The year in review: books

I read 52 books this year, which, if you account for the varying lengths and difficulties, is still a lot of reading. Proud of myself. Also aware that it's my job to read. In 2012, I pledge to read more and to be less tempted by the internet and its surface pleasures. Let's do it together!

On with the show! I've considered my grand list, and here are ten top-tier books from 2011. 

David Foster Wallace - Oblivion
Tom Grimes - Mentor

EL Doctorow - Ragtime
Eric Larson - The Devil in the White City
Judy Budnitz - Nice Big American Baby

Randy Shilts - And the Band Played On

JG Ballard - High Rise

Chad Harbach - The Art of Fielding

Dave Zirin - Welcome to the Terrordome

James Michener - Chesapeake

The work of Judy Budnitz endeared itself to me more than the work of any other author in 2011. I came to her like I come to many authors: via a Google search and scouring lists. K and I read Nice Big American Baby on our way home from Canada. Cautionary/ celebratory stories of motherhood, pregnancy, and love in America. Just totally bizarre, hilarious, and deeply sad stories. Flawless collection, the best book I read in 2011. 

Her first collection Flying Leap starts strong and ends poorly---worth a read for completists. In her novel, If I Told You Once, Judy systematically sheds male characters until there are only women left, four generations crammed into a tiny apartment. 

I lament my male-dominated list. Perhaps in 2012, I too will shed men. Nine women to one man. It could happen. Or perhaps, like the characters in If I Told You Once, I'll revert to the old ways, and 2012's list will be the same, except with 9 new guys. What I'm saying is, keep me honest blogspot. Diverse reading habits! What I'm saying is, Nice Big American Baby came out in 2005, and it's about time for some new Budnitz, don't cha think? 

A man can dream in 2011. Tonight, with Biggs Stache (and whatever Marc digs out the cellar) on the cerebellum, I'll dream of a new Judy Budnitz novel, and of all the books I'll read in 2012. If the world ends, my blog will live on in the ether. If the world ends, I will blast our greatest texts into space for our extraterrestrial pals. If the world ends, I'll blog in the afterlife.   

My week in media: Mar. 6-12

A new job with unprecedented downtime means I tear through books like a demon. Am I demon? Evidently so, as I've recently finished David Foster Wallace's Girl With Curious Hair and Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son. Neat ride! Let's do it again!

The stories in Girl w/ C.H. have celebrity characters like Alex Trebek and L.B. Johnson behaving in imaginative and probably uncharacteristic ways, and it is funny. The last piece, "Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way," is a difficult exploration of meta-fiction and other stuff I don't pretend to understand, but the premise of staging a huge McDonald's commercial in Collision, IL and the characters inability to get there from the airport struck me and will certainly compel me to create bogus locations. Actually, Collision is a lot like Varna, IL, which is real and spectacular. The Pale King drops next month on April 15, tax day. Makes sense, except this year tax day is  April 18. My knowing that brings this blog post pretty much full-circle, wouldn't you agree?

The characters in Jesus' Son couldn't be more different. They are joes and janes with serious substance-abuse problems. These stories are gritty and sometimes terse, but Johnson drops awe-inspiring metaphors and similes on just about every page. A suffocating and uncomfortable collection, the last story, "Beverly Home," offers a brief respite from the gloom by taking us to Arizona, but things get all twisted, and we're left only seeing gray. 

I just ripped a record called Baby I'm-a Want You by Bread. Pray 4 me. 

Drinking: Stone Double Bastard Ale   

Cat Plaza #2 - p. 15-17

Back in the days when I was crushing on David Foster Wallace, I looked in every corner of the internet he occupied, and I found this list you've seen before. A list like this is cool because instead of namechecking authors we know he knew or liked personally, like many other authors do, he turns our attention to books we probably haven't read yet. Some authors (artists, musicians, movie-makers) protect their influences for whatever reason, like we can't figure them out. Gee whiz, I don't read new novels anymore. I like that line too.

In walks Steps by Jerzy Kosinski, hell bent on fucking with your mind and top-10 book list that you keep online or in that list-making brain of yours. When you see Steps in the library, it's going to have a tattered cover, no dust jacket, and it probably hasn't been checked out in 20 years, but that doesn't mean you should pass it up to read HP again. Stop re-reading HP, y'all. 

Characters in Steps are vehicles for carrying out Jerzy's theoretical nightmare-fantasies, and when you read Steps, you'll know where my story came from. Steps gets a 10.0---the original Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

DFW on politics