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
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2 comments:
Oooh. Just found your blog. Now I'll be adding it to my favorites. I follow blogs quite religiously, so now you can count yourself one of them.
1. Add the book - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" to your list of books to read in 2009. I got my hands on it before it became anything close to being on Opera's list, so don't hold it against me. It's from a first time author and it's well, beautiful.
2. Anyone who sits down regularly to put pencil to paper (metaphorically of course in this technological age) can call themselves a writer. Emily Dickinson never published anything in her living years, yet she embodies the definition of "writer" to me.
I look forward to getting my hands on your work, and of course, reading your bloggy thoughts. :)
The Ghost Writer is one of my all time favorites. And because my criteria for books read are the same as yours my list will always be pedestrian, I think.
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