Books Read in 2009

Here they are. In bold are the best of the best:

Hatchet; Watchmen; Poachers; X-Ray; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone; How I Became Stupid; The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party; Wild Ducks Flying Backward; St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves; Ask the Dust; When You Are Engulfed in Flames; Maps & Legends; Eats Shoots & Leaves; My Life and Hard Times; Boy Proof; Moominvalley in November; The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky; Trout Fishing in America; The Reason for God; Welcome to the Monkey House; Are You There, God? It’s Me. Kevin.; The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster; I Love You, Beth Cooper (audio); Angela’s Ashes; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Downtown Owl; To Have and Have Not; The Partly Cloudy Patriot; Andromeda Klein; The Beatles (audio); Consider the Lobster; Assassination Vacation; Dreams from my Father; Dubliners; Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams; An Arsonist’s Guide to Writer’s Homes in New England; Basil’s Dream; The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History; Slam; King Dork (audio); Up Close: Harper Lee; Shoplifting From American Apparel; Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood; In Watermelon Sugar; The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid; The Widow and the Tree; How I Became a Famous Novelist; Juliet, Naked; Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life; On Writing

On Writing

I thought it’d be appropriate to finish out the year reading Stephen King’s “memoir of the craft” of writing. The whole reason I wanted to spend the year reading so much is to try and understand the act of writing more thoroughly, and hopefully improve. King is a disciplined man, among the great voracious readers of our day (some of my former professors, and Art Garfunkel also come to mind). He averages 80 to 90 books a year, which makes a goal like mine seem far less ambitious in comparison.

But in addition to reading, he writes like a madman (I’d be happy to adapt just a little of the dedication he speaks of in this book). It shows, too. I still haven’t read one of King’s novels (honest), but some of the movie adaptions have been great, and his tough-love book for writers straight up slaughtered me. (I also never plan to receive a $300,000 advance for my first published book, but unlike me, King probably deserved every penny.)

On Writing has its sad, funny and educational moments. It was #52 in my quest to read a book every week 2009, meaning I am done. Party hats, people.

An archival of every title will be coming soon-ish, right when I figure out how to go about it (it’ll be mostly for my own enjoyment—patting self on the back). 2010 will be slightly different on the writing/reading front. I still plan to read a ton, but I’ll be writing more, and most likely won’t blog about everything I consume. If you’re interested in reading something with me, talk to me here or on Goodreads. Thanks for reading!

How I Became A Famous Novelist

How I Became A Famous Novelist was pretty damn funny. A while back I heard an NPR interview where the author, Steve Hely, talked to Terry Gross about his first novel. I don’t expect what I say will do it justice, so I’ll start with the jacket description:

What Pete Tarslaw wants is simple enough: a realistic amount of fame that will open new avenues of sexual opportunity; the kind of financial comfort that will allow him to spend his life pursuing hobbies such as boating or skeet shooting at his stately home by the ocean or a scenic lake; and perhaps mostly importantly the chance to humiliate his ex-girlfriend at her wedding. This is the story of how he succeeds in getting it all, and what it costs him in the end.

Pete Tarslaw wants to be a famous author. He prefers commerce over art and comes up with the perfect formula for what makes book sell. Excerpts from his resulting novel, The Tornado Ashes Club, are hysterical, as are his run-ins with (fictional) famous authors. The sardonically witty Hely—probably himself unable to decide if literary and popular fiction are separate entities—somehow manages to sum up the entire book publishing industry. Mark my word: anyone interested in books will find something great here.

I’ll end with a quote from this penultimate pick:

“Writing a novel — actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs — is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV’s so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it’s damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit.”

Born Standing Up

Well, things have been a bit crazy lately. It’s the end of the decade, and I can say I reached my goal for the year. I coauthored a novel and read (and just as often, listened to) a book every week. I think I need a vacation.

Today I’ll be posting quickly and carelessly, flying through the last few books I read this year. Then, probably tomorrow, I’ll recap everything and mention my favorites. It’s possible I might make some lists of the best stuff I watched, read and listened to … but if so it’ll come a bit late.

Born Standing Up was #50. Less funny than I imagined it might be, but still enjoyable. In Steve Martin’s most recent memoir, he reflects on his early career as a standup comic and the factors that led him to and away from the difficult occupation. His ideas of what comedy should become were groundbreaking and daring. Researched the profession, he tweaked it to find connections social condition of the day, and began favoring toward personality quips over written jokes. He had difficult parents, worked at Disneyland as a kid, and as you know, learned to play a mean banjo.

As a reader, I began finding myself becoming more interested in personal memoirs this year, especially in the case of audiobooks. This was the last memoir I read, and I hope to read plenty more in the two-thousand-tweens.

Juliet, Naked

This one was about a recluse musician finding his way into the lives of two characters. I enjoyed Juliet, Naked a good deal, though not nearly as much as Slam.

I read somewhere that Nick Hornby wrote this one because so much about the music industry has changed since the nineties, when High Fidelity was published. So I guess I’d been expecting more of a romp through British music nerddom than a story of romance amongst forty-somethings.

Either way, #49 was a good time. We’re almost at the finish line.

The Widow and the Tree

My review for Sonny Brewer’s The Widow and the Tree (book #48), can be viewed here.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

Again, to go with the idea of reading author’s inessential works first, I picked up one of Bill Bryson’s more recent books a few weeks back. I believe it’s Bryson’s only non-travel memoir, as it follows his early childhood in the 50s and early 60s in Des Moines, Iowa.

The author paints a picture of simpler times, balancing humor and education, along with both the good and the bad. He dips in and out of personal experiences and nationwide occurrences with total proficiency. In a way, this book makes the boomer generation seem like a slightly less irritating bunch.

To be honest, since it’s been a while since I listened to this audiobook, I’m drawing a blank with a ton of the key stuff I enjoyed. There’s a story of him and a friend peeing on Lincoln Logs that nearly killed me. Some notes would’ve came in handy, I guess.

My old roommate often tried getting me to read A Walk in the Woods, and I would certainly like to … as soon as the person who has checked it out on audio returns it to the library.

This was #47, for anyone keeping tabs. It’s been the year of reading and listening like crazy, so maybe 2010 will be deemed the year to do not much else but write. Throwing around ideas at the moment. As always, feel free to drop any suggestions in the comments section.

Home Game

I’m not sure I can tell you why, but I have this weird fixation with being introduced to authors by reading one of their completely inessential works first.

For years Carrie has been singing the praises of Michael Lewis, to which I’ve always given a polite nod, mostly because of my distaste for sports. Especially in a state like Alabama, it’s hard enough to dodge conversations about this team vs. that. So why would I want to read about the stuff?

The back cover of Home Game had little to say about sports at large, so it seemed like a promising enough alternative. And I was intrigued about how the book claimed to not be about the joys of parenting, but the complete opposite. It read like a journal where Lewis vented about all the pain his wife and children put him through during this time, trying and failing to make sense of it.

I’ve kept up with reading really well (and listening, when it comes to audiobooks). It’s the whole blogging thing I’m falling behind with. We’ll try to fix this shortly.

This book was #46. Only 6 more to go!

Shoplifting From American Apparel

The hilariously-titled Shoplifting From American Apparel is a very new novella by Tao Lin that I’ve been looking forward to for a while.

Dialogue carries the story first and foremost. The main character Sam, his friends, exes, and fellow inmates say the strangest things aloud and over Gmail chat. It’s generally funny and sometimes half-profound.

The book jumps cities and segments of time quickly, and at first I felt that everything in Sam’s world seemed unimportant, dirty and depressing. But after getting into the flow of the story, I eased up and enjoyed myself.

I get the idea that people will be talking about the psychological truths within Lin’s writing many years from now, but who can say for sure?

This was #45. Only seven more to go in my 2009 in Books pilgrimage.

Up Close: Harper Lee

For #44 I wanted to read one of the books by my writing professor, Kerry Madden. I decided to go with a copy of her biography on Harper Lee first, after finding it at the library.

Kerry tells about Harper’s (Nelle’s) early life in Monroeville, Alabama, her lifelong relationship with Truman Capote, and most importantly, her world as everything about it was transformed by the publication of a book called To Kill A Mockingbird. The amount of research Kerry conducted is astounding, especially keeping in mind the fact that Harper has rarely allowed for interviews.

The voice is fresh and simple, written with grades 7-12 in mind. Older readers, though, will also find it refreshing. For me a reprieve was much-needed, after trying to wrap my mind around the latest Pynchon novel (I abandoned Inherent Vice, which will unfortunately not make the mark for #45).