Year-End Book Wrapup '08

This is kind of the first time I've realized it's going to be 2009 in two days. Damn, ham. (And now I'm nostalgic, because I used to say "damn, ham" all the time. When did I stop? Why did I stop? WHERE HAS MY YOUTH GONE?!)

Well, I don't think I'm going to finish any of the books I'm reading (Georgiana, Infinite Jest, and The Lady Elizabeth) by midnight tomorrow, so I may as well do my book wrapup. (Also if I do finish any of them it will be Georgiana, which so far is pretty good, but not good enough to bump any of my top five off the list.) Last year’s is here.

This year I read 46 books, which is a downturn from last year, when I read 55, books, one of which was Finnegans Wake. Well, I taught two extra classes this year, plus I still have a full-time job and a blog. Still, I only read 6 book list books. Pathetic! This year 21 were by women (and 4 were by Stephenie Meyer; it was a sad year for women on my list) and 25 by men. And now, on to the top and bottom 5!

(First of all, I’m going to say that both I’m Not The New Me and Schuyler’s Monster are delightful, and both are written by people I know, and you should read them immediately. I’m going to disqualify them from this list, because I can’t possibly be expected to rank them, can I? No, I cannot. So with that said...)

Top five books of the year:

1. And Then We Came To The End, by Joshua Ferris
This is the book I fell in love with and went around all excited about this year, like Black Swan Green and I Capture The Castle last year. I strong-armed my book club into reading it, too. Nobody fell in love with it to the degree I did, but then again, not only did I love the humor and heart and narrative conceit, I also really related to the advertising agency setting.

2. Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates
My friend Stephanie, with whom I went to grad school, said this is one of her favorite books, which I should read before the movie came out and “ruined it.” I love, love, loved this book, but I could not possibly be looking forward to the movie more KATE AND LEO. KATE! LEO! It was also a partial inspiration for Mad Men, which was easily the best TV show of the year (speaking of advertising) and they do have a lot in common—beyond the time period, even. Fabulous book.

3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
I include this book here because I enjoyed the hell out of it, and have recommended it to several of my students who enjoyed The House on Mango Street. Funny, clever, lots of heart. I read several young adult books this year (and am 20,000 words into my own YA, let’s not forget) and this one was my favorite.

4. The Year of Living Biblically (by A.J. Jacobs)
A book that I think is deceptively accessible, but super thought-provoking and even better than The Know-It-All, which I also thoroughly enjoyed. I think his open-minded and open-hearted exploration of the Bible was refreshing, and made me think about religion in a way that I hadn’t for a long time. Definitely one I will teach in English 100 after it comes out in paperback.

5. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
I had to include Twilight, not because it’s “good” (even though this first book is kind of not terrible) but because it brought me so much glee this year. As a proud LOLfan, Stephenie Meyer, I salute you.

I actually enjoyed a lot of books this year, some of which are more intellectual and “literary” than these (Junot Diaz or Evelyn Waugh, for instance) but these are the five books that stuck with me the most. (Mysterious Skin almost made it, but the movie is so vivid to me that it’s hard for me to remember the book as an independent entity. The book is also wonderful, though.)

The bottom five...

Again, it was hard for me to find five books I hated this year; right now I’ve got two that sucked, one that was a slog, one that was uneven, and one that was INCREDIBLY ENTERTANING but empirically shitty.

1. Ten Days in the Hills, by Jane Smiley
Sucked. I called it an “entertaining airplane read” but in hindsight, it was because I was trapped on that airplane. People having a lot of sex and arguing about the Iraq war, which I have heard enough about because I live in Berkeley and that is what we do there. Don’t bother.

2. Wishful Drinking, by Carrie Fisher
The latest addition to the list; could have been good, but was really very not. Too breezy by half, not as funny as it thinks it is, too conversational, lacking real heart or heft or emotion or even fun gossip. Very disappointing.

3. The Heart of the Matter, by Graham Greene
Didn’t suck, but didn’t wow me, and was kind of a slog to get through. I wish I’d read more bad books this year. This would be way more fun!

4. Lives on the Boundary, by Mike Rose
You know, this wasn’t even bad, it was just boring, and boring to teach. We had boring class discussions and they bored me. I would explain why, but I’m too bored to write more sentences.

5. Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer
This either had to go on the list of the worst or the list of the best. I won’t spoil it for you, but here is where the Twilight saga, which is already completely ridiculous after books one through three, goes completely, hilariously, totally off the rails. And Renesmee is NOT A NAME.

So how about you? What were your top and bottom books of the year?

The Tales of Beedle the Bard (by J.K. Rowling)

I did not get this for Christmas, but yesterday I went to a bookstore in the area (a very awesome independent bookstore I'd never been to before, incidentally) and read it while standing up in the children's section. This may be my last book of the year before my year-end book wrapup, unless I finish Infinite Jest in the next 24 hours. HA HA HA! I am on page six.

Anyway, it is a cute book of wizarding fairy tales, and more related to Harry Potter than I was expecting, with Dumbledore's commentary throughout, and the final story directly relating to the final book in the series. I didn't feel compelled to buy it or anything, but I enjoyed it. It made me miss The Potter, though. Oh, The Potter. You were so glorious.

The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell)

Read this on the flight to Utah; so fascinating. A ton of fascinating examples of the concept of the "tipping point" which I enjoyed as both a person who works in marketing and as a human person.

I especially enjoyed learning about the average size of "sympathy circles" (the number of people whose deaths would really devastate you), the whole thing about members of family units becoming instinctively responsible for various areas of knowledge (which explains why women, even in modern families, most often end up being responsible for children), and various other things that will ecome in really handy if I ever have a baby. Oh, and the concept of personalities being way more based in context than in intrinsic, black and white qualities.

I'm sure everyone already read this like six years ago, but it is honestly a fascinating and fast read that changed my perspective on the world just a tiny bit. Very glad I picked it up.

Wishful Drinking (by Carrie Fisher)

I accidentally ordered this from Amazon (really not sure how that happened) and decided to read it before returning it, since I've enjoyed Carrie Fisher's novels. (I mean they aren't brilliant by any means, but they're decent.) I thought this book was a huge disappointment. It's basically a standup act in book form, with incredibly hokey and awful jokes, no real good celebrity anecdotes, no real emotional throughline or anything. (She is supposedly "finding herself" after electroshock therapy, which is compelling, but really it's just bad standup, written out.) Also many of the same (bad) jokes recur multiple times, and the intro is basically the same as chapter one--which, what's the points?

I've already started my "best and worst of 2008" list, but I think I'm going to have to bump something to make room for this. Completely not worth your time. Skim through it in Barnes and Noble or something.