Top 10 Books First Read During 2013

[Dead & Messed Up]

01. The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
02.
03.
04.
05.
06.
07.
08.
09.
10.

Terrific start to the new year.

[Grouchy]

I'm just gonna use this thread to list everything I'm reading.

1. A Scanner Darkly (Philip K. Dick)

[D_Davis]

01. The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)


Man - it's all gonna be downhill from there.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Man - it's all gonna be downhill from there.

I'm excited to see if something can beat it. The gauntlet has been thrown down.

[D_Davis]

I'm excited to see if something can beat it. The gauntlet has been thrown down.

Have you read any of Bester's short stories?

[Dead & Messed Up]

Have you read any of Bester's short stories?

Not yet, no.

[D_Davis]

If you get a chance this year, check out Virtual Unrealities.

Just make sure you stay far, far away from his post-The Stars novels.

[TGM]

1. Daughter of Smoke & Bone - Laini Taylor

Now reading Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

[Dead & Messed Up]

01. The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
02. The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)
03.
04.
05.
06.
07.
08.
09.
10.

[TGM]

1. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
2. Daughter of Smoke & Bone - Laini Taylor

Now reading: Days of Blood & Starlight - Laini Taylor

[ContinentalOp]

1. Devil Red by Joe R. Lansdale- 8

[Hugh_Grant]

1. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
2. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea - Barbara Demick
3. Two Solitudes -Hugh MacLennan

[elixir]

1. Raise the Roof Beam High Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, J.D. Salinger
2. Dubliners, James Joyce
3. Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace
4. Summer Blonde, Adrian Tomine
5. The Beautiful and Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
7. Skippy Dies, Paul Murray
8. The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
9. Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami
10. The Age of Wire and String, Ben Marcus

[Dead & Messed Up]

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)

[ledfloyd]

1. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
2. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
3. The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

[Benny Profane]

1. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Favorite essay?

[ledfloyd]

Favorite essay?
It's so difficult to choose. "E Unibus Pluram" is engaging and insightful; it also makes me wonder what DFW thought of TV post-Sopranos. "David Lynch Keeps His Head" is a brilliant profile of one of my favorite artists by one of my favorite artists. And "Getting Away from Pretty Much Already Being Away from It All" and "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" are both uproariously funny and slightly despairing in that typically Wallacian way. I had read the first two before in their edited forms, but finally going through this was exhilirating and just as revelatory as when I first read Consider the Lobster. His non-fiction just embodies everything I aspire to and am incapable of attaining as a writer.

[Benny Profane]

It's so difficult to choose. "E Unibus Pluram" is engaging and insightful; it also makes me wonder what DFW thought of reality TV.

This is what I was thinking.

Anyway, I thought they were all amazing except for the first one.

[megladon8]

I want to read a few more books by Thomas Pynchon this year.

I still feel eternally indebted to Benny for piquing my interest and getting me to read "The Crying of Lot 49" (which I read cover to cover three times in a row). One of the best reading experiences of my life.

I have "V" and "Vineland" on my shelf.

[Benny Profane]

I want to read a few more books by Thomas Pynchon this year.

I still feel eternally indebted to Benny for piquing my interest and getting me to read "The Crying of Lot 49" (which I read cover to cover three times in a row). One of the best reading experiences of my life.

I have "V" and "Vineland" on my shelf.

V is not as accessible but it is a lot more epic and ambitious. I'd go with that one but be prepared.

[ledfloyd]

This is what I was thinking.

Anyway, I thought they were all amazing except for the first one.
Yeah, it does seem a little directionless, it initially seems to be about his affinity for math, but it never really circles back to examine that to any notable degree. The one on poststructuralism et al. didn't do a whole lot for me either.

Have you read Both Flesh and Not? I will inevitably get to it, but it worries me that the vast majority of the essays are ones he ostensibily considered for his other two collections and decided not to publish.

[Milky Joe]

His uncollected stuff is definitely worth reading. If you haven't read his essay on Roger Federer, you should absolutely get the book just for that. One of the most beautiful pieces of sports writing ever published. The essay on David Markson's novel Wittgenstein's Mistress is stunningly brilliant also, if a bit dense.

The book I want most is a collection of his letters, which I think is coming this year. Can't wait for that.

[TGM]

1. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
2. Days of Blood & Starlight - Laini Taylor
3. Daughter of Smoke & Bone - Laini Taylor

Now reading: American Gods - Neil Gaiman

[Benny Profane]

1. Battle Cry of Freedom - James M. McPherson

[dreamdead]

1. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
2. Albert Camus's The Plague
3. Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye

[kuehnepips]

I want to read a few more books by Thomas Pynchon this year.




I think you would like Against the Day.

[megladon8]

I think you would like Against the Day.

Cool, thanks for the recommendation! Any particular reason why this one in particular?

[dreamdead]

1. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
2. Albert Camus's The Plague
3. Willa Cather's O Pioneers!
4. Don Lee's Country of Origin
5. Kevin Powers's The Yellow Birds
6. Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer
7. Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye

[kopello]

1. Lonesome Dove (McMurtry)
2. The Invention of Morel (Casares)
3. Butcher's Crossing (Williams)

[Dead & Messed Up]

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)

[megladon8]

1.) The Crimson Petal and the White (Michel Faber, 2002)
2.) A Whale for the Killing (Farley Mowat, 1972)
...
...
...

[Melville]

Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth and Coleridge, 1798) - 7
Ice (Anna Kavan, 1967) - 7
The Third Policeman (Flann O'Brien, written 1940/published 1967) - 7

[megladon8]

1.) The Divinity Student (Michael Cisco, 1999)
2.) The Crimson Petal and the White (Michel Faber, 2002)
3.) A Whale for the Killing (Farley Mowat, 1972)
...
...
...

[Lucky]

1. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
2. Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)
3. The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
4. On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
5. The Reason I Jump (Naoki Higoshida)
6. Sweet Tooth (Ian McEwan)
7. The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman)
8. The Crying of Lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon)
9. Angels (Denis Johnson)
10. Magic for Beginners (Kelly Link)

[ThePlashyBubbler]

1. Wittgenstein's Mistress (David Markson)
2. The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake (Breece D'J Pancake)
3. A Naked Singularity (Sergio De La Pava)
4. Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson)
5. Stoner (John Williams)
6. The Age of Wire and String (Ben Marcus)

[megladon8]

1.) Way Station (Clifford D. Simak, 1963)
2.) The Divinity Student (Michael Cisco, 1999)
3.) Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
4.) The Crimson Petal and the White (Michel Faber, 2002)
5.) Come Closer (Sara Gran, 2003)
6.) The Hoard (Alan Ryker, 2012)
7.) Penpal (Dathan Auerbach, 2012)
8.) A Whale for the Killing (Farley Mowat, 1972)
9.) The Cannibal Within (Mark Mirabello, 2005)
...

[ContinentalOp]

1. L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy- 8.5
2. Devil Red by Joe R. Lansdale- 8
3. Cell by Stephen King- 7

[dreamdead]

1. Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
2. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
3. Albert Camus's The Plague
4. Willa Cather's O Pioneers!
5. Don Lee's Country of Origin
6. Kevin Powers's The Yellow Birds
7. Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer
8. Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse
9. Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye

[Dead & Messed Up]

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
The End of Faith (Sam Harris, 2004)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)

[Benny Profane]

1. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
2. Battle Cry of Freedom - James M. McPherson

[ThePlashyBubbler]

1. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
2. Battle Cry of Freedom - James M. McPherson

Best book ever or what?

[elixir]

1. Raise the Roof Beam High Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, J.D. Salinger
2. Dubliners, James Joyce
3. Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace
4. Summer Blonde, Adrian Tomine
5. The Beautiful and Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
7. Skippy Dies, Paul Murray
8. The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
9. Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami
10. The Age of Wire and String, Ben Marcus
now at ten

[dreamdead]

1. Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
2. Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
3. Albert Camus's The Plague
4. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
5. Willa Cather's O Pioneers!
6. Don Lee's Country of Origin
7. Kevin Powers's The Yellow Birds
8. Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer
9. Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse
10. Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye

11. Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood
12. Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom
13. Stephen King's The Long Walk
14. Nicole Krauss's Great House

[Melville]

Philosophy of Existence (Karl Jaspers, 1938) - 8
Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth and Coleridge, 1798) - 7.5
The Courage to Be (Paul Tillich, 1952) - 7
Ice (Anna Kavan, 1967) - 7
The Third Policeman (Flann O'Brien, written 1940/published 1967) - 7
All-Star Superman (Morrison and Quitely, 2009) [graphic novel] - 6.5
Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger, 1961) - 5

[baby doll]

Novels:
Notes From Underground (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1864)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1890/91)
Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925)
Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared) (Franz Kafka, 1927)
Despair (Vladimir Nabokov, 1934)
The White Castle (Orhan Pamuk, 1985)
Beloved (Toni Morrison, 1987)
In America (Susan Sontag, 2000)
The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen, 2001)
Short story collections:
Twice Told Tales (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1837/42)
Selected Short Stories [Popular Penquin Classics] (Guy de Maupassant, 1880-90)
For Esmé—With Love and Squalor (J.D. Salinger, 1953)

[megladon8]

1.) Way Station (Clifford D. Simak, 1963)
2.) The Divinity Student (Michael Cisco, 1999)
3.) House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000)
4.) Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
5.) The Crimson Petal and the White (Michel Faber, 2002)
6.) My Work is Not Yet Done (Thomas Ligotti, 2002)
7.) Come Closer (Sara Gran, 2003)
8.) The Hoard (Alan Ryker, 2012)
9.) Penpal (Dathan Auerbach, 2012)
10.) Mama Fish (Rio Youers, 2009)
...

11.) A Whale for the Killing (Farley Mowat, 1972)
12.)The Cannibal Within (Mark Mirabello, 2005)

[ContinentalOp]

1. L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy- 8.5
2. Devil Red by Joe R. Lansdale- 8
3. The Mourner by Richard Stark- 8
4. Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R. Lansdale- 7
5. Cell by Stephen King- 7

[Winston*]

Fiction


The Power and the Glory (Greene)
My Work Is Not Yet Done (Ligotti)
Slapstick (Vonnegut)
A Red Death (Mosley)
A Year in the Linear City (Di Filippo)

Non-Fiction

Bad Blood: A Memoir(Sage)
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood (Harris)
Fast Food Nation (Schlosser)
Contested Will (Who Wrote Shakespeare)
Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers (Roach)

Been pretty slack on the reading front so far this year.

[Dead & Messed Up]

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
The End of Faith (Sam Harris, 2004)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)

[dreamdead]

1. Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
2. Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
3. Albert Camus's The Plague
4. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
5. Willa Cather's O Pioneers!
6. Don Lee's Country of Origin
7. Kevin Powers's The Yellow Birds
8. Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer
9. Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse
10. Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye

11. Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood
12. Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom
13. Stephen King's The Long Walk
14. Ian McEwan's Amsterdam
15. Nicole Krauss's Great House

[baby doll]

Notes From Underground (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1864)
Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925)
Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared) (Franz Kafka, 1927)
Laughter in the Dark (Vladimir Nabokov, 1932)
Despair (Vladimir Nabokov, 1934)
The Last Tycoon (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1941)
The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger, 1951)
Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe, 1958)
The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen, 2001)Updated for the end of May-beginning of June. Total number of books read: ten.

[ContinentalOp]

1. L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy- 8.5
2. Devil Red by Joe R. Lansdale- 8
3. The Mourner by Richard Stark- 8
4. Dead Aim by Joe R. Lansdale- 7.5
5. Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R. Lansdale- 7
6. The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman- 7
7. Cell by Stephen King- 7
8. The Time Machine Did It by John Swartzwelder- 6

[Melville]

Selected poems and letters (Keats, 1816-1820) - 8
Philosophy of Existence (Karl Jaspers, 1938) - 8
Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth and Coleridge, 1798) - 7.5
The Courage to Be (Paul Tillich, 1952) - 7
Pensees (Blaise Pascal, 1669) - 7
Ice (Anna Kavan, 1967) - 7
The Third Policeman (Flann O'Brien, written 1940/published 1967) - 7
All-Star Superman (Morrison and Quitely, 2009) [graphic novel] - 6.5
Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger, 1961) - 5


I've been starting a lot of books and finishing few. Pensees was interesting. I'd previously read a short selection from it that describes Pascal's wager, but I didn't know that much of the book is made up of Pascal's extreme pessimism and loathing. That bleak context aside, or perhaps because of it, Pascal's wager struck me as very compelling this time through. Of course he wants the wager to apply only to Christianity, but it really applies to belief in any kind of infinite transcendence of our known, finite existence. If you're gambling with your existence, and you have nothing to lose except a meagre claim to following the dictates of "reason" (a vague term I see obnoxiously claimed by proponents of so-called new atheism), then betting on transcendence is a good bet to make.

[megladon8]

1.) Way Station (Clifford D. Simak, 1963)
2.) The Divinity Student (Michael Cisco, 1999)
3.) House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000)
4.) Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
5.) The Crimson Petal and the White (Michel Faber, 2002)
6.) My Work is Not Yet Done (Thomas Ligotti, 2002)
7.) The Light is the Darkness (Laird Barron, 2011)
8.) Come Closer (Sara Gran, 2003)
9.) The Hoard (Alan Ryker, 2012)
10.) Penpal (Dathan Auerbach, 2012)
...

11.) Mama Fish (Rio Youers, 2009)
12.) A Whale for the Killing (Farley Mowat, 1972)
13.)The Cannibal Within (Mark Mirabello, 2005)

[dreamdead]

1. Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
2. Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
3. Albert Camus's The Plague
4. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
5. Willa Cather's O Pioneers!
6. Don Lee's Country of Origin
7. Kevin Powers's The Yellow Birds
8. Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer
9. Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse
10. Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye

11. Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood
12. Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom
13. Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects
14. Stephen King's The Long Walk
15. Ian McEwan's Amsterdam
16. Joe Hill's Nos4a2
17. Nicole Krauss's Great House

[Duncan]

I've been starting a lot of books and finishing few.

Tell me about it. I think I've finished 1 of the last 5 books I've started. Haven't been liking anything. Reading How Should a Person Be? right now and finding it pretty insufferable.

[EyesWideOpen]

Read my first three books of the year all on my trip. All were quite good.

1. Eleanor and Park (Rainbow Rowell)
2. A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
3. The Awakening (Kate Chopin)

[Mara]

1. Eleanor and Park (Rainbow Rowell)


YAY! I thought this was great.

[EyesWideOpen]

YAY! I thought this was great.

I flew through it. Rowell has a great handle on the two teenage characters and the ending was ....

I'd post more but can't use spoilers on my phone.

[EyesWideOpen]

1. Eleanor and Park (Rainbow Rowell)
2. Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)
3. A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
4. The Awakening (Kate Chopin)
5. Charlotte Street (Danny Wallace)


Another book down! These have been so good I've promised myself to read more even when I'm done with my trip.

[Benny Profane]

1. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
2. Battle Cry of Freedom - James M. McPherson
3. Don Quixote - Miguel Cervantes

[EyesWideOpen]

1. Eleanor and Park (Rainbow Rowell)
2. Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)
3. A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
4. The Awakening (Kate Chopin)
5. Charlotte Street (Danny Wallace)
6. Heart-Shaped Box (Joe Hill)

[megladon8]

1.) Way Station (Clifford D. Simak, 1963)
2.) It (Stephen King, 1985)
3.) The Divinity Student (Michael Cisco, 1999)
4.) House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000)
5.) The Crimson Petal and the White (Michel Faber, 2002)
6.) My Work is Not Yet Done (Thomas Ligotti, 2002)
7.) The Light is the Darkness (Laird Barron, 2011)
8.) All You Need is KILL (2004, Hiroshi Sakurazaka)
9.) The Pilo Family Circus (Will Elliott, 2006)
10.) Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
...

11.) Penpal (Dathan Auerbach, 2012)
12.) Mandibles (Jeff Strand, 2003)
13.) Come Closer (Sara Gran, 2003)
14.) The Hoard (Alan Ryker, 2012)
15.) Mama Fish (Rio Youers, 2009)
16.) A Whale for the Killing (Farley Mowat, 1972)
17.)The Cannibal Within (Mark Mirabello, 2005)

[EyesWideOpen]

1. Eleanor and Park (Rainbow Rowell)
2. Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)
3. A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
4. The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman)
5. The Awakening (Kate Chopin)
6. Charlotte Street (Danny Wallace)
7. Heart-Shaped Box (Joe Hill)

[baby doll]

Notes From Underground (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1864)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1890-91)
Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925)
Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared) (Franz Kafka, 1927)
The Luzhin Defense (Vladimir Nabokov, 1930)
Laughter in the Dark (Vladimir Nabokov, 1932)
Despair (Vladimir Nabokov, 1934)
Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe, 1958)
The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen, 2001)Updated for the end of June-beginning of July. Total number of books read: Thirteen.

[Melville]

Essays in Pragmatism (William James, 1880-1907) - 8.5
Selected poems and letters (Keats, 1816-1820) - 8
Philosophy of Existence (Karl Jaspers, 1938) - 8
Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth and Coleridge, 1798) - 7.5
The Courage to Be (Paul Tillich, 1952) - 7
Pensees (Blaise Pascal, 1669) - 7
Ice (Anna Kavan, 1967) - 7
The Third Policeman (Flann O'Brien, written 1940/published 1967) - 7
All-Star Superman (Morrison and Quitely, 2009) [graphic novel] - 6.5
Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger, 1961) - 5
Rabbit, Run (John Updike, 1960) - 4.5

[baby doll]

Rabbit, Run (John Updike, 1960) - 4.5
I started reading this just before Dorian Gray and gave up after like fifty pages. I mean, Jesus Christ, do we really need all that description of the guy walking down the street and driving his car?

[Melville]

I started reading this just before Dorian Gray and gave up after like fifty pages. I mean, Jesus Christ, do we really need all that description of the guy walking down the street and driving his car?
I didn't mind the large quantity of descriptions, since Updike at least has a flair for them. He makes things stand out in distinctive ways. (Maybe not so distinctive nowadays. His style has seemed to permeate contemporary literary fiction.) But the narrative was decreasingly interesting after its opening section. The more the book explored Rabbit, and his reasons for being an irresponsible, self-centred jackass, the less interesting he and his story became. And then the final section diverged from realism into an ill-fitting ridiculousness.

[EyesWideOpen]

1. Eleanor and Park (Rainbow Rowell)
2. Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)
3. A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
4. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Brian Selznick)
5. The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman)
6. The Awakening (Kate Chopin)
7. Charlotte Street (Danny Wallace)
8. Heart-Shaped Box (Joe Hill)

[Derek]

1. Being & Time (Heidegger)
2. Discipline & Punish (Foucoult)
3. Underworld (DeLillo)
4. The Big Money (Dos Passos)
5. Telegraph Avenue (Chabon)
6. 1919 (Dos Passos)
7. The Stars My Destination (Bester)
8. Crash (Ballard)
9. White Teeth (Smith)

[Dead & Messed Up]

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
Full Dark No Stars (Stephen King, 2010)
The End of Faith (Sam Harris, 2004)
Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
Do the Work (Steven Pressfield, 2011)

[megladon8]

1.) Way Station (Clifford D. Simak, 1963)
2.) It (Stephen King, 1985)
3.) The Divinity Student (Michael Cisco, 1999)
4.) House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000)
5.) The Walls of the Castle (Tom Piccirilli, 2012)
6.) The Crimson Petal and the White (Michel Faber, 2002)
7.) Kin (Kealan Patrick Burke, 2011)
8.) My Work is Not Yet Done (Thomas Ligotti, 2002)
9.) The Light is the Darkness (Laird Barron, 2011)
10.) Headstone City (Tom Piccirilli, 2006)

...

11.) All You Need is KILL (Hiroshi Sakurazaka, 2004)
12.) The Pilo Family Circus (Will Elliott, 2006)
13.) Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
14.) Penpal (Dathan Auerbach, 2012)
15.) Mandibles (Jeff Strand, 2003)
16.) Come Closer (Sara Gran, 2003)
17.) The Hoard (Alan Ryker, 2012)
18.) Mama Fish (Rio Youers, 2009)
19.) The Void (Brett J. Talley, 2012)
20.) A Whale for the Killing (Farley Mowat, 1972)
21.)The Cannibal Within (Mark Mirabello, 2005)

[Dead & Messed Up]

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
Full Dark No Stars (Stephen King, 2010)
The End of Faith (Sam Harris, 2004)
Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
Do the Work (Steven Pressfield, 2011)

[ContinentalOp]

1. L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy- 8.5
2. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris- 8.5
3. Flashfire by Richard Stark- 8
4. Devil Red by Joe R. Lansdale- 8
5. The Mourner by Richard Stark- 8
6. Every Shallow Cut by Tom Piccirilli- 7.5
7. Dead Aim by Joe R. Lansdale- 7.5
8. Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R. Lansdale- 7
9. The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman- 7
10. Cell by Stephen King- 7

11. The Time Machine Did It by John Swartzwelder- 6

[ThePlashyBubbler]

1. The Book of Disquiet (Fernando Pessoa)
2. Wittgenstein's Mistress (David Markson)
3. The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake (Breece D'J Pancake)
4. A Naked Singularity (Sergio De La Pava)
5. The Street of Crocodiles (Bruno Schulz)
6. Bartleby & Co. (Enrique Vila-Matas)
7. Stories in the Worst Way (Gary Lutz)
8. Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear (Javier Marias)
9. Omensetter's Luck (William H. Gass)
10. A Balcony In the Forest (Julien Gracq)

11. Mulligan Stew (Gilbert Sorrentino)
12. Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol)
13. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (George Saunders)
14. Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson)
15. Jesus' Son (Denis Johnson)
16. Stoner (John Williams)
17. The Way Through Doors (Jesse Ball)
18. Woodcutters (Thomas Bernhard)
19. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Robin Sloan)
20. The Age of Wire and String (Ben Marcus)
21. A Visit From the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)

[Dead & Messed Up]

Books

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
Full Dark No Stars (Stephen King, 2010)
The End of Faith (Sam Harris, 2004)
Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
Do the Work (Steven Pressfield, 2011)
Comics

All Star Superman (Morrison & Quitely, 2008)
Batman: Haunted Knight (Loeb & Sale, 1996)

[Melville]

Essays in Pragmatism (William James, 1880-1907) - 8.5
Schizo #4 (Ivan Brunetti, 2006) [comic] - 8.5
Selected poems and letters (Keats, 1816-1820) - 8
Philosophy of Existence (Karl Jaspers, 1938) - 8
Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth and Coleridge, 1798) - 7.5
The Courage to Be (Paul Tillich, 1952) - 7
Pensees (Blaise Pascal, 1669) - 7
Ice (Anna Kavan, 1967) - 7
The Third Policeman (Flann O'Brien, written 1940/published 1967) - 7
All-Star Superman (Morrison and Quitely, 2009) [comic] - 6.5
Teatro Grottesco (Thomas Ligotti, 2007) - 5.5
Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger, 1961) - 5
Rabbit, Run (John Updike, 1960) - 4.5
At the Mountains of Madness (HP Lovecraft, 1936) - 4
Dream Story (Arthur Schnitzler, 1926) - 3.5

[Mysterious Dude]

1. The Master and Margarita (1967, Bulgakov)
2. The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962, Fuentes)
3. Camel Xiangzi (1937, Lao She)
4. The Blind Owl (1937, Hedayat)
5. Pather Panchali (1929, Bandopadhyay)
6. The Tunnel (1948, Sábato)
7. The Color Purple (1982, Walker)
8. The Man Who Was Thursday (1908, Chesterton)
9. Ham on Rye (1982, Bukowski)
10. Candide (1759, Voltaire)
11. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886, Stevenson)
12. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890, Wilde)
13. Untouchable (1935, Anand)
14. More Than Human (1953, Sturgeon)
15. Fathers and Sons (1862, Turgenev)
16. The Feast of the Goat (2000, Vargas Llosa)
17. Gargoyles (1967, Bernhard)
18. The Call of the Wild (1903, London)
19. Animal Farm (1945, Orwell)
20. The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's (1881, Reed)
21. Plantation Boy (1932, José Lins do Rego)
22. Alice in Wonderland (1865, Carroll)
23. Nightwood (1936, Barnes)
24. Return of the Spirit (1933, Tawfiq Al-Hakim)
25. Mrs. Dalloway (1925, Woolf)

This year, I decided to read some classic books that are so short, there's no excuse not to read them (Alice in Wonderland, The Call of the Wild and Animal Farm). None of them will become favorites of mine, but at least I'm more well-read. I only read 19 books in 2012.

[dreamdead]

1. Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
2. Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
3. Albert Camus’s The Plague
4. Don DeLillo’s Libra
5. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
6. Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!
7. Don Lee’s Country of Origin
8. Paul Harding’s Tinkers
9. Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood
10. Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men
11. Kevin Powers’s The Yellow Birds
12. Sherman Alexie’s Indian Killer
13. Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
14. Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat
15. Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
16. Chang-rae Lee’s A Gesture Life
17. Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse
18. Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye
19. Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood
20. Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom
21. Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects
22. Stephen King’s The Long Walk
23. Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam
24. Joe Hill’s Nos4a2
25. Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means
26. Nicole Krauss’s Great House


Nonfiction:
1. Wendy Moore’s How to Create the Perfect Wife: Britain’s Most Ineligible Bachelor and His Enlightened Quest to Train the Ideal Mate
2. Joshua Zeitz’s Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity and the Women Who Made America Modern

[Benny Profane]

1. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
2. Battle Cry of Freedom - James M. McPherson
3. Don Quixote - Miguel Cervantes
4. The Stand - Stephen King


The Count of Monte Cristo is phenomenal so far. Can't put down. Only 960 pages to go.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Did you dislike The Stand, or just love everything above it? I've been tempted to pick it up.

[D_Davis]

If you like King at all, I would definitely recommend The Stand. Not sure if my opinion (on this matter) is valued at all (since I'm butting in), but it's a fantastic novel. I'll probably do another re-read this year along with my Dark Tower re-read. Next to Lonesome Dove, The Stand is the novel I like most because of its characters - I loved my time spent with all the people in the novel. It's not up to the same level as Lonesome Dove, but it's close.

[Kurosawa Fan]

If you like King at all, I would definitely recommend The Stand. Not sure if my opinion is valued at all, but it's a fantastic novel. I'll probably do another re-read this year along with my Dark Tower re-read. Next to Lonesome Dove, The Stand is the novel I like most because of its characters - I loved my time spent with all the people in the novel. It's not up to the same level as Lonesome Dove, but it's close.

I certainly value your opinion--I've bought books based on your praise--but when it comes to King, I've been disappointed by many of his longer works, and don't want to invest the time into The Stand only to come away feeling like I did after It. Benny's taste aligns pretty well with my own, so I'm interested to hear his thoughts on it.

[D_Davis]

I certainly value your opinion--I've bought books based on your praise--.

Sorry - just meant on this particular topic, since I was butting in. :)

It's very different than It, and, at least for me, a much quicker read. I finished the unabridged version in 5 working days.

[D_Davis]

1. The Master and Margarita (1967, Bulgakov)


I'll definitely be reading this by year's end.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Books

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
Full Dark No Stars (Stephen King, 2010)
The End of Faith (Sam Harris, 2004)
Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
Do the Work (Steven Pressfield, 2011)
Comics

Superman: Birthright (Waid & Yu, 2004)
All Star Superman (Morrison & Quitely, 2008)
Batman: Haunted Knight (Loeb & Sale, 1996)

[Benny Profane]

Did you dislike The Stand, or just love everything above it? I've been tempted to pick it up.

I definitely liked it. It kind of pounds you over the head with its themes at times but its a very good story, expertly told. I actually liked it more in the beginning when the supernatural elements had yet to be introduced. I was interested in it more as a "how to regroup and rebuild society after a catastrophe" story than a "good vs. evil" showdown. Mother Abigail and Flagg did nothing for me as concepts or as characters.

[Raiders]

1. The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood, 2000)
2. Naked (David Sedaris, 1998)
3. Jimmy Corrigan (Chris Ware, 2000)
4. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (James Agee & Walker Evans, 1941)
5. Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry, 1985)
6. Blankets (Craig Thompson, 2003)
7. All That Is (James Salter, 2013)
8. The Edible Woman (Margaret Atwood, 1969)
9. Island (Aldous Huxley, 1962)

Like all of them to a degree, though the last three are great authors spinning their wheels, especially Huxley who flips his most famous work on its head and proceeds to preach at us his world affairs treatise for a few hundred pages. It's as occasionally mesmerizing and often as laborious as it sounds. It does have a certain fascination though, reading it 50 years later.

[Mara]

I really love The Blind Assassin. That may be due for a reread.

[D_Davis]

I'm not keeping lists of stuff anymore, but I'll be surprised if I read something better than Delany's Dhalgren this year.

[megladon8]

I will be constantly re-arranging this throughout the year...

1.) Way Station (Clifford D. Simak, 1963)
2.) It (Stephen King, 1985)
3.) The Divinity Student (Michael Cisco, 1999)
4.) House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000)
5.) The Walls of the Castle (Tom Piccirilli, 2012)
6.) The Crimson Petal and the White (Michel Faber, 2002)
7.) Kin (Kealan Patrick Burke, 2011)
8.) My Work is Not Yet Done (Thomas Ligotti, 2002)
9.) The Light is the Darkness (Laird Barron, 2011)
10.) Headstone City (Tom Piccirilli, 2006)

...

11.) Of Blood and Honey (Stina Leicht, 2011)
12.) All You Need is KILL (Hiroshi Sakurazaka, 2004)
13.) The Pilo Family Circus (Will Elliott, 2006)
14.) Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
15.) Penpal (Dathan Auerbach, 2012)
16.) Mandibles (Jeff Strand, 2003)
17.) Come Closer (Sara Gran, 2003)
18.) The Hoard (Alan Ryker, 2012)
19.) Mama Fish (Rio Youers, 2009)
20.) The Void (Brett J. Talley, 2012)
21.) A Whale for the Killing (Farley Mowat, 1972)
22.)The Cannibal Within (Mark Mirabello, 2005)

[Dead & Messed Up]

Books

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
Full Dark No Stars (Stephen King, 2010)
The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maugham, 1925)
The End of Faith (Sam Harris, 2004)
Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
Do the Work (Steven Pressfield, 2011)

Comics

Superman: Birthright (Waid & Yu, 2004)
All Star Superman (Morrison & Quitely, 2008)
Batman: Haunted Knight (Loeb & Sale, 1996)

[baby doll]

Notes From Underground (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1864)
Selected Short Stories [Penquin Popular Classics] (Guy de Maupassant, 1880-90)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1890-91)
Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925)
Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared) (Franz Kafka, 1927)
Laughter in the Dark (Vladimir Nabokov, 1932)
Despair (Vladimir Nabokov, 1934)
Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe, 1958)
The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen, 2001)Updated for the end of August-beginning of September. Total number of books read: Fourteen.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Books

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
Full Dark No Stars (Stephen King, 2010)
The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maugham, 1925)
How to Be Good (Nick Hornby, 2001)
The End of Faith (Sam Harris, 2004)
Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
Do the Work (Steven Pressfield, 2011)
Know Your Angels (John Ronner, 1993)

Comics

Superman: Birthright (Waid & Yu, 2004)
All Star Superman (Morrison & Quitely, 2008)
Batman: Haunted Knight (Loeb & Sale, 1996)
Superman For All Seasons (Loeb & Sale, 1998)

[Raiders]

Finally got to ten...

1. The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood, 2000)
2. Naked (David Sedaris, 1998)
3. Jimmy Corrigan (Chris Ware, 2000)
4. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (James Agee & Walker Evans, 1941)
5. Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry, 1985)
6. The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham, 1951)
7. Blankets (Craig Thompson, 2003)
8. All That Is (James Salter, 2013)
9. The Edible Woman (Margaret Atwood, 1969)
10. Island (Aldous Huxley, 1962)

[Dead & Messed Up]

Books

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
Full Dark No Stars (Stephen King, 2010)
The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maugham, 1925)
Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
The Body Snatchers (Jack Finney, 1955)
How to Be Good (Nick Hornby, 2001)
The End of Faith (Sam Harris, 2004) The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
Do the Work (Steven Pressfield, 2011)
Know Your Angels (John Ronner, 1993)

Comics

Superman: Birthright (Waid & Yu, 2004)
All Star Superman (Morrison & Quitely, 2008)
Batman: Haunted Knight (Loeb & Sale, 1996)
Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 1 (Lee & Ditko, 2003)
Superman For All Seasons (Loeb & Sale, 1998)
Hellboy: Darkness Calls (Mignola & Fegredo, 2007)

[dreamdead]

1. Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
2. Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
3. Albert Camus’s The Plague
4. Don DeLillo’s Libra
5. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
6. Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!
7. Don Lee’s Country of Origin
8. Paul Harding’s Tinkers
9. Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood
10. Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men
11. Kevin Powers’s The Yellow Birds
12. Sherman Alexie’s Indian Killer
13. Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
14. Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat
15. Helene Hanff’s 84 Charing Cross Road
16. Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
17. Chang-rae Lee’s A Gesture Life
18. Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse
19. Don Lee’s Yellow
20. Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye
21. Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood
22. Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom
23. Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects
24. Stephen King’s The Long Walk
25. Edith Wharton’s Summer
26. Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam
27. Joe Hill’s Nos4a2
28. Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means
29. Nicole Krauss’s Great House

Nonfiction:
1. Wendy Moore’s How to Create the Perfect Wife: Britain’s Most Ineligible Bachelor and His Enlightened Quest to Train the Ideal Mate
2. Amanda Ripley’s The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way
3. Joshua Zeitz’s Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity and the Women Who Made America Modern

[megladon8]

I will be constantly re-arranging this throughout the year...

1.) Way Station (Clifford D. Simak, 1963)
2.) It (Stephen King, 1985)
3.) The Divinity Student (Michael Cisco, 1999)
4.) House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000)
5.) The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival (John Vaillant, 2010)
6.) The Walls of the Castle (Tom Piccirilli, 2012)
7.) The Crimson Petal and the White (Michel Faber, 2002)
8.) Kin (Kealan Patrick Burke, 2011)
9.) My Work is Not Yet Done (Thomas Ligotti, 2002)
10.) Headstone City (Tom Piccirilli, 2006)

...

11.) The Light is the Darkness (Laird Barron, 2011)
12.) Of Blood and Honey (Stina Leicht, 2011)
13.) All You Need is KILL (Hiroshi Sakurazaka, 2004)
14.) The Pilo Family Circus (Will Elliott, 2006)
15.) Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
16.) Penpal (Dathan Auerbach, 2012)
17.) Mandibles (Jeff Strand, 2003)
18.) Come Closer (Sara Gran, 2003)
19.) The Hoard (Alan Ryker, 2012)
20.) Mama Fish (Rio Youers, 2009)
21.) The Void (Brett J. Talley, 2012)
22.) A Whale for the Killing (Farley Mowat, 1972)
23.)The Cannibal Within (Mark Mirabello, 2005)[/QUOTE]

[Benny Profane]

1. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
2. Battle Cry of Freedom - James M. McPherson
3. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas
4. Don Quixote - Miguel Cervantes
5. The Stand - Stephen King

[baby doll]

Twice Told Tales (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1837-42)
Notes From Underground (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1864)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1890-91)
Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925)
Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared) (Franz Kafka, 1927)
Laughter in the Dark (Vladimir Nabokov, 1932)
Despair (Vladimir Nabokov, 1934)
Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe, 1958)
The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen, 2001)Updated for the beginning of November. Total number of books read: sixteen.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Books

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
Full Dark No Stars (Stephen King, 2010)
The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maugham, 1925)
Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
How to Be Good (Nick Hornby, 2001)
The Body Snatchers (Jack Finney, 1955) The End of Faith (Sam Harris, 2004)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)
Mayan Mythology (Stephen Currie, 2012)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
Do the Work (Steven Pressfield, 2011)
Know Your Angels (John Ronner, 1993)

Comics

Superman: Birthright (Waid & Yu, 2004)
All Star Superman (Morrison & Quitely, 2008)
Batman: Haunted Knight (Loeb & Sale, 1996)
Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 1 (Lee & Ditko, 2003)
Superman For All Seasons (Loeb & Sale, 1998)
Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers, Vol. 1 (Lee & Kirby, 2002)
Hellboy: Darkness Calls (Mignola & Fegredo, 2007)

[baby doll]

Novels:
Notes From Underground (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1864)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1890/91)
Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925)
Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared) (Franz Kafka, 1927)
Laughter in the Dark (Vladimir Nabokov, 1932)
Despair (Vladimir Nabokov, 1934)
The White Castle (Orhan Pamuk, 1985)
In America (Susan Sontag, 2000)
The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen, 2001)
Short story collections:
Twice Told Tales (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1837/42)
Selected Short Stories [Popular Penquin Classics] (Guy de Maupassant, 1880-90)
For Esmé—With Love and Squalor (J.D. Salinger, 1953)Updated for the end of November. Total number of books read: Eighteen.

[D_Davis]

With the end of the year right around the corner, looks like the best book I read all year continues to be:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8a/Dhalgren_vintage.jpg/200px-Dhalgren_vintage.jpg


I'm still thinking about it constantly, and greatly look forward to a re-reading. I'm sure I'll get even more out of this dense and puzzling book each time I revisit it. It is more profound than Gravity's Rainbow, more entertaining than Doctor Sleep, and has better characters than anything else I read this year. It's a bona fide masterpiece of speculative fiction, and probably a masterpiece of English literature in general.

It is a dark and twisted, puzzling tale of identity, sexuality and social unrest in a post-modern, post-apocalyptic world with a circular narrative with multiple points of entry. A truly unique work that is equally captivating as it is baffling.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Books

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester, 1956)
The Tao Te Ching (tr. Sam Hamill, 2005)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884)
The House on the Borderland (William Hope Hodgson, 1908)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)
Full Dark No Stars (Stephen King, 2010)
The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maugham, 1925)
Horns (Joe Hill, 2010)
People of the Dark, Vol. 2 (Robert E. Howard, 1932-1935) How to Be Good (Nick Hornby, 2001)
The Body Snatchers (Jack Finney, 1955)
The End of Faith (Sam Harris, 2004)
Writing Movies For Fun and Profit (Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant, 2011)
The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C. Matt, 1995)
Mayan Mythology (Stephen Currie, 2012)
Do the Work (Steven Pressfield, 2011)
Know Your Angels (John Ronner, 1993)

Comics

Superman: Birthright (Waid & Yu, 2004)
All Star Superman (Morrison & Quitely, 2008)
Batman: Haunted Knight (Loeb & Sale, 1996)
Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 1 (Lee & Ditko, 2003)
Superman For All Seasons (Loeb & Sale, 1998)
Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers, Vol. 1 (Lee & Kirby, 2002)
Hellboy: Darkness Calls (Mignola & Fegredo, 2007)

[Melville]

With the end of the year right around the corner, looks like the best book I read all year continues to be:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8a/Dhalgren_vintage.jpg/200px-Dhalgren_vintage.jpg

Funny, you once recommended that to me as a sci-fi book I might like but that you could never get into.


Books
1. Visions: Stories and Photographs (Leonid Andreyev,~1900-1910) - 8.5
2. Essays in Pragmatism (William James, 1880-1907) - 8.5
3. Selected poems and letters (Keats, 1816-1820) - 8
4. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Muriel Spark, 1961) - 8
5. Philosophy of Existence (Karl Jaspers, 1938) - 8
6. Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth and Coleridge, 1798) - 7.5
7. The Courage to Be (Paul Tillich, 1952) - 7
8. Pensees (Blaise Pascal, 1669) - 7
9. Ice (Anna Kavan, 1967) - 7
10. The Third Policeman (Flann O'Brien, written 1940/published 1967) - 7
11. No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy, 2005) - 6
12. Teatro Grottesco (Thomas Ligotti, 2007) - 5.5
13. Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger, 1961) - 5
14. Rabbit, Run (John Updike, 1960) - 4.5
15. At the Mountains of Madness (HP Lovecraft, 1936) - 4
16. Dream Story (Arthur Schnitzler, 1926) - 3.5
17. The Castle of Otranto (Horace Walpole, 1764) - 2.5

Comic books
1. Elektra: Assassin (Frank Miller & Bill Sinkiewicz, 1987) - 9
2. Elektra Lives Again (Frank Miller & Lynn Varley, 1990) - 8.5
3. Schizo #4 (Ivan Brunetti, 2006) - 8.5
4. Blankets (Craig Thompson, 2003) - 7.5
5. Thor: God of Thunder, Vol. 1: The God Butcher (Jason Aaron & Esad Ribic, 2012) - 7.5
6. All-Star Superman (Morrison & Quitely, 2008) - 6.5
7. Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller, Vol. 3 (Frank Miller & Klaus Janson, 1982-83) - 6
8. Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller, Vol. 2 (Frank Miller & Klaus Janson, 1981-82) - 6
9. Wolverine: Origin (Paul Jenkins, Andy Kubert, and Richard Isanove, 2001) - 6
10. Wolverine: Logan (Brian K. Vaughan & Eduardo Risso, 2008) - 4.5
11. Wolverine: Get Mystique (Jason Aaron & Ron Garney, 2008) - 4
12. Astonishing X-Men (Joss Whedon & Neal Cassady, 2004-08) - 3.5
13. Days of Future Past (Chris Claremont & John Byrne, 1980) - 2.5
14. Daredevil: The Man Without Fear (Frank Miller & John Romita Jr, 1993) - 2.5
15. Wolverine: Enemy of the State (Mark Millar, John Romita Jr, and Kaare Andrews, 2006) - 2

[D_Davis]

Funny, you once recommended that to me as a sci-fi book I might like but that you could never get into.


Took me 2-3 times to get into it. But now I'm betting I re-read it every other year or so.

[Mysterious Dude]

I don't think I'll finish any more books by the year's end, so we'll call this definitive. A successful year, I'd say.

1. The Master and Margarita (1967, Mikhail Bulgakov) ****
2. The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962, Carlos Fuentes) ****
3. Camel Xiangzi (1937, Lao She) ****
4. The Blind Owl (1937, Sadegh Hedayat) ****
5. Captains of the Sands (1937, Jorge Amado) ****
6. The Road (2006, Cormac McCarthy) ****
7. Pather Panchali (1929, Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay) ****
8. Rabbit, Run (1960, John Updike) ****
9. Fifth Business (1970, Robertson Davies) ****
10. The Late Mattia Pascal (1904, Luigi Pirandello) ***½

11. The Tunnel (1948, Ernesto Sábato) ***½
12. The Man Who Was Thursday (1908, G.K. Chesterton) ***½
13. The Color Purple (1982, Alice Walker) ***½
14. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890, Oscar Wilde) ***½
15. Le Père Goriot (1835, Honoré de Balzac) ***½
16. A Road with No End (1952, Mochtar Lubis) ***½
17. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886, Robert Louis Stevenson) ***½
18. Gulliver's Travels (1726, Jonathan Swift) ***½
19. Candide (1759, Voltaire) ***½
20. Ham on Rye (1982, Charles Bukowski) ***½

21. Untouchable (1935, Mulk Raj Anand) ***
22. More Than Human (1953, Theodore Sturgeon) ***
23. Fathers and Sons (1862, Ivan Turgenev) ***
24. The Feast of the Goat (2000, Mario Vargas Llosa) ***
25. My Ántonia (1918, Willa Cather) ***
26. Gargoyles (1967, Thomas Bernhard) ***
27. The Call of the Wild (1903, Jack London) ***
28. Animal Farm (1945, George Orwell) ***
29. Memed, My Hawk (1955, Yasar Kemal) **½
30. Season of Migration to the North (1966, Tayeb Salih) **½

31. Alice in Wonderland (1865, Lewis Carroll) **½
32. The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's (1881, Talbot Baines Reed) **½
33. Plantation Boy (1932, José Lins do Rego) **½
34. Nightwood (1936, Djuna Barnes) **
35. Return of the Spirit (1933, Tawfiq Al-Hakim) **
36. Mrs. Dalloway (1925, Virginia Woolf) *

I've also made another personal accomplishment; upon finishing Gulliver's Travels today, I've now read 50 of the top 100 books on my consensus list (http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showthread.php?1373).

Edited to add The Road, which brings the total to 36, an average of three books a month. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to repeat that.

[Benny Profane]

1. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
2. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - William Shirer
3. Battle Cry of Freedom - James M. McPherson
4. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas
5. Don Quixote - Miguel Cervantes
6. The Stand - Stephen King

[Mara]

This is nowhere near organized as a list.

So... I guess I read 67 young adult books this year. This was the first year I kept any sort of track of my reading list, because I'm trying to treat YA as a job instead of just a hobby. That led to some really awful experiences, but I also found a few wonderful books that I probably wouldn't have found otherwise.

I didn't track the adult books I read this year, and I'm trying to remember them. Searching MC seems the easiest route, so I read at the least: Gone Girl, Maddaddam, How to Create the Perfect Wife, A Tale of Two Cities, Burial Rites, My Story, Don Quixote, 84 Charring Cross Road, Someday Someday Maybe, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, Les Miserables, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and The Devil in the White City.

The best YA book I read this year was Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell.

Best non-fiction was How to Create the Perfect Wife: Britain’s Most Ineligible Bachelor and his Enlightened Quest to Train the Ideal Mate by Wendy Moore.

Best adult fiction was... hmm. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

[Lucky]

1. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
2. Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)
3. The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
4. On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
5. The Reason I Jump (Naoki Higoshida)
6. Sweet Tooth (Ian McEwan)
7. The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman)
8. The Crying of Lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon)
9. Angels (Denis Johnson)
10. Magic for Beginners (Kelly Link)

I made it to ten, barely. Should be finishing up The Corrections shortly, and it will probably end up at the top of this list. Really enjoying it.

[dreamdead]

Final list:

1. Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
2. Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
3. Albert Camus’s The Plague
4. Don DeLillo’s Libra
5. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
6. Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!
7. Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead
8. Paul Harding’s Tinkers
9. Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country
10. Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park
11. Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find
12. Don Lee’s Country of Origin
13. Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood
14. Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men
15. Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced
16. Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl
17. Kevin Powers’s The Yellow Birds
18. Sherman Alexie’s Indian Killer
19. Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl
20. Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
21. Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat
22. Helene Hanff’s 84 Charing Cross Road
23. Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam
24. Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
25. Chang-rae Lee’s A Gesture Life
26. George Saunders’s Tenth of December
27. Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse
28. Suzanne Collins’s Mockingjay
29. Don Lee’s Yellow
30. Younghill Kang’s The Grass Roof
31. Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye
32. Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood
33. Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom
34. Tracy Letts’s August: Osage County
35. Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects
36. Stephen King’s The Long Walk
37. Edith Wharton’s Summer
38. Don Lee’s Wrack and Ruin
39. Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam
40. Joe Hill’s Nos4a2
41. Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means
42. Nicole Krauss’s Great House

[Raiders]

Another disappointing total this year, though it was quality over quantity as I did not have a single book I outright disliked and the entire top ten is very solid.

1. The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood, 2000)
2. Naked (David Sedaris, 1998)
3. Jimmy Corrigan (Chris Ware, 2000)
4. Enon (Paul Harding, 2013)
5. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (James Agee & Walker Evans, 1941)
6. Horseman, Pass By (Larry McMurtry, 1961)
7. Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry, 1985)
8. Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn, 2012)
9. The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham, 1951)
10. Blankets (Craig Thompson, 2003)

11. All That Is (James Salter, 2013)
12. Vineland (Thomas Pynchon, 1990)
13. The Edible Woman (Margaret Atwood, 1969)
14. Island (Aldous Huxley, 1962)

[D_Davis]

You gonna read the rest of the LD books? The second in the series, Comanche Moon, might actually be my favorite.

Can't wait for my next re-read of these books. I'll probably do the series every other year or so, so they should be up for 2014.

[Raiders]

You gonna read the rest of the LD books? The second in the series, Comanche Moon, might actually be my favorite.

Can't wait for my next re-read of these books. I'll probably do the series every other year or so, so they should be up for 2014.


Yeah, for sure. I had never read a single McMurtry and so I picked up the most famous one first (Lonesome Dove) and then decided to go back and read his first. I suppose since I have the element of hindsight, I could read them chronologically within the storyline, though reading them more as he published them seems more appealing to me as it develops the characters as McMurtry did when he was writing.

[D_Davis]

Right on. First time I read LD first, of course, and then the last time I read them in chron order.

LD is definitely the best book in literary terms, but CM is my favorite because the story is just so bad ass.

He's a great writer, and after reading a few of his other books, I think he's my favorite writer of female characters.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Just realized I never did this last year. I'm almost certainly forgetting stuff.

1. King Lear - Shakespeare
2. The Martian Chronicles - Bradbury
3. God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything - Hitchens
4. Piccadilly Jim - Wodehouse
5. The Princess Bride - Goldman
6. Eleanor & Park - Rowell
7. The Round House - Erdrich
8. Ceremony - Silko
9. My Uncle Oswald - Roald Dahl
10. A Storm of Swords - Martin


11. Indian Killer - Alexie
12. The Inferno - Dante
13. Velcro: The Ninja Kat - Widdop
14. S. - J.J. Abrams