For the past two years, I have tried to read a book a week. Both years, I failed. In 2007, I read 41 books. In 2008, I read 46. Better, but still not the 52 it would take to claim a book-a-week habit.
My qualification for having read a book (as I've discussed on this blog in the past) is reading every word of every page. I thumb through and read portions of a lot of books every year; probably a few hundred. Even when I've read large portions of a book, I still don't count it on my list. My list, to me, is sacred and reserved for only those books I've taken everything from.
And, alas, this list is not of my favorite books published in 2008. My Best Albums and Best Movies lists will be 2008 releases, but combing through every album and/or movie is easy; reading every book that came out this year, not so much.
So, without further ado, my list for 2008:
Woolf, Virginia - Mrs. Dalloway
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Ford, Richard - The Sportswriter / Independence Day
Waugh, Evelyn - A Handful of Dust
Kharms, Daniil - Today I Wrote Nothing
Roth, Philip - The Ghost Writer
Bolano, Roberto - Last Evenings on Earth
Dubus, Andre - Dancing After Hours
Johnson, Denis - Jesus’ Son
Saunders, George - Pastoralia
Honorable Mentions
Barthelme, Don. - 40 Stories
Calvino, Italo - If on a winter’s night a traveler
Diaz, Junot - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Ford, Richard - Rock Springs
Hempel, Amy - Reasons to Live
Jones, Edward P - Lost in the City
Koestler, Arthur - Darkness at Noon
Lawrence, D. H. - Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Lahiri, Jhumpa - Interpreter of Maladies
McCarthy, Tom - The Remainder
Morrison, Toni - The Bluest Eye
Murakami, Haruki - After the Quake
Pollan, Michael - In Defense of Food
Robbins, Tom - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Robbins, Tom - Wild Ducks Flying Backward
Woolf, Virginia - A Room of One’s Own
Woolf, Virginia - The Waves
Woolf, Virginia - A Sketch of the Past
Thursday, January 1, 2009
2008 in Review
This has been, I imagine, a year I will remember sharply. There was the trip to New York to see the Twins play the Yankees in Yankee Stadium (which is sadly on its way to being a parking lot) and the Phillies play the Mets in Shea (which will also soon be a parking lot, but in this case that’s probably a good thing). I had my first (and possible last) taste of being a professor, teaching Business Communications at Globe University. How was I allowed to teach a Business Comm class? Beats me. Jamie and I have both finished the coursework for our degrees; she’s riding out the rest of her internship and I’ll be starting my thesis in February. This was an anti-climactic achievement—Jamie left school for the last time not even realizing that she wasn’t going to be coming back until she got home—but I suspect we’ll look back at this finale as a turning point in our lives. There will be the student, first years of marriage us, and then there will be the work work work, adult us. I can’t say I’m not ready, but I also can’t say that I’m not a little reluctant.
Then there was the book stuff. My book. Well, no, not my book, but a book with my work in it, anyway. This was, without a question, the best part of the year for me. I didn’t realize it when I opened the email and saw that Milkweed had accepted my story “Knowing,” but being included in Fiction on a Stick has lead to my first experience with the business of being a writer. There was the launch/book signing at Open Book, then another book signing at Barnes & Noble, and even a radio interview/reading on Write On Radio! (KFAI 90.3 FM). The radio bit was surreal. Sitting in a studio, wearing headphones, talking into a microphone, and knowing all the while that anyone, anywhere (metro-wide at least) could hear everything I was saying was both fun and unnerving.
Aspiring writers are reluctant to call themselves writers, not because they are insecure (although that is probably part of it), but because anytime you do call yourself a writer, there's the annoying and inevitable response: That's cool; what have you written? While having a story in a regional anthology isn’t the same as having a book of your own, it does go along way toward making a writer feel "official." At least it did for me.
I’m not sure whether it’s because I’m on a relative upswing right now, or if maybe I’m just getting better with each pass I take at writing a story, but this year has been a reaffirming stretch for me. Now more than ever, I enjoy writing. I’m actually beginning to see things in my writing that are surprising and exciting me. It’s like I’m beginning to see the writer in me take shape. I still don’t like most of what I put down, but I am noticing things here and there (a sentence, a paragraph) that are good and sometimes even beautiful.
As big of a year as 2008 has been, I suspect 2009 will be even bigger. Jamie will be opening her clinic (we hope) and this alone will be one of the defining moments of our lives. We’re both incredibly anxious about the details, but we are equally resolved and peaceful about this being the direction we take. My only hope is that when I sit down to review 2009, I have good news in this regard. We shall see.
Well, it’s time for me to get to my lists. Enjoy the New Year!
Then there was the book stuff. My book. Well, no, not my book, but a book with my work in it, anyway. This was, without a question, the best part of the year for me. I didn’t realize it when I opened the email and saw that Milkweed had accepted my story “Knowing,” but being included in Fiction on a Stick has lead to my first experience with the business of being a writer. There was the launch/book signing at Open Book, then another book signing at Barnes & Noble, and even a radio interview/reading on Write On Radio! (KFAI 90.3 FM). The radio bit was surreal. Sitting in a studio, wearing headphones, talking into a microphone, and knowing all the while that anyone, anywhere (metro-wide at least) could hear everything I was saying was both fun and unnerving.
Aspiring writers are reluctant to call themselves writers, not because they are insecure (although that is probably part of it), but because anytime you do call yourself a writer, there's the annoying and inevitable response: That's cool; what have you written? While having a story in a regional anthology isn’t the same as having a book of your own, it does go along way toward making a writer feel "official." At least it did for me.
I’m not sure whether it’s because I’m on a relative upswing right now, or if maybe I’m just getting better with each pass I take at writing a story, but this year has been a reaffirming stretch for me. Now more than ever, I enjoy writing. I’m actually beginning to see things in my writing that are surprising and exciting me. It’s like I’m beginning to see the writer in me take shape. I still don’t like most of what I put down, but I am noticing things here and there (a sentence, a paragraph) that are good and sometimes even beautiful.
As big of a year as 2008 has been, I suspect 2009 will be even bigger. Jamie will be opening her clinic (we hope) and this alone will be one of the defining moments of our lives. We’re both incredibly anxious about the details, but we are equally resolved and peaceful about this being the direction we take. My only hope is that when I sit down to review 2009, I have good news in this regard. We shall see.
Well, it’s time for me to get to my lists. Enjoy the New Year!
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