December 2011 Reads

Unlike previous months, I'll list this month's reads before the final minute/day has passed.  I finished the year with 517 books and e-books read, my second-highest ever behind 2009's 562 books read.  Some changes in the stories read this year, which I'll address in a post shortly.  Highly doubt 2012 will see as many books/e-books read, as I plan on devoting more time to learning other languages (Persian certainly will be one, but I may work on fluency in German, Serbian, and Russian as well), but plans do change.  Might be more reviews next year, but the majority of those will be posted at Weird Fiction Review, Gogol's Overcoat, or might appear in print magazines (my review of Helen Oyeyemi's Mr. Fox appears in the forthcoming issue of Bull Spec, which I believe will be released in the very near future, if not already).  But enough of plans (there will be a post for that shortly), here are the books read:

475  Yumeno Kyûsaku, Dogra Magra (French translation of the original Japanese; already reviewed)

476  Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin (very good, but its premise might be offputting for many)

477  Carl Sandburg, Carl Sandburg:  Selected Poems (very good collection)

478  Ambrose Bierce, Bierce:  The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, & Memoirs (excellent Library of America edition)

479  Rafia Zafar (ed.), Harlem Renaissance:  Five Novels of the 1920s (essential anthology of Harlem Renaissance prose writers)

480  Umberto Eco, Il pendolo di Foucault (Italian; re-read; excellent)

481  Umberto Eco, Das Foucaultsche Pendel (German; see above)

482  Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum (re-read; see above)

483  Magdalena Tulli, In Red (short, yet haunting in what lies underneath the good prose; translated from Polish)

484  H.L. Mencken, Prejudices:  Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Series (Mencken was a very good early 20th century critic; these LoA reprints are well worth reading)

485  Franz Kafka, Amerika (German; good, but far from his best work, but not surprising it's an early work)

486  Franz Kafka, Amerika (see above)

487  Thomas Frick, The Iron Boys (good debut novel about the rise of Luddite revolts)

488  Jesse Ball, The Curfew (very good; actually read in June, but somehow I forgot to log it then in my handwritten reading log)

489  Marcel Proust, Le Côté de Guermantes (French; third volume of his seminal work; essay forthcoming)

490  Elizabeth Alexander (ed.), The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks (very good poetry collection)

491  Marcel Proust,  Sodome et Gomorrhe (French; see above)

492  Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, Volume II: The Guermantes Way/Cities of the Plain (see above)

493  Rafia Zafar (ed.), Harlem Renaissance:  Four Novels of the 1930s (see earlier comment on the first volume)

494  Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 (review forthcoming)

495  Lavie Tidhar, Osama (very good alt-history that balances noir elements with references to current issues)

496  Marcel Proust, La Prisonnière (French; see above comment)

497  José Saramago, O Homem Duplicado (Portuguese; good, but not his best effort)

498  Carlos Fuentes, Instinto de Inez (Spanish; like Saramago, good, but not Fuentes' best)

499  Umberto Eco, L'isola del giorno prima (Italian; underrated Eco novel)

500 Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before (re-read; see above)

501  Catherynne M. Valente, The Folded World (very good sequel to her in-progress trilogy)

502  Edward Hirsch (ed.), Theodore Roethke:  Selected Poems (very good collection)

503  Michael Warner (ed.), American Sermons:  The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King Jr. (excellent LoA collection)

504  Marcel Proust, Albertine disparue (French; see above comment)

505  Geoff Ryman, Paradise Tales (one of the best reprint collections I've read this year)

506  J.M. McDermott, Women and Monsters (very good; recasting of Greek myth elements for our times reminds me favorably of his Last Dragon in the phrasing and quality of prose)

507  Honor Moore (ed.), Amy Lowell:  Selected Poems (excellent poetry collection)

508  Caitlín R. Kiernan, Two Worlds and In Between:  The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (excellent best of collection)

509  Péter Nádas, Parallel Stories (longer review forthcoming, but this was monumental even despite its many flaws)

510  Marcel Proust, Le Temps retrouve (French; see above comment)

511  Francisco Petrarch, Il Canzoniere di Petrarca (Italian; beautiful sonnets)

512  Paolo Chikiamco (ed.), Alternative Alamut (enjoyable collection of Filipino speculative fiction that centers around national mythologies)

513  James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes (competently told, yet I felt as though it were lacking a narrative "soul")

514  Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, Volume III:  The Captive, The Fugitive, Time Regained (see previous comments on Proust)

515  Various, Novum Testamentum Latine (revised Vulgate Latin edition of the New Testament)

516  Edmund Wilson, Edmund Wilson:  Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1920s & 1930s (very good LoA edition)

517  Various, The Holy Bible (King James edition; also read the 7 books excluded from Protestant editions in the New American edition.  No comment on these due to the nature of the reading, which spanned most of the year)


And there you go.  Which ones have you read?  Which do you want to know more about?

November 2011 Reads

Better late than never, right?  Didn't read as much in November compared to other months (was busy with job transition work, my grandmother's death, and a few other matters), but I did review quite a few of these titles already.  Anyways, here they are.

438  Nikky Finney, Head Off & Split (already reviewed)

439  Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière, This is Not the End of the Book (transcribed series of talks between the two on the future of the printed book.  I highly recommend this.  I think this is not yet available in the US, as I have an UK edition)

440  David Abulafia, The Great Sea (one of the best histories of the Mediterranean Sea and its people that I've read in years)

441  Carl Phillips, Double Shadow (already reviewed)

442  Yusef Komunyakaa, The Chameleon Couch (already reviewed)

443  Debby Dahl Edwardson, My Name is Not Easy (already reviewed)

444  Adrienne Rich, Tonight No Poetry Will Serve:  Poems 2007-2010 (already reviewed)

445  Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital:  Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution (already reviewed)

446  Franny Billingsley, Chime (already reviewed)

447  Vergil, The Georgics (poetry; translated; good, but not his best work ;))

448  Georges Perec, Les Choses (French; very good)

449  Manning Marable, Malcolm X (already reviewed)

450  Marcel Proust, Du Côté de Chez Swann (French; review essay in near future)

451  Shelley Fisher Fishkin, The Mark Twain Anthology (excellent Library of America anthology of writers' thoughts over the past 140 years on Mark Twain)

452  H.L. Mencken, Prejudices:  First, Second and Third Series (one of the best literary/cultural critics of the 20th century; excellent two-volume collection by the Library of America)

453  Aimee Bender, Willful Creatures (very good weird fiction collection)

454  Marcel Proust, A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs (French; review essay in near future)

455  Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio (the original version of the tale; good)

456  Mercè Rodoreda, Death in Spring (good, but not as good as her short fiction)

457  Hafiz, The Gift (excellent translation of one of the best medieval Persian Sufi poets)

458  Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, Volume I:  Swann's Way/Within a Budding Grove (translation is adequate, but has not dated well)

459  Milorad Pavić, Priča koja je ubila Emiliju Knor/The Tale That Killed Emily Knorr (re-read; Serbian/translated; already reviewed)

460  Carlos Ruiz Zafón, La sombra del viento (re-read; Spanish; good, but the worst of his three adult novels)

461  Milorad Pavić, Unique Item - Delta Novel (will be reviewed sometime in 2012)

462  Carlos Ruiz Zafón, El Juego Del Ángel (re-read; Spanish; already reviewed)

463  Milorad Pavić, Blue Book (review sometime in 2012)

464  Carlos Ruiz Zafón, El Prisionero del Cielo (Spanish; reviewed already)

465  Umberto Eco, La Misteriosa Fiamma della la Regina Loana (Italian; already reviewed)

466  Umberto Eco, Тајанствени Пламен Краљице Лоане (Serbian translation; already reviewed)

467  Umberto Eco, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (re-read; already reviewed)

468  Milorad Pavić, Drugo Telo (re-read; Serbian; review in 2012)

469  Milorad Pavić, Second Body (re-read; review in 2012)

470  Christopher Bollen, Lightning People (good 2011 debut novel)

471  Catherynne M. Valente, The Habitation of the Blessed (promising opener to a series that touches upon the Prester John legend)

472  Milorad Pavić, Sedam smrtnih grehova (Serbian; review in 2012)

473  Milorad Pavić, Siete pecados capitales (Spanish; review in 2012)

474  Eric Pankey, Cenotaph (good poetry collection)


With a week remaining in 2011, December has seen some progress on the reading front.  Last night, I passed 500 books read this year.  Should finish all of Proust in the coming week, along with two more Eco novels (I plan to have written reviews for all six of his novels by mid-January).  The Best of 2011 posts will start sometime next week, likely the 27th or 28th and running through the 31st.  Plenty to discuss there, I promise, including several books you may never see on other lists.  Having finished 115 books initially released in 2011 (and with a few more to go), I think my coverage might be somewhat comprehensive for the areas of interest I have, but then again, there's always more to be discovered later, no?

Progress on "to finish" books for 2011

Nine days ago, I posted a list of 21 books/series I wanted to finish before 2011 was complete.  Thought I'd update the list for the beginning of December.  The titles in bold mean I have completed them and the ones underlined I expect to finish before the weekend is over.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, La sombra del viento (re-read)
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, El juego del Ángel (re-read)
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, El prisionero del cielo (copy should arrive in the next 2-7 days)
Umberto Eco, La Misteriosa Flamma della Regina Loana (hoping copy arrives in the next few days)
Umberto Eco, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (re-read)
Umberto Eco, Тајанствени Пламен Краљице Лоане (Serbian translation I received as a gift)
Milorad Pavić, Drugo Telo (re-read)
Milorad Pavić, Second Body (re-read)
Milorad Pavić, Unique Item - Delta Novel
Milorad Pavić, Blue Book
Catherynne M. Valente, The Habitation of the Blessed
Catherynne M. Valente, The Folded World
Caitlín R. Kiernan, Two Worlds and In Between
Geoff Ryman, Paradise Tales
Marcel Proust, volumes 3-7, in both French and English, of In Search of Lost Time
Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin
J.M. McDermott, Women and Monsters
Christopher Bollen, Lightning People
Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
Péter Nádas, Parallel Stories (in-progress)
Various, The King James Edition of the Bible (halfway through)

October 2011 Reads

I think I'm doing slightly better, only waiting until two-thirds of the month is complete before posting the previous month's reads. I read 52 books, of which 6 were re-reads, 17 were at least partially by women, 8 were in Spanish, 2 in Italian, 1 in French, 8 were collections, 2 were anthologies, 5 were debut collections or novels, and 27 were released in the US for the first time in 2011.  I leave it up to you to figure out which is which.  And yes, I'm still currently on pace to read more than 500 books for the second time in three years.

386  Olympe Bhêly-Quénum, Le Chant du Lac (French; brilliant, quasi-weird tale of the clash between Western-educated modernists and the more superstitious Vodoun-worshipping locals who believe evil spirits inhabit a lake.)

387  Kate Beaton, Hark!  A Vagrant (graphic novel; f'n awesome, as she skewers history and 19th century Romantic novels in a way that made me chuckle quite a few times)

388  Ross E. Lockhart (ed.), The Book of Cthulhu (might have more to say in the future on this reprint anthology of Lovecraft-influenced weird fictions)

389  Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus (might review this later, but it is one of the best 2011 debut novels that I've read, albeit slightly below The Tiger's Wife)

390  Vladimir Nabokov, King, Queen, Knave (one of his lesser works, but still quite good)

391  Olympe Bhêly-Quénum, Snares Without End (one of his earlier works; very good)

392  Thomas Ligotti, The Nightmare Factory:  Volume 1 (re-read; graphic novel; good adaptation of four stories from the 1996 collection)

393  Kameron Hurley, God's War (above-average debut that left me wanting to read more)

394  Thomas Ligotti, The Nightmare Factory:  Volume II (re-read; graphic novel; see above)

395  Caitlin Sweet, The Pattern Scars (excellent writing, yet I didn't like the subject matter as much as I did for her first two novels)

396  Helen Oyeyemi, Mr. Fox (I have a review of this appearing in a future issue of Bull Spec)

397  Kameron Hurley, Infidel (excellent sequel to a strong debut)

398  Thomas Ligotti, The Nightmare Factory (outstanding omnibus collection of his first few collections)

399  Thomas Ligotti, Teatro Grottesco (I prefer this over The Nightmare Factory, which should say plenty for some)

400  Dino Buzzati, L'opera completa di Bosch (Italian; before Eco wrote his art books, Buzzati wrote this late 1960s piece to accompany reproductions of Bosch's works.  Effective, although I prefer the images)

401  Leopoldo Lugones, Cuentos fatales (Spanish; very good collection of some of Lugones' later stories)

402  Elena Poniatowska, Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela (Spanish; very good epistolary novel showing through absence of responses a lover's rejection of his clinging ex)

403  Leopoldo Lugones, Cuentos completos (Spanish; inaccurate title, but good stories nonetheless)

404  Evaristo Carriego, Misas Herejes (Spanish; poetry; easy to understand how some of his work influenced Borges as a poet)

405  Leopoldo Lugones, Las fuerzas extrañas (early collection of his, contains "El escuerzo," which I translated for the next read)

406  Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (eds.), ODD? (my opinion is biased by having the aforementioned translation in it, but I loved the other stories at least as much as the one I translated)

407  Moacyr Scliar, Kafka's Leopards (brilliant)

408  Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (flawed 2011 Booker Prize-winning novel)

409  Stewart O'Nan, Songs for the Missing (poignant without ever ringing false, a very difficult task to accomplish in a novel)

410  Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic (already reviewed)

411  Umberto Eco, Il Cimitero di Praga (re-read; Italian; already reviewed)

412  Umberto Eco, El cementerio de Praga (re-read; Spanish; already reviewed)

413  Leonid Andreyev, The Crushed Flower and Other Stories (good collection)

414  Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones (already reviewed)

415  Andrew Krivak, The Sojourn (already reviewed)

416  Edith Pearlman, Binocular Vision (already reviewed)

417  Deborah Baker, The Convert (already reviewed)

418  Colson Whitehead, Zone One (might review in near future; enjoyed it)

419  Stewart O'Nan, Wish You Were Here (good)

420  Stewart O'Nan, Emily, One (very good sequel to the above title)

421  Graham Joyce, The Silent Land (already reviewed)

422  Lauren Beaukes, Zoo City (already reviewed)

423  Karen Lord, Redemption in Indigo (re-read; already reviewed)

424  Thanhha Lai, Inside Out and Back Again (already reviewed)

425  Guy Gavriel Kay, Under Heaven (already reviewed)

426  Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now (already reviewed)

427  Albert Marrin, Flesh & Blood So Cheap:  The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy (already reviewed)

428  Lauren Redniss, Radioactive:  Marie and Pierre Curie:  A Tale of Love and Fallout (already reviewed)

429  Bruce Smith, Devotions (already reviewed)

430  John Warner, The Funny Man (very good; might review at length later)

431  Donald Ray Pollock, Knockemstiff (Pollock's debut collection from 2008 is a tour de force)

432  Amit Majmudar, Partitions (very good)

433  Teresa Milbrodt, Bearded Women (already reviewed)

434  Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Memories of the Future (very good Stalin-era collection)

435  Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve:  How the World Became Modern (already reviewed)

436  Daniel Sada, Casi nunca (Spanish; very good)

437  Roberto Arlt, El criador de gorilas (Spanish; very good collection that deserves to be translated into English)

September 2011 Reads

A bit late with this, as usual these days.  50 books were read/re-read in various languages, including a 10 book re-reading (and two new translation reads) of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince in various languages.  Not much detail this time, since I plan on crashing soon after posting this.

334  Tom Perrotta, The Leftovers (excellent)

335  Michel Bernanos, La montagne morte de la vie (French; new translation appears in The Weird; very good)

336  Clark Ashton Smith, Xiccarph (Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition; very good)

337  Justin Torres, We the Animals (outstanding debut, more later)

338  A.D. Miller, Snowdrops (bland, rather forgettable Booker Prize nominee)

339  Dino Buzzati, Il deserto dei Tartari (re-read; Italian; excellent)

340  A.D. Jameson, Amazing Adult Fantasy (good)

341  Zoran Živković, Knjiga (Serbian, very good)

342  Zoran Živković, Čitalelja (Serbian, excellent)

343  Zoran Živković, The Writer/The Book/The Reader (re-read; I really need to write more formal reviews of Živković's work in the future)

344  Charles Perrault, Histoires ou Contes du temps passé (French; classic edition of French fairy tales from the 17th century)

345  Dino Buzzati, Poema a fumetti (re-read; Italian; graphic novel; moving retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice story)

346  Max Ernst, Une Semaine de Bonte (re-read; French; illustration-novel; seminal surrealist work)

347  Javier Marías, Tu rostro mañana:  1 Fiebre y lanza (Spanish; brilliant)

348  Zoran Živković, Most (Serbian, very good)

349  Zoran Živković, The Bridge (re-read; very good)

350  Javier Marías, Tu rostro mañana:  2  Baile y sueño (Spanish; outstanding)

351  Javier Marías, Tu rostro mañana:  3 Veneno y sombra y adiós (Spanish; one of the best literary trilogies of the 21st century)

352  Dino Buzzati, Il Meglio dei Racconti (Italian; collection of the best of Buzzati's short fiction; excellent)

353  Gonçalo M. Tavares, Learning to Pray in the Age of Technique (read this in translation due to unavailability of the Portuguese original; very well-written)

354  Vladimir Sorokin, Day of the Oprichnik (decent, but not great)

355  Jean Ray, Malpertuis (French; Ray's only novel; very good)

356  Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow:  Fever and Spear (I read the translations for a possible future project; very good translation)

357  Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow:  Dance and Dream (see comment above)

358  Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding (excellent debut novel)

359  Alexander Maksik, You Deserve Nothing (good)

360  Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York (outstanding)

361  Denis Johnson, Train Dreams (very good)

362  Amy Waldman, The Submission (very good debut novel)

363  Javier Marías, Los enamoramientos (Spanish; worthy novel to follow Tu rostro mañana)

364  Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow:  Poison, Shadow and Farewell (see earlier comment)

365 Tom Perrotta, Senior Season (good novella)

366  Rubén Mendoza, Lotería and Other Stories (good story collection)

367  Robert Coover, A Night in the Movies (good collection, but some stories were flat for me)

368  Jean Ray, Les Contes du Whisky (French; early collection; very good stories revolving around whiskey at some point)

369  Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, The Weird (as I have a translation in this, I'm too biased to say anything but how excellent this antho is – even if I didn't have a stake in it, I would have said the same for this massive 750,000 word anthology of a century of weird fiction)

370  Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues (decent but not very good Booker Prize nominee)

371  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince (re-read; French; sentimental favorite)

372  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, El petit príncep (Catalan; same thoughts)

373  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Regulus: Vel Pueri Soli Sapiunt (re-read; Latin; same thoughts)

374  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Mali Princ (re-read; Serbian; same thoughts)

375  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Il Piccolo Principe (re-read; Italian; same thoughts)

376  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, A Kis Herceg (re-read; Hungarian; same thoughts)

377  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Der Kleine Prinz (re-read; German; same thoughts)

378  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, O Principerzinho (Portuguese; same thoughts)

379  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, El Principito (re-read; Spanish; same thoughts)

380  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince (re-read; English; same thoughts)

381  Mercé Rodoreda, The Selected Stories of Mercé Rodoreda (translation from Catalan; excellent story collection released earlier this year)

382  Thomas Ligotti, My Work is Not Yet Done (re-read; already reviewed)

383  Sebastian Rotella, Triple Crossing (good fictionalization of the US-Mexican gang border wars and human trafficking)

384  Daniel Abraham, The Dragon's Path (good start to a new epic fantasy series)

385  Vladimir Nabokov, Despair (not Nabokov's best, but still quite good)


I know October is almost done, but I should have around 51 or 52 entries for that month whenever I get to it in November.  Looking more and more likely that I will have read over 500 books/e-books by year's end, one of my two best reading years.  Any of these you want to know more about or want to weigh in with your opinion?

Books I'm Currently Reading

I'm currently alternating between these books on a coolish (around 60) Friday night.  The Jean Ray and Dino Buzzati books are in French and Italian, respectively.  The Buzzati arrived Thursday and the Ray today in the mail.

Excited about the Spiegelman book, as it arrived today as a review copy (it will be available on October 4).  I received the Morgenstern on Tuesday, its release date, and it's promising so far.

I did a rare thing in purchasing the English translations of Javier Marías' Tu rostro mañana trilogy after finishing the trilogy in Spanish on Thursday; I wanted to have the translations in case I decide to do a review and then a gift later to someone.  I would have bought the Tavares in Portuguese if it were readily available here in the US, but halfway through it (I received it around two weeks ago), I can note that it's an excellent story so far.

Maybe I'll finally get around to doing reviews this weekend or next.  I do have a short work week next week due to a mini-school break, so maybe by then I'll have a review or three written.  Perhaps it'll be of one or more of these books.

Any of these you've read before or would like to read?

August 2011 Reads

Been away for a while, doing things that left me with little internet time.  So to break the silence for a spell, here's a listing of what I read last month.  Most of these are first-time reads; some might even be reviewed in the near future.

286  Dana Spiotta, Stone Arabia (solid novel that trods some of the same ground that A Visit from the Goon Squad does, but it stands out enough to be a good read in its own right)

287  Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad (very good novel; might say more in the near future)

288  Gabriel García Márquez, Yo no vengo a decir un discurso (Spanish; Non-Fiction; collection of author's speeches over the course of his life.  Good for what it is)

289  Gabriel García Márquez, Todos los cuentos (Spanish; collection in e-book form of all of his short fictions.  Great to re-read several enchanting tales)

290  Donald Ray Pollock, The Devil All the Time (reviewed earlier)

291  Helen Schulman, This Beautiful Life (reviewed earlier)

292  Djuna Barnes, Nightwood (excellent 1930s novel)

293  Phil Edwards, Snooki in Wonderland:  The Improved Classic (reviewed earlier)

294  Tim Powers, The Bible Repairman and Other Stories (collection; solid collection of Powers' newest fictions, but few stories stood out)

295  Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly, Les diaboliques (French; these stories of women betraying their lovers was almost shocking at times.  Excellent prose)

296  Vicente Blasco Ibañez, El paraíso de las mujeres (Spanish; decent retelling of Gulliver's Travels, but it is among the author's minor works for a reason)

297  Octavio Aragão, A Mão que Cria (Portuguese; I had planned on reviewing this at length along with the Intempol anthology, but I haven't yet finished the latter.  Will note that I enjoyed reading this short novel and hopefully will have more to say in the near future)

298  José Maria Eça de Quieros,  A Cidade e as Serras (Portuguese; good)

299  Juan Gabriel Vásquez, El ruido de las cosas al caer (2011 Premio Alfaguara winner; very good; might review in full later)

300  Alice La Plante, Turn of Mind (murder mystery involving an Alzheimer's patient at its center.  Very good read)

301  Elanor Henderson, Ten Thousand Saints (good novel detailing hardcore music scene of the 1980s and the crises of a group of friends and family members)

302  Stephen Kelman, Pigeon English (this Booker Prize-shortlisted novel was promising in places, but it ultimately left me feeling that this was merely a solid, competent novel rather than anything special)

303  Thomas More, Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (Non-fiction; written just before the author's execution, this was the sort of inspirational read I wanted at the time)

304  Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (Non-fiction; easy-to-follow philosophical work)

305  Algernon Blackwood, The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories (collection; good early weird fiction)

306  Patrick Dewitt, The Sisters Brothers (I liked this Booker-nominated work better than the Kelman; at times a visceral western, yet there were other depths discerned at times.  Satisfying, excellent read)

307  Kevin Wilson, The Family Fang (already reviewed)

308  László Krasznahorkai and Max Neumann, Animalinside (already blogged about this excellent prose/illustration piece)

309  Belina McKeon, Solace (solid, but not spectacular) 

310  Alison Pick, Far to Go (this familial slice of life just before the Holocaust was poignant, but also heavy-handed in places)

311  Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia di Dante:  Inferno (Italian; classic)

312  Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia di Dante:  Purgatorio (Italian; classic)

313  Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia di Dante:  Paradiso (Italian; classic)

314  Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, No Thoroughfare (average potboiler; below both authors' normal levels)

315  Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy (decent English translation of one of my favorite epic-length poems)

316  Wilkie Collins, Blind Love (Collins' last novel was almost a self-parody of his earlier, greater works)

317  Michael Crummey, Galore (decent, albeit forgettable, work)

318  Yvvette Edwards, A Cupboard Full of Coats (on the Booker longlist, this novel was OK, but not all that great)

319  Mario Vargas Llosa, Los cachorros (Spanish; collection; short e-book edition of a couple of Vargas Llosa's earliest short fictions.  Very good)

320  Marian Coman, Fingers and Other Fantastic Stories (translated from Romanian, this short e-book collection contains some delightfully weird fictions that are well worth the $0.99 I spent on it)

321  Mario Vargas Llosa, Los jefes (Spanish; more of Vargas Llosa's early short fictions; very good)

322  Cristina García, The Lady Matador's Hotel (very good)

323  Augusto Monterroso, Cuentos (Spanish; collection; very good)

324  Steve Erickson, The Sea Came in at Midnight (might review later)

325  Steve Erickson, Our Ecstatic Days (might review later)

326  James Boice, The Good and the Ghastly (very good)

327  Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nightmare (this has to be an overlooked masterpiece, considering the quality of the prose and how few mentions I've heard about it before reading it)

328  Mary Horlock, The Book of Lies (very good)

329  Steve Erickson, Tours of the Black Clock (might review later)

330  Anders Nilsen, Big Questions (one of the best graphic novels I've read this year)

331  Frank Herbert, Hellstrom's Hive (might review this on the SFF Masterworks page later)

332  Stuart Nader, The Book of Life (collection; very good)

333  Ernest Cline, Ready Player One (good debut novel)


So far into September, I'm half a book away from finishing #350.  Looks like I'm on pace to read well over 400 books for the third year in a row.  Any of these you've read before?  Any you want to read in the near or distant future?

2011 releases bought/received so far

Seems like I'm discovering quite a few interesting 2011 releases in a variety of genres.  For those looking for the new shiny, here is a non-chronological listing of 2011 books (and e-books) that I now own:

Stephen Kelman, Pigeon English

Alice LaPlante, Turn of Mind

Donald Ray Pollock, The Devil All the Time (already reviewed)

Glen Duncan, The Last Werewolf

Jesse Ball, The Curfew

Dana Spiotta, Stone Arabia

Carol Birch, Jamrach's Menagerie

S.J. Watson, Before I Go To Sleep

Jim Shepard, You Think That's Bad (collection)

Minister Faust, The Alchemists of Kush

Chris Adrian, The Great Night

David Albahari, Leeches

Genevieve Valentine, Mechanique:  A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti

Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Rikki Ducornet, Netsuke

Nick Mamatas, Starve Better (non-fiction)

Helen Schulman, This Beautiful Life

Elanor Henderson, Ten Thousand Saints

Bradford Morrow, The Diviner's Tale

Giorgio Agamben, The Sacrament of Language:  The Archaeology of the Oath (non-fiction)

J.M. McDermott, Never Knew Another

Karen Russell, Swamplandia!

Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes

Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife

Steven Erikson, The Crippled God

R. Scott Bakker, The White-Luck Warrior

David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

Roberto Bolaño, Los sinsabores del verdadero policía (Spanish)

Jeff VanderMeer, The Compass of His Bones and Other Stories (collection)

Peter Beagle, Sleight of Hand (collection)

Tibor Moricz, O Peregrino (Portuguese)

Michael Cisco, The Great Lover

Jonathan Strahan, Eclipse Four

Roger Manley, Weird Tennessee (non-fiction)

Jeff VanderMeer, Monstrous Creatures (non-fiction essay collection)

China Miéville, Embassytown

Jeff VanderMeer and S.J. Chambers, The Steampunk Bible (non-fiction)

Inky Johnson, Inky:  An Amazing Story of Faith and Perseverance (non-fiction)

Blake Butler, There Is No Year

David Anthony Durham, The Sacred Band

Lila Azam Zanganeh, The Enchanter:  Nabokov and Happiness (non-fiction)

Ben Loory, Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (collection)

Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law

Gail Carriger, Heartless

Nnedi Okorafor, Akata Witch

Umberto Eco, Confessions of a Young Novelist (non-fiction)

Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Maeve Gilmore and Mervyn Peake, Titus Awakes

George R.R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons

Lev Grossman, The Magician King

Phil Edwards and Lewis Carroll, Snooki in Wonderland:  The Improved Classic

Tim Powers, The Bible Repairman and Other Stories (collection)

Juan Gabriel Vásquez, El ruido de las cosas al caer (Spanish)

Drew Magery, The Post-Mortal


There are a few other books lying about that I'll add to this list later this afternoon.  With only a few exceptions, these are books that I've read and the others are those I plan on reading shortly.  Think I might have some reason to think I'll have a comprehensive Best of 2011 selection based on the books listed here?  Now to count up how many this actually is – certain it is at least 50.

July 2011 Reads

Productive second half to July led to me reading 67 books this past month, one of my most productive reading months since graduate school.  Since there's a lot to cover, not much besides the titles are listed below:

219  Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law (review closer to its September release)

220  Gail Carriger, Heartless (nice rebound from the sometimes-lackluster third volume)

221  Nnedi Okorafor, Akata Witch (good, solid YA fantasy)

222  Clifford Simak, City (reviewed on SFF Masterworks)

223  Rikki Ducornet, Netsuke (recommended for fans of her earlier work; recommended for most, actually)

224  Blake Butler, There Is No Year (already reviewed)

225  Benevieve Valentine, Mechanique:  A Tale of the Tresaulti (good prose, but the circus setting did not interest me sufficiently to engage properly with this debut)

226  Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (solid)

227  S.J. Watson, Before I Go to Sleep (debut that promised to be great until tacky, clichéd ending dropped it to the merely decent)

228  Richard A. Kirk, The Lost Machine (wonderfully weird, with the author's illustrations adding to the tale)

229  Umberto Eco, Confessions of a Young Novelist (non-fiction; one day I'll write some reflective essays based on these collected speeches)

230  Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (good)

231  Maeve Gilmore and Mervyn Peake, Titus Awakes (interesting as much for the apparent catharsis it provided Peake's widow as for any debatable addition to the Gormenghast novels; in another milieu, it would have been viewed as being a promising but flawed effort, but within the context of Peake's unfinished fourth Titus novel, it is an uncomfortable read upon further reflection)

232  Lászlo Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance (very good, with some brilliant moments)

233  Hanan al-Shaykh, The Locust and the Bird:  My Mother's Story (biography of the author's mother growing up in early-to-mid 20th century Lebanon; good read)

234  Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (already reviewed)

235  Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices (amusing read, but one that is distinctly inferior to each author's solo efforts)

236  Minister Faust, The Alchemists of Kush (damn good)

237  Michael Moorcock, Behold the Man (reviewed on SFF Masterworks)

238  George R.R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons (already reviewed)

239  Jim Shepard, You Think That's Bad (very good story collection)

240  Charles Dickens, The Non-Fiction and Essays of Charles Dickens (fascinating)

241  Jesse Ball, Samedi the Deafness (excellent, quasi-poetic prose highlights this very good short novel)

242  P.T. Barnum, The Art of Money Getting (non-fiction; diverting read)

243  Ogdred Weary, The Curious Sofa:  A Pornographic Work (hilarious)

244  Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens, A House to Let (see above comment about their collaborative efforts)

245  James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (excellent)

246  Charles Dickens, Master Humphrey's Clock (minor piece of his)

247  Upton Sinclair, The Metropolis (a few steps down from The Jungle)

248  Oscar Wilde, De Profundis (thought-provoking)

249  Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (re-read; play; very good)

250  Lev Grossman, The Magician King (review forthcoming this week)

251  Ben Marcus, The Age of Wire and String (solid 1990s debut effort)

252  John Ruskin, The Ethics of the Dust (good read)

253  William Morris, The Hollow Land (decent)

254  Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays (already reviewed)

255  Miguel de Unamuno, Dos Novelas Cortas (Spanish; one of the best of the Generation of '98)

256  Kathe Koja, Under the Poppy (very good)

257  Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis (interesting short piece)

258  Miguel de Unamuno, Antología Poética (Spanish; see prior comment)

259  Anonymous, Poema de Mio Cid (Old Castilian; one of my favorite medieval epics)

260  Thomas More, Utopia (re-read; very good)

261  Philipp Meyer, American Rust (outstanding novel that illustrates why Meyer made The New Yorker's "Twenty Under Forty" list last year)

262  Pétrus Borel, Champavert, les comtes immoraux (French; good)

263  Charles Dickens, Mudfog and Other Sketches (minor work)

264  Henri Alain-Fournier, Le Grand Meaulnes (good, weird fiction)

265  Marjorie Bowen, The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories (decent weird fiction collection)

266  Carol Birch, Jamrach's Menagerie (good novel that made this year's Man Booker Prize longlist)

267  F. Marion Crawford, The Witch of Prague (good)

268  Minister Faust, Shrinking the Heroes (very good)

269  Eliseo Alberto, Caracol Beach (Spanish; re-read; already reviewed)

270  Frans G. Bengtsson, The Long Ships (decent)

271  Stella Benson, Living Alone (OK at best)

272 Max Beerbohm, Seven Men (decent)

273  Stephen Vincent Benét, Young Adventure, a Book of Poems (very good)

274  Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman (very good look at Wollstonecraft's writing)

275  Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman (seminal feminist work)

276  Edward Everett Hale, The Brick Moon and Other Stories (good)

277  Voltaire, Socrates (decent satirical play)

278  Sergio Ramírez, Margarita, está linda la mar (Spanish; re-read; already reviewed)

279  Manuel Vicent, Son de Mar (Spanish; re-read; review forthcoming)

280  Pierre Bayle, Letters of Abelard and Heloise (illuminating)

281  Clara Sánchez, Últimas noticias del paraíso (Spanish; re-read; review forthcoming)

282  Thomas Ligotti, Grimscribe (revised collection that contains one of my all-time favorite horror stories, "The Last Feast of Harlequin")

283  Glen Duncan, The Last Werewolf (very good)

284  Algernon Blackwood, The Wendigo (interesting short novel)

285  L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (first time I read this in full; enjoyed it quite a bit)


Already off to a good start for August, with six more books/e-books complete.  Getting at least 400 books read this year is looking good and going past 500 isn't out of the realm of possibility.  Any of these you want to weigh in on or inquire about?

Thoughts on e-book reading on the iPad 2 after two weeks

I am one of those people who is neither a technophile nor technophobe.  I will usually purchase something in its second or third generation or even later (iPad 2, iPhone 4) because I would rather wait and see how emerging markets such as tablets or e-book readers work out their initial kinks than to be the first person on the block with the shiny new thing.  When Amazon came out with its Kindle back in 2007, I was in no rush to get it, thinking the cost was too high and the benefits too scarce for me to justify spending over $300 for an e-book reader.  But now that I'm traveling a bit more with my current teaching/test administration job, I have found it handy to have something on hand for those 15-60 minutes of waiting here and there.

At first, I was using my iPhone 4 for testing out e-books and it was surprisingly good for its tiny size (considering how fast I read, I was constantly tapping on it to move to the next page), but I desired something larger that I could use to read (and to play games, listen to music, watch videos, and use as an instructional tool).  So I used a combination of birthday money and my meager savings to buy a 32 GB iPad 2 two weeks ago.  I have found that I use it quite a bit, both at home and at work and it has been worth the extra cost.

Leaving aside the extra features that made the iPad 2 more appealing to me than any dedicated e-book reader, here are some of the things that I've noticed about the iPad 2's e-book capabilities:

• Apple's iBooks is my favorite e-book reader.  Unlike the Kindle for iPad app, iBooks replicates the look of actual pages, it has actual pagination rather than the annoying percentage figure, and it is much easier to bookmark and highlight passages.

• Despite this, most of my purchases have been through Amazon's Kindle Store because it has a greater selection of books.  I did enjoy not having to pay state sales tax (something Apple does collect), but I have noticed over the past couple of weeks that Amazon has collected sales tax on some of the e-books that I've purchased.  Considering the pricing between the two is virtually the same, this might be enough to push me to buy more books from iBooks if the total cost will be the same for the books available on both.

• Kobo and Nook suck in comparison to iBooks and Kindle.  The buying of e-books through B&N's site is more time-consuming and it often takes several minutes for e-books to arrive.  Do not like the appearance of the books on the Kobo app.

• There is no glare problems for me while reading indoors.  Although it is more difficult to read while outside, I'm more inclined to have a printed book in those situations due to tactile preferences.  But when the lights are dimmed (such as when I'm showing an educational video to my students every few afternoons), it is nice to have the iPad 2 on a stand and to just tap away.

• I use Classicly and Stanza for reading most Project Gutenberg books, with a few others downloaded through iBooks.  Although the first two are not as attractive as iBooks, it is even quicker to find public domain books that I want to read/re-read.  Stanza in particular is very easy to use and seems more intuitive than Classicly.

• Over half of the e-books I've read in recent weeks have been public domain works.  Been reading a lot of 19th and early 20th century weird fiction in particular, as well as memorable works such as the 18th century edition of Letters of Abelard and Heloise or Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman.  Having central repositories of free e-book editions of these classics has led me to read dozens of works so far that I likely would not have read if I had to pay $5-15 for print editions.

• Choice is nice.  One of the benefits of reading e-books on the iPad 2 is that I am not locked into a particular e-book app.  As I've stated above, some of the e-book reader apps have features that appeal to me more than others.  Having more color than just black/white for illustrations is a plus.  Also, getting 10+ hours of battery life for continuous use (or several days going by with a drop from 100% to only 70% using it 1-2 hours a day) is very nice.  Plus, there's hardly any flickering as the pages "turn," as the dual-core A5 processor is very powerful for this purpose.

• I have been reading more since I purchased my iPad 2 on July 15.  Thirty-four books have been downloaded/read since then (July list to be posted sometime in early August).  This might be the best advantage of them all.

Any other iPad 2/other tablet readers out there?  What are your thoughts on reading on a tablet?

Oh, one final thing:  Here are three books waiting to be read (two purchased through an Amazon gift card):

Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

Dana Spiotta, Stone Arabia

Glen Duncan, The Last Werewolf


Those are all Kindle on iPad purchases.  For iBooks, I'll be reading these public domain works shortly:


Algernon Blackwood, The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories

F. Anstey, The Brass Bottle

St. Thomas More, Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation


Yes, I like to read more esoteric material on occasion...

A partial list of those who inspired me to purchase e-books recently

Although print reading is still dominant over e-book reading, I have been purchasing several e-books recently, especially after getting an iPad just over a week ago.  Now, the majority of these e-books have been freebies from Project Gutenberg (such as Oscar Wilde's De Profundis) that I might not otherwise been aware of in the first place, but an increasing number have come from seeing the titles mentioned elsewhere.  Here's a partial list of those e-books and those responsible for making me aware of them:

Marjorie Bowen, The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories (free, Kindle for iPhone/iPad) - first saw this mentioned in the 2006 Big-Ass Fantasy List compiled on Jeff VanderMeer's old blog.  Finally got around to downloading it in June.

Minister Faust, The Alchemists of Kush ($2.99, Kindle for iPhone/iPad) - Jeff's the responsible party, as his signal boost first caught my eye and I downloaded it the day of release last month.  Very good story.

Hanan al-Shaykh, The Locust and the Bird:  My Mother's Story ($11.99, Kindle for iPhone/iPad)- Ian Sales mentioned al-Shaykh to me and this is the e-book I chose to purchase.  Outstanding memoir/biography of a Lebanese mother and her struggles to find true love.

Chris Adrian, The Great Night:  A Novel ($11.99, Kindle for iPhone/iPad) - The New Yorker's brief article on it a couple of months ago led me to purchase it.  Not as good as The Children's Hospital, but still a good novel to read.

Sadegh Hedayat, The Blind Owl ($8.59, Kindle for iPhone/iPad) - Paul Smith raved about this novel to me months ago on Twitter.  I bought it in April and perhaps I should rave about it as well.

Rikki Ducornet, Netsuke ($11.99, Kindle for iPhone/iPad) - Jeff's again at fault.  Still, it was a pleasant read.

Gustave Flaubert, Salammbô (free, Kindle for iPhone/iPad) - Paul got me to read this, although I read it in both the original French and then in English translation to fill in the comprehension gaps.  Excellent Flaubert story.

Nick Mamatas, Starve Better ($3.99, Kindle for iPhone/iPad) - Actually, it was Nick himself mentioning it on Twitter that got me to buy it at a discounted price.  Interesting non-fiction piece; plan to re-read it before weighing in on it, though.

Gérard Nerval, Sylvie (free, iBooks) - It was a combination of Umberto Eco and Paul Smith that got me to read this tale in both French and English.  Outstanding.

Grans G. Bengtsson, The Long Ships ($9.87, Kindle for iPad) - Abagail Nussbaum just blogged about this in a post on recent reads and her reaction spurred me to check this out, which I hope to do later this week.

Cormac McCarthy, Sunset Limited ($11.99, iBooks) - Shaun Duke I believe was the one who recommended this one to me.  Better than average McCarthy, or just simply outstanding – your pick.

Frank Turner Hollon, The God File ($5.99, iBooks) - Brian Lindenmuth recommended this one to me and now I shall pass that recommendation onto others.


If I bothered to list the past three months' of recommendations that I purchased in print form, the list likely would double, but this should suffice for now.  Any of these you want to read or recommend to others?

June 2011 Reads

Summer, at least this summer, does not seem to be the time for increased reading.  June was my second-lowest month (and the first third of July sees me at only 10 books read to date).  Work and jury duty are largely to blame, along with a out-of-season severe sinus infection that laid me up for nearly three full days.  Only 25 books read, but at least the quality is fairly high on the whole.

194  Lynd Ward, vol. I:  Gods' Man, Madman's Drum, Wild Pilgrimage (Library of America omnibus; graphic, wordless novel; it and vol. II were outstanding)

195  Lynd Ward, vol. II:  Prelude to a Million Years, Song Without Words, Vertigo (Library of America omnibus; graphic, wordless novel)

196  Joanna Russ, The Female Man (re-read; reviewed)

197  William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, The Differance Engine (review forthcoming on the SFF Masterworks blog later this month or August)

198  Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances (good debut novel)

199  Alexander Pope, Rape of the Lock and Other Poems (good 18th century classic)

200  Cheryl Rainfield, Scars (this YA novel reminded me, sometimes painfully, of some former students.  Well worth reading)

201  Oliver Potzsch, The Hangman's Daughter (decent historical fiction)

202  Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic (re-read; review forthcoming on SFF Masterworks blog)

203  Philip K. Dick, The Penultimate Truth (meh, might review it sometime)

204  Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet (wild, surrealist novel)

205  John Gardner, Grendel (re-read; might write a longer review later)

206  Brian Aldiss, Greybeard (reviewed on SFF Masterworks blog)

207  C.E. Morgan, All the Living (good, moving debut)

208  Chris Adrian, The Great Night (not as good as his other works, but worth reading)

209  Minister Faust, Journey to Mecha (short story collection; good)

210  Inky Johnson, Inky:  An Amazing Story of Faith and Perseverance (non-fiction memoir/testimonial from a former UT cornerback who lost the use of his right arm while making a tackle in 2006.  I saw that hit live on TV and it was haunting.  His story is a moving one.)

211  Karen Joy Fowler, What I Didn't See (very good short story collection)

212  Shirley Jackson, Hangsaman (one of her minor works, with a slow build to a good conclusion)

213  Blake Butler, Scorch Atlas (this was excellent weird mosaic fiction)

214  M.J. Engh, Arslan (reviewed)

215  Jack London, The Call of the Wild (re-read; more awesome on my first re-read in over 20 years)

216  David Anthony Durham, The Sacred Band (review in late September/early October; did find it to be a very good concluding volume to an underrated epic fantasy trilogy)

217  Lila Azam Zanganeh, The Enchanter:  Nabokov and Happiness (reviewed)

218  Ben Loory, Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (short fiction; review forthcoming)


Not too shabby, considering I haven't written reviews for most of these yet (or ever).  July is off to a good start, albeit a slow one due to an upcoming work audit that forced me to work 11 hours Saturday and Sunday.  I can say 8 of the 10 read to date are 2011 releases and that a few of these might garner a review in the near future.

A look at 2011 reads nearing the year's halfway point

Although it is way too early for me to proclaim many (any?) sure-fire "Best of 2011" books, I thought I'd provide a run-down of 2011 reads completed or nearly completed that may (or may not) factor in discussions six months from now.  The list will only continue to grow:

2011 Releases Read

Bradford Morrow, The Diviner's Tale
 
Giorgio Agamben, The Sacrament of Language:  The Archaeology of the Oath (non-fiction)

J.M. McDermott, Never Knew Another

Karen Russell, Swamplandia! (debut novel)

Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes

Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife (debut novel)

Steven Erikson, The Crippled God

R. Scott Bakker, The White-Luck Warrior

David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

Peter Beagle, Sleight of Hand (collection)

Tibor Moricz, O Peregrino (Portuguese)

Nick Mamatas, Starve Better (non-fiction)

David Albahari, Leeches

Michael Cisco, The Great Lover

Jonathan Strahan, Eclipse Four (anthology)

Roger Manley, Weird Tennessee (non-fiction)

Jeff VanderMeer, Monstrous Creatures (non-fiction)

China Miéville, Embassytown

Jeff VanderMeer and S.J. Chambers, The Steampunk Bible

Chris Adrian, The Great Night

Minister Faust, Journey to Mecha (collection)

Inky Johnson, Inky:  An Amazing Story of Faith and Perseverance (non-fiction)


2011 Releases Currently in Progress

S.J. Watson, Before I Go to Sleep

David Anthony Durham, The Sacred Band

Lila Azam Zanganeh, The Enchanter:  Nabokov and Happiness (non-fiction)

Drew Magary, The Postmortal (debut novel)

Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairland in a Ship of Her Own Making (revised book form; YA)

Jonathan Wood, No Hero (debut novel)

Blake Butler, There is No Year


Twenty-two books completed and another seven that will either be finished by month's end or early July that are 2011 releases.  Not too bad, although I suspect the number of books in various categories will increase once I swing my focus more toward surveying current releases like I typically do the second half of the year.  Now I suppose some people might like a provisional "top 10" list or so of these books, so here's a little something that will not be placed in order as such:


Current Best of 2011 Contenders

Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife

David Albahari, Leeches

Michael Cisco, The Great Lover

David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

Bradford Morrow, The Diviner's Tale

Lila Azam Zanganeh, The Enchanter:  Nabokov and Happiness

S.J. Watson, Before I Go to Sleep

R. Scott Bakker, The White-Luck Warrior

David Anthony Durham, The Sacred Band

Karen Russell, Swamplandia!


Again, opinions are likely to change.  Oh, and I should note that when I cover anthologies in December, I'll be leaving out two reprint anthologies that I'm most excited about, September/October's ODD? and October's Weird, because those will include translations that I have done.  Otherwise, I'd be very confident about those books appearing there.  Oh, and there's some "dance" I'm supposed to read about in July, not to mention these few:

Lev Grossman, The Magician King (review copy arriving shortly)

David Lodge, A Man of Parts:  A Novel of H.G. Wells (review copy arriving shortly)

Ben Loory, Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (collection; review copy arriving shortly)

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (eds.), The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (arriving in July)


Any of these you curious to learn more about?

Books currently being read

Here are titles that I've been reading over the past few days:

Karen Joy Fowler, What I Didn't See

Minister Faust, The Alchemists of Kush

M.J. Engh,  Arslan

Stuart Nadler, The Book of Life

Chris Adrian, The Great Night

David Anthony Durham, The Sacred Band

C.E. Morgan, All the Living

Charles Dickens, The Essays of Charles Dickens


Any of these you've read before?  Any you want to know more about?

April-May 2011 Reads

Over 90 titles to type for April and May, so nothing but the titles, alas:

April

102  William Shakespeare, Tragedies

103  Cao Xueqin, The Story of the Stone, vol. I:  The Golden Days

104  Sigmund Freud, Basic Works

105  Frederik Pohl, Man Plus

106  Robert Silverberg, The Book of Skulls

107  M. John Harrison, Viriconium (re-read)

108  R. Scott Bakker, The White-Luck Warrior

109  A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

110  David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

111  Roberto Bolaño, Los sinsabores del verdadero policía (Spanish)

112  Gustave Flaubert, Salammbô (French)

113  Gustave Flaubert, Salammbô (English)

114  Jeff VanderMeer, The Compass of His Bones and Other Stories

115  Samuel Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (re-read)

116  Aristotle, Ethics

117  Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (re-read)

118  Robert Frost, Mountain Interval

119  Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antonius

120  Daniel Defore, Moll Flanders (re-read)

121  G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Knew Too Much

122  Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow

123  Frigyes Karinthy, A Journey Round My Skull

124  Peter Beagle, Sleight of Hand

125  Algernon Blackwood, The Damned

126  Boethius, The Theological Tractates and the Consolation of Philosophy

127  Kay Ryan, The Best of It:  New and Selected Poems

128  Emmanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals

129  Pindar, The Extant Odes of Pindar

130  Elie Wiesel, Night

131  Elie Wiesel, Dawn

132  Elie Wiesel, The Accident/Day

133  Elie Wiesel, The Judges

134  Tibor Moricz, O Peregrino (Portuguese)

135  Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

136  Henry David Thoreau, Walking

137  Lord Dunsany, A Dreamer's Tale

138  Sadegh Hedayat, The Blind Owl

139  Mark Samuels, The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales

140  Michel Tournier, Le Roi des Aulnes

141  Charles Williams, Descent Into Hell

142  Nick Mamatas, Starve Better

143  Eduardo Vaquerizo, La última noche de Hipatia (Spanish)

144  David Albahari, Leeches

145  Oliverio Girondo, En la Masmédula (Spanish; re-read)

146  T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

147  Wallace Fowlie, Rimbaud and Jim Morrison:  The Rebel as Poet

148  Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies (German/English)

149  Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Great English Poets:  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

150  Michael Cisco, The Great Lover

151  Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

152  John Locke, Second Treatise of Government


May

153  Jonathan Strahan (ed.), Eclipse Four

154  Jack London, The Iron Heel

155  Eric Basso, The Beak Doctor

156  Eric Basso, Bartholomew Fair

157  Eric Basso, The Catwalk Watch

158  Eric Basso, Earthworks

159  Eric Basso, The Sabattier Effect

160  Eric Basso, Decompositions

161  Eric Basso, Revagations

162  Eric Basso, The Golem Triptych

163  Gérard de Nerval, Sylvie (French)

164  Gérard de Nerval, Sylvie (English)

165  Paul Verlaine, Poems of Paul Verlaine

166  Roger Manley, Weird Tennessee

167  Eric Basso, Accidental Monsters

168  Eric Basso, The Smoking Mirror

169  Eric Basso, Catafalques

170  Eric Basso, Ghost Light

171  Jeff VanderMeer, Monstrous Creatures

172  Charles G. Finney, The Unholy City

173  Stéphane Mallarme, Pages (French)

174  Ferenc Karinthy, Metropole (re-read)

175  Raymond Queneau, Saint Glinglin

176  José Maria Eça de Queirós, O Mandarim (Portuguese)

177  Katherine Vaz, Saudade

178  Cormac McCarthy, Child of God

179  Cormac McCarthy, Outer Dark

180  William Faulkner, Novels 1942-1954 (Library of America omnibus edition)

181  China Miéville, Embassytown

182  Jeff VanderMeer, The Three Quests of the Wizard Sarnod

183  Jack Finney, The Body Snatchers

184  Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon (re-read)

185  Jeff VanderMeer and S.J. Chambers, The Steampunk Bible

186  John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar

187 Brian Aldiss, Non-Stop

188  Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

189  Theodore Sturgeon, More Than Human

190  Frank Turner Hollon, The God File

191  Cormac McCarthy, Sunset Limited

192  Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed (re-read)

193  Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination


In addition, I have read 13 books in June so far, so I'm well on my way to my goal of reading at least 400 books this year.  Any of these books listed you consider a favorite or want to know more about?

Currently Reading

Although I'll list my April reads later this week (likely the weekend), I thought I'd provide readers a glimpse at what I'm alternating between at this moment:

Cormac McCarthy, Outer Dark (e-book)

José Maria Eça de Queirós, A Cidade e as Serras (e-book; Portuguese)

Félix Palma, El mapa del tiempo (Spanish)

William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying 

John Sayles, A Moment in the Sun

Adam Levin, The Instructions

Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel (re-read)


And sometime later this week, I'll get around to reading China Miéville's Embassytown.  I've already read 26 books so far this month (but only two in the past week), so I should finish most, if not all, of the ones mentioned above.  Any of these books you've read before or are considering reading?

February-March 2011 Reads

I've fallen behind in listing my monthly reads and now at just past the halfway mark for April, I'm only now posting my February and March 2011 reads.  You might find these to be an eclectic list, but perhaps not, considering who is the primary blogger here.  Since I have 61 books to list, I'll dispense with even the cursory comments that I usually do, but feel free to ask about specific titles in the comments below.  Time permitting, I'll answer any inquiries there with my takes on those books mentioned.

February

41  William Butler Yeats, The Poems of William Butler Yeats

42  John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

43  Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

44  Aesop, Aesop's Fables

45  Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

46  Hans Christian Andersen, Fairy Tales

47  Michel de Montaigne, Essays

48  Franz Kafka, Der Prozeß

49  Franz Kafka, The Trial

50  William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

51  Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

52  Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

53  St. Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine

54  Paul Kearney, Corvus

55  François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

56  Karen Russell, Swamplandia!

57  Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

58  Octave Mirbeau, Torture Garden

59  Stendhal, The Red and the Black

60  Col Buchanan, Farlander

61  Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

62  Emile Zola, Nana

63  Justin Halpern, Shit My Dad Says

64  Aristophanes, The Birds & The Frogs

65  Blaise Pascal, Pensées

66  William Shakespeare, Poems

67  Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

68  Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs

69  D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love

70  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Les Confessions 1

71  Rubén Darío, El modernismo y otros ensayos

72  Bret Harte, California Stories

73  Jack London, The Sea-Wolf

74  Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

75  Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson

76  T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems 1909-1962

77  Oscar Wilde, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime

78  Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold

79  Brian Stableford, The Dedalus Book of Decadence:  Moral Ruins

80  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part One

81  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust/Urfaust

82  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part Two


March

83  Omar Khayyam, The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam

84  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Les Confessions, Livres VII à XII

85  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

86  Honoré de Balzac, Le pére Goriot

87  Honoré de Balzac, Pére Goriot

88  Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes

89  Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife

90  Fyodor Doestoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

91  Aristotle, Politics & Poetics

92  Zoran Živković, Pisac

93  Steven Erikson, The Crippled God

94  Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Dreams in a Time of War

95  Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

96  Roberto Bolaño, 2666

97  James Joyce, Ulysses

98  John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids

99  Jack Vance, Emphyrio

100  Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper, Herland, and Other Stories

101  Samuel Delany, Nova


So far in April, I've read another 19 titles, with perhaps 1-2 more to be complete by Sunday morning.  Interesting to see a dip in March compared to previous months; it's one of my worst reading months in three years.  However, I'm not dismayed by that, since there were some new activities that began around the same time and my mind has not been as much on reading compared to previous springs, where I sometimes would read 50-60 books in a month, many of those outdoors.  Then there's the nature of some of those works as well, with some being quite weighty works, more so on the mind than on the hands.

I see due to deciding to re-read classics that I first encountered from 16-23 that there have been very few female authors read.  Hopefully, this will change in the coming months, although I don't expect there'll be more than 25% female authors in my final 2011 reading list.  That may seem poor, but if I read 100 female authors this year, I suspect the raw number will more than offset a skewed pattern.  All I know is that I'm continuing to wake to sleep as I go.  I'll leave it up to you to figure out that reference.

Things I have not yet read which I aim to finish in 2011

I'm thirty-six, going on thirty-seven.  My youth is now fading; I want to finish certain things lest I die prematurely.  This is not a "bucket list", however; I fully expect to add to this as I continue to mature and discover new literary troves in a variety of languages.  But here below are some prominent works that I have not ever completed:

1.  The King James version of the Bible - I have read most of Bible, in Catholic and Protestant editions, in various languages, over the years.  Yet I have never sat down and read from cover to cover the 17th century English translation which has had such an important influence on literature as well as on religious thought.  Only have about 1600 more pages to go; at this current rate, maybe in a few months I will have finished it all.

2.  All of Shakespeare's plays - I have read the majority of his tragedies and a few of his comedies and histories.  Yet I have not read them all.  I am going to rectify that this spring. 

3.  Les Miserables in French.  I think my French, although still shaky, might be enough (although with a parallel reading of a translation) for me to attempt it this year.  Sometime in the next few months.

4.  Read all of Vladimir Nabokov's works, in English or in translation.  I've read most of his major works, but there's still more to be read.  Later this year.

5.  Finish reading all of Mark Twain's works.  Was going to do that this month, but I got sidetracked, so I'll just spread it out over the year and get as many of them read as possible.

6.  Read more, if not all, of Kafka's works, in either German or English translation.  I did find a used set of his works in German recently and I want to refresh my abilities in that language back to the intermediate-level I had 15 years ago.

7.  Read Goethe's Faust in both German and English.  I've read both parts in English before, but I want to read the German in a parallel-text type situation.  Should finish this in the next 1-2 weeks.

8.  Read all of William Faulkner's works.  I have several of his novels, but I want to do a systematic reading at some point.  Maybe this summer; Faulkner, for some reason, I associate with the summertime.

9.  Read all the published parts of Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality.  I've read Parts I and II, but not all of III.  Sometime before autumn.

10.  Read more Decadent writers, in English and in translation.  I've been haphazard in my reading, but I'll try to organize things a bit more.  Probably attempt this by the autumn, a season which I associate with Decadence. 

11.  Read more, if not all, of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series books I have bought.  I own nearly 1/2 of those now, but I still need to get around to purchasing the rest.  Only read about 1/3 of them to date.  This might be an occasional project throughout the year.


Any particular long-postponed reading goals you wish to share, in hopes of inspiring myself or others to attempt it with you?

January 2011 Reads

After a slow start due to illness, I managed to read 40 books in January.  Several of these were re-reads of books I had read in my late teens or early twenties (in new editions, most of them leatherbound).  Made some progress on my 5x3 language/genre reading challenge; just need to write reviews for several of them in the coming weeks.

1.  Bradford Morrow, The Diviner's Tale (might review this in a week or two, time permitting)

2.  Giorgio Agamben, The Sacrament of Language:  The Archaeology of the Oath (already reviewed)

3.  J.M. McDermott, Never Knew Another (in case I run out of time for reviewing it, I will note that fans of his debut novel will enjoy this and those who were daunted by Last Dragon might find this fantasy trilogy opener more to their tastes)

4.  O.M. Gurney, The Hittites (the weakest of the four Ancient Empires set from The Folio Society)

5.  Harold Bloom, Flight to Lucifer (this is a novel that's going to require a re-read before I'd feel comfortable writing on it at length.  I did like the mixture of gnostic thought into a fictional cosmology.  How well the characters and plot integrate and interact with this is what's holding me up here)

6.  Alan Gardiner, The Egyptians (my second-favorite out of The Folio Society set)

7.  Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (simply brilliant; maybe more later)

8.  J.M. Cook, The Persians (third-favorite from The Folio Society set)

9.  John Keats, The Poems of John Keats (already reviewed)

10.  Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (understanding greatly improved compared to reading it at 17.  Loved it this time through)

11.  Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford, The Inheritors (odd proto-SF novel that these two famous authors co-wrote.  Mostly enjoyed it, though.  Read this for free via Kindle for Mac)

12.  Rubén Darío, Azul.../Cantos de vida y esperanza (Spanish; already reviewed)

13.  Robert Browning, The Poems of Robert Browning (latter ones were good, but preferred Keats)

14.  Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (the writing is great, characterization is well-done, and if I don't ever write a formal review of it, I'll just settle for noting here that I appreciated this a lot more than I did at 22-23)

15.  Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons (will review in the next 10-14 days)

16.  C.F. Ramuz, Jean-Luc persécuté (French; prose excellent, story not as interesting to me)

17.  Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Grimm's Fairy Tales (review in the next few days)

18.  Plato, The Republic (thought-provoking; might take this and a few other philosophical works read and write a reflective essay later this month)

19.  Irene Hunt, Across Five Aprils (used in my class, this Civil War YA historical novel was excellent)

20.  Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary (French; already reviewed)

21.  Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary (Easton Press English translation; inferior by far to the French original)

22.  H.W.F. Saggs, The Babylonians (by far the best of The Folio Society set; serves as a capstone of sorts for the series)

23.  Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (review later today)

24.  Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (improved quite a bit from when I had to read it at 17.  Maturity does wonders for perception, I suppose)

25.  César Aira, Los fantasmas (Spanish; loved this short novel even more on a re-read)

26.  Samuel Beckett, En attendant Godot (French; more to say in the next week or so)

27.  Calderón de la Barca, La vida es sueño (Spanish; review in near future)

28.  Italo Calvino, Il Barone Rampante (Italian; review later this week)

29.  Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees (see above)

30.  Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron (more in the near future)

31.  Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (review later this week)

32.  Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (review later this week)

33.  Graham Harman, Towards Speculative Realism (interesting set of essays; might say more later)

34.  Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (already reviewed)

35.  John Stuart Mill, Political Writings (might touch upon this whenever I get around to writing that reflective essay I mentioned above)

36.  Miguel Cervantes, Don Quijote (Spanish; review in near future)

37.  Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote (translation was decent, with helpful notes)

38.  Howard Fast, April Morning (YA historical novel set in 1775 Massachusetts; used in class; decent to good at best)

39.  Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (awesome poetry)

40.  Gerry Alanguilan, Elmer (already reviewed)


So far in February, I have read a further 10 books, completing the 50 Book Challenge portion in 36 days.  More on those in a month or so.

Which ones of these have you read and/or want to know more about?

What I am reading now

Have fun guessing/looking these up:

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Usna's children died.

We and the labouring world are passing by:
Amid men's souls, that waver and give place
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
Lives on this lonely face.

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green.  The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool.  On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees - willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter's flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool.  On the sandy bank under the trees the leaves lie deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering if he runs among them.  Rabbits come out of the brush to sit on the sand in the evening, and the damp flats are covered with the night tracks of 'coons, and with the spread pads of dogs from the ranches, and with the split-wedge tracks of deer that come to drink in the dark.

There is no man who has less business talking about memory.  For I recognize almost no trace of it in me, and I do not think there is another one in the world so monstrously deficient.  All my other faculties are low and common; but in this one I think I am singular and very rare, and thereby worthy of gaining a name and reputation.

Besides the natural inconvenience that I suffer by this - for certainly, in view of its necessity, Plato is right to call memory a great and powerful goddess - if in my part of the country they want to say that a man has no sense, they say he has no memory.  And when I complain of the defectiveness of mine, they argue with me and do not believe me, as if I were accusing myself of witlessness.  They see no distinction between memory and understanding.  This makes me look a lot worse than I am.

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people.

A quiet, good, sensible County Mouse once entertained an old playmate of his who had recently gone to the city to live.

Though his home was very modest and his life very ordinary, the Country Mouse had saved up in advance so that his dinner for his City Mouse friend would be a good one.  He had put away some very nice peas and bacon, a fine dish of oatmeal, a bit of cheese, and for dessert a tasty morsel of ripe apple.  When he and his friend sat down to nibble dinner, the Country Mouse  didn't eat any of this fine fare himself, but politely chewed away at an old wheat straw, so that the City friend would be sure to have enough.

Hope the pieces you did recognize (and those you didn't know or perhaps looked up to make sure) will encourage you to read or re-read the stories and poems from which these excerpts were taken.