers is pivotal to all the lives in this deeply affecting New York novel. (Random House, $25.)”
Two whole books. The best I can say about this is at least it’s better than one.
Previously Added to the TBR List:
Await Your Reply by Dan Choan. ”Three essentially separate story lines, with morbidly alienated main characters, link up at the end of Chaon’s unremittingly dark and provocative novel. (Ballantine, $25.)”
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. ”In Waters’s novel of postwar anxiety, members of a decaying upper-crust English family start to come to sticky ends in their creepy mansion. (Riverhead, $26.95.)”
Love and Other Obstacles: Stories by Aleksander Hemon. ”The worldly eccentric who narrates these tales declares a specialty in “those brainy postmodern setups” somehow tied to identity. (Riverhead, $25.95.)”
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. ”Tolerant, passionate and humane, Thomas Cromwell is cast as the picaresque hero of this Man Booker Prize-winning novel of Henry VIII’s turbulent court. (John Macrae/Holt, $27.)”
The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America. Steven Johnson. ”A satisfying genre-blending consideration of Joseph Priestley and his fertile ideas. (Riverhead, $25.95.).”
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann. ”Grann follows the trail of the English adventurer/explorer Percy Fawcett, who disappeared in 1925. (Doubleday, $27.50.)”
Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town by Nick Reding. ”In his unnerving portrait of Oelwein, Iowa, Reding depicts a catastrophe of Chernobylish dimensions, precipitated by the loss of jobs and the rise of methamphetamines. (Bloomsbury, $25.)”
Books Just Added to the TBR List (after reading the Times’ list):
Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy. ”Meloy’s calm, intelligent prose renders her stories’ self-sabotaging characters — lawyers, unfaithful spouses, eccentric older women, Montanans — eminently understandable. (Riverhead, $25.95.)”
Dearest Creature by Amy Gerstler. ”Gerstler’s poems — skillful in every kind of comedy, yet deeply serious — show a fondness for animals without sentimentalizing them. (Penguin Poets, paper, $18.)”
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin. ”The eight linked stories here follow the scheming of a rich and powerful Pakistani family and their employees. (Norton, $23.95.)”
Cold: Adventures in the World’s Frozen Places by Bill Streever. ”From the physics of absolute zero to the cold-resistant gluttony of small birds, Streever reports on the extreme regions of low temperatures and the scientists who love them. (Little, Brown, $24.99.)”
The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found by Mary Beard. ”A Cambridge classics professor leads a fine tour, turning up surprises around every corner. (Belknap/Harvard University, $26.95.)”
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin. ”Ford tried and failed to build an ideal American society on an Amazonian rubber plantation. (Metropolitan/Holt, $27.50.)”
Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr. Despite the deep seriousness of the topics here — motherhood, disintegrating marriage, alcoholism, depression, God — nothing can keep Karr from being funny. (Harper/HarperCollins, $25.99.)
Well, that’s not every book on the Times’ list.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Well, if it makes you feel any better, I have only read two of their fiction titles, and maybe have 5 others that they mentioned on my TBR list… but the thing is, the 2 books they mentioned that I had read were nowhere near my two favorite 2009 reads. So while I always find lists like this interesting, I realize that I read several 2009 books that I thought were fantastic that apparently The NYT didn’t. Either that means my tastes are flawed, or they just don’t coincide all that well with The NYT!
I thought that too, but then I realized that most of the books I read this year actually weren’t published in 2009. The majority of them were at least a year old. In fact, my favorite of this year is probably going to be a few classics, which I finally got around to reading.
i kind of hate you a little for bringing this to my attention.
i’ve read zero of them, but nearly half is on my tbr.
Hmm … I’ve also just read one (The Age of Wonder) and I think I have two other non-fictions at home (The Lost City of Z and The Invention of Air). I have The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein on my wishlist and I think The Little Stranger is on my library list. And that’s it for me!
i haven’t read any you listed, but at least some are on my TBR list!!! The Little Stranger, and now i’ve added Wolf Hall, and I’ve been hearing about Mary Karr’s book so it might be worth getting from the library. Thanks, JS! And between this and the Guardian books of the year, we can at least say we’ve read what we liked from the lists!!
Ok, well here’s what I read off the list: Follow Me by Joanna Scott, and I don’t think you could say that I read it all because I skimmed a lot, hated the book, and never finished it.
Sag Harbor is on my tbr list though.