- Birds of America – Lorrie Moore
- The Leftovers – Tom Perretta
- Mr. Fox – Helen Oyeyemi
- In Persuasion Nation – George Saunders
- Diary of a Bad Year – J.M. Coetzee
- So Long and Thanks for All the Fish – Douglas Adams
- 2030 – Albert Brooks (unfinished)
- The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes
- The Guinea Pig Diaries – A.J. Jacobs
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles – Haruki Murikami
- Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann
- 101 Places Not to See Before You Die – Catherine Price
- Mostly Harmless – Douglas Adams
- The Dirt on Clean – Katherine Ashenburg (ongoing)
- Zombie Spaceship Wasteland – Patton Oswalt
- The Sportswriter – Richard Ford
- Half a Life – V.S. Naipaul
- Zeitoun – Dave Eggers
- The Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
- Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? – Lorrie Moore
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
- Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat – Hal Herzog
- The Anthologist – Nicholson Baker
- Freedom – Jonathan Franzen
- The Loved Ones – Evelyn Waugh
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
- They Eat Puppies, Don’t They – Christopher Buckley
- More Baths, Less Talking – Nick Hornby
- Who I Am – Pete Townshend
- The Hamster Won’t Die – Whitney Collins
- The Age of Miracles – Karen Thompson Walker
- Suburgatory – Linda Erin Keenan (unfinished)
- A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again – David Foster Wallace
- Sweet Tooth – Ian McEwen
- A Box of Matches – Nicholson Baker
- Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
- The Light of Amsterdam – David Park
- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World – Haruki Murakami
- Fever Pitch – Nick Hornby
- Lionel Asbo: State of England – Martin Amis
- Ru – Kim Thuy
- Telegraph Avenue – Michael Chabon (current)
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That’s a lot of books! Great list…always looking for new reads. I love Lorrie Moore and tried reading Birds of America, but I think the problem was she had too much competition on my bedside table at the time. I’ll be bookmarking this post. Thanks!
I really enjoyed Birds — recommendation of a librarian friend who, sadly, has moved on (job-wise, not existentially).
I have absolutely no idea what I’ve read in the last year…
It’s a fun exercise to keep track. But more on that in my next post.
I almost didn’t comment, but then I saw the “Go ahead, don’t be shy,” and thought what the heck.
Official post comment: DAMN, I’m impressed and inspired.
Side benefit of sobriety: more reading, fewer terrible DVDs.
This is sort of a prelude to tomorrow’s post.
We read The Leftovers for WNDBC (Wednesday Night Drunk Book Club + 10 people via video Google Chat + Drinks = best book club ever). Liked The Leftovers, didn’t like Freedom, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, excellent, and was the Douglas Adams read a re-read or a first time read? Have you read the Dirk Gentley books?
That sounds like a gonzo club.
Liked Leftovers but not as much as his others; Freedom redeemed itself in the end but seemed like the author working out some fantasy about how much women just really want to give blowjobs; Extremely was quite moving and, given the subject, deftly handled. I’ve been through the Hitchhiker books a couple of times. I read Tea Time of the Soul a while back but think I should have read the first book first. Birds in America: read it? Short stories but amazing taken as a whole.
I have not. Reading “Arguably” right now, a collection of Hitchens essays. I’ll read Birds in America next and get back with you.
That’s a big book!
Pssh. I read Stephen King’s Insomnia in one night. (Of course that was when I was kidless and staying up all night didn’t make me act/feel/look like a Night of the Living Dead extra.)
Impressive. I’m a slow reader.
Plus, it’s Hitchens!
That’s quite an impressive list! The two Hitchhiker books and the Heart of Darkness are the only ones I’m familiar with… I’ve got a lot of reading to do! I didn’t read anywhere near that many books in the last year. The only ones I can think of off the top of the my head are the three hunger games books, and the newest George RR Martin contribution. Eek, that’s pretty pathetic. Hmm, I may have read a Tarzan book or two while flying random places… And I read a whole bunch of NaNoWriMo submissions too. Do those count? Need to do much better this year! (I’m currently reading the first in the Dark Tower series, so that’s at least 7 I should get through this year.)
Reading is reading. Everything’s good. What we do right here is good. I don’t believe that one type of reading or more reading is better. This list is actually posted pre-emptively for reasons that are too boring to explain, but come back tomorrow for more on this subject.
And thanks for the follow!
Is “Half a Life” a good read? I have it on my shelf but I never get to it.
I liked a lot of it but it literally just ends, which is I guess what you can expect with half a life. I read it while travelling this past summer, so it never got the full attention it deserved. Naipaul is in fine form in terms of craft, though. I’m told that having read his other works will help this resonate more. Pretty vague answer, I know, but it left me feeling vague.
Looks like it’s gonna stay on my shelf for a while. haha!
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I almost picked up Telegraph Avenue the other day but it looks SO LONG. Did you read the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay? I also want to pick that up, but again.. SO LONG
Telegraph Avenue is like reading jazz — in a good way. I love his language. It doesn’t feel long, though it’s taking me a while because I have a lot else going on right now. Haven’t read K&K. Will check it out.