From memory*,
here, interspersed with a few thoughts, is a fairly comprehensive list of what
I’ve grazed my way through during 2012. (RR = Re-read).
Dave Eggers – Zeitoun
I’m afraid to
say that I found this somewhat under-whelming.
I had hoped for so much more. The
In Cold Blood of our times it is not.
Norman Mailer – An American Dream
A sweaty
wank-off of a book. I detested it and, so,
was tickled to read the following in an LRB review of the DFW biography: “It’s possible to see Wallace’s career as the
inversion of that of another great American novelist who wrote journalism that
was pervaded by his personality: Norman Mailer. Monstrousness was the thing
Mailer was always trying to enact and the thing Wallace was always trying to
deflect or recover from. Wallace was consumed by guilt even on the page; Mailer
never seemed to feel a pang. Wallace couldn’t stand Mailer’s books:
‘Unutterably repulsive. I guess part of his whole charm is his knack for
arousing strong reactions. Hitler had the same gift.’”
Alan Hollinghurst – The Line of Beauty
(RR), The Stranger’s Child
The Line of Beauty comes close than anything else I’ve
read in years to capturing that wallowing about in honey feel of Brideshead Revisited and, of course,
there are strong similarities in the plots of the two. Sorry to say, though, that while I looked forward
to The Strangers Child and was fully prepared
to embrace the conceit of the book I just didn’t get along with it. I will probably give it another go but, for
now, it stands in the let-down camp.
George Orwell – Homage to Catalonia
(RR)
Colm Toibin – Homage to Barcelona
Robert Hughes – Barcelona
Ildefonso Falcones – Cathedral of the
Sea
The first
three read in advance of a long overdue trip to Barcelona, which I made in
October. The latter, which is a
historical novel set in medieval Barcelona was a mistake – I had forgotten how
much I don’t get on with great tomes of portentous historical fiction and I
erred in lugging this brute about with me as I trudged around the Gaudi sites. It will be going to the charity shop.
Kate Summerscale – The Suspicions of
Mr Whicher
There is a
great book in this Victorian murder mystery.
Unfortunately, for all of its critical and popular acclaim, this, in my
opinion, isn’t it.
Philip Roth – The Ghost Writer, I
Married a Communist, Portnoy’s Complaint, The Plot Against America
If this is
Newark then it must be Philip Roth. For
years and years I had an unaccountable block on Roth, never picking up any of
his books. I don’t know why. Well, I admit it now that I was mistaken and
I’m so glad to have belatedly corrected that situation. I did have a “What…” moment that sent me
reading back over a couple of chapters when I hit the Ann Frank bit in The Ghost Writer and the deus-ex-machina
of the plane-crash in The Plot Against America had me grinding
my teeth but PR’s definitely on the agenda for further examination in 2013.
Ben Fountain – Billy Lynn’s Long
Halftime walk
Chad Harbach – The Art of Fielding
The best
fiction reads of the year. I hear that Billy Lynn is going to be filmed. In the right hands that could be something to
look forward to.
Will Wiles – Care of Wooden Floors
A little
macabre humour never goes astray.
Clive James – A Point of View
Because I’m
something of a completist and I’ve got nearly all of his earlier (better) books. I wonder if he will get around to writing
about his wife kicking him out for playing-away.
David Edgerton – Britain’s War Machine
An
interesting, though possibly over-justified, corrective to the popular
consensus that Britain was unprepared for war in 1939.
Luc Sante – Low Life
Joseph Mitchell – Up in the Old Hotel
The first
read in advance of my trip to NYC back in April. It was so-so.
If I hadn’t seen the film I might feel tempted to get hold of Gangs of New York. Mitchell, though, was excellent. The best non-fiction I read all year.
Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen’s
Union, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Another
belated discovery. I thoroughly enjoyed
both of these. The counter-factual in
TYPU was intriguing and as for TAAoKaC – Comic Books, The Golem, New York,
Nazis at the South Pole – what’s not to like?
Kazu Ishiguru – When We were Orphans,
The Remains of the Day (RR)
I re-read the
very good Remains of the Day just to
convince myself that Ishiguru was a good writer after reading the very bad When We Were Orphans. It is so bad that I almost convinced
myself that I was being obtuse. But,
no. It is a very bad book. Charity shop.
David Halberstam – The Best and the
Brightest
Karl Marlantes – Matterhorn
If there are
any liberal interventionists still out there then they ought to be forced to
read The Best and the Brightest along
with A Bright Shining Lie. I am tempted to get hold of the Johnson
biography by way of comparing and contrasting.
Matterhorn was recommended to
me by a pal. Having grown out of the
gun-porn of Sven Hassel some considerable time ago, I approach war novels with
some trepidation. I needn’t have done in
this case. A fine novel.
A.D. Miller – Snowdrops
So-so Thriller
set in post-soviet Russia. Charity shop.
George MacDonald Fraser – Flashman and
the Dragon, Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, Light out at Signpost
You can’t
beat a bit of Flashie. Well-researched enormously
incorrect romps through the Victorian world.
The latter is his autobiographical recollections of his Hollywood career
interspersed with meditations on why the world is going to hell.
Saul Bellow – Henderson the Rain King
I have
blogged about this. I don’t understand
why it is supposed to be good but then I don’t understand why Willa Cather is
supposed to be good either.
Henry James – The Spoils of Poynton,
What Masie Knew
If you’re in
the mood for HJ these are both pretty good and digestible too.
Yavgeny Zamyatin – We (RR)
I get what he’s
doing and I understand why it is an important book and I appreciate how influential
it is. Maybe it’s the translation but I
still don’t actually like it.
Shelby Foote - The Civil War Volume 1
Like many
others it was the Ken Burns documentary that brought me to Shelby Foote. Narrative history at its very best and two
more to go. Definitely another one for
2013.
Roger Lewis – What am I Still Doing
Here
I think I
read this curmudgeonly affair with a hangover.
Good stuff. I highly recommend
his biography of Anthony Burgess.
David Peace – The Damned United
Must be read
in the voice of the sainted Brian Clough.
Siri Hustvedt – What I Loved
A bit
over-played, I thought. There is 75 % of
a very good book here.
David Foster Wallace – Consider the
Lobster
I think you
either like DFW or you don’t. I do,
though Infinite Jest has made me
seriously consider an e-reader.
Rachel Lichtenstein, Ian Sinclair – Rodinsky’s
Room
If you’re
interested in patterns of migration and the old Jewish East End.
Roland Camberton – Scamp
Stands well
alongside early Kingsley Amis. Funny
tale of the fagged out late-40s London literary world.
Pauline Kael – I Lost it At the Movies
Another disappointment,
I’m afraid. It took me years to get around
to reading Kael. Underwhelming.
Robert K Wittman – Priceless
Robert and Dayna Baer – The Company We
Keep
Charity
shop. Not particularly well written non
fiction about the FBI and the CIA respectively. Interesting in parts.
Sarah Waters – The Little Stranger
Gothic chillers
are not my usual fare. This wasn’t half
bad. The
Turn of the Screw for our times.
Anthony Powell – Books do Furnish a
Room (RR), A Writer’s Notebook
The notebook
is definitely for fan-boys only. As for
BDFAR, it’s a few years since I last re-read the whole of A Dance to the Music of Time from start to finish but I had a touch
of flu a while ago and, although I didn’t actually go sick from work, I was going
early to bed every night and needed a ‘comfort book’ – an old friend to keep me
company.
Jack Kerouac – On the Road (RR)
You either
like it or you hate it. I still like
it. This re-read was on account of going
to see the film, which was much better than I had expected. That said, a faithful adaption does not necessarily
make for a good film, in the general sense.
I’m not sure what someone would make of the film if they hadn’t already
read the book. I mooched along to the
British Library on the same day as I saw the film and halfway through my
re-reading of the book so that I could take a look at the exhibition of the On the Road scroll.
Umberto Eco – The Prague Cemetery
It will take
some strong persuasion to get me to read another Umberto Eco novel.
Mark Haddon, Michael Rosen, Zadie
Smith et al – Stop What You’re Doing and Read this
Anne Fadiman – Ex-Libris: Confessions
of a Common Reader
Signs of
bibliomania Pt 16: reading books about reading books.
Kevin Powers – Yellow Birds
This has been
raved about. I am not convinced but I
will re-read it to make sure.
Hillary Mantel – Wolf Hall
It is very
good. I resisted for a long while. Partly on account of my problems with historical
novels in general, partly on account of getting thoroughly sick of Hillary
Mantel appearing in the Guardian in one guise or another week after week after
week.
*I’m not
(yet) so anal as to diligently keep an on-going list of what I’ve read