Book You Read This Year - 2009

[lovejuice]

probably i won't finish anything else by the end of this year. i rank my nonfictions from one to ten, but for fictions the ranking will overlap with my top 100 novels anyway. and obviously, a lot of these are re-reading.

Nonfiction

1. H.H. The Dalai Lama’s “The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World”
2. D. Adam's "Last Chance to See"
3. A. Sen’s “Development as Freedom”
4. T. L. Friedman's "Hot, Flat and Crowded"
5. C. Levi-Strauss’s “The Savage Mind”
6. R. Barthes's "Writing Degree Zero"
7. J. Derrida's "Of Grammatology"
8. E. H. Gombrich's "Art and Illusion"
9. J. Leslie's "Deep Water"
10. W. Kamkwanba's "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind"

J. Rawls's "A Theory of Justice"
K. M. Brown's "Mama Lola"
U. Eco's "Serendipities"
S. Freud's "Totem and Taboo"
P. Krugman's "The Conscious of a Liberal"
F. Taylor's "The Berlin Wall"
D. J. Levitin's "This is Your Brain on Music"
S. Ozment's "A Mighty Fortress"
S. Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought"
S. D. Levitt, S. J Dubner's "Freakonomics"
G. W. F. Hegel's "The Essential Writings"
M. Berman's "All That is Solid Melts into Air"
M. Foucault's "The Care of the Self"
S. Freud's "Civilization and its Discontents"
U. Eco's "A Theory of Semiotics"
E. Larson's "The Devil in the White City"
A. Rand's "Return of the Primitive"
C. Castaneda's "The Teachings of Don Juan"
O. Lange's "On the Economic Theory of Socialism"
A. Hewitt's "Political Inversions"
R. R. Nelson's "The Moon and the Ghetto"
C. Bongie's "Exotic Memories"
T. C. Schelling's "Micromotives and Macrobehavior"
E. K. Sedgwick's "Epistemology of the Closet"
G. P. Cestaro's "Queer Italia"
R. Williams's "Marxism and Literature"
K. J. Arrow's "The Limits of Organization"
M. Levitt's "Hamas"
U. Eco's "Turning Back the Clock"
N. Frye's "The Educated Imagination"
I. Calvino's "The Road to San Giovanni"

Fiction

S. O' Casey's "Three Dublin Plays"
N. Marfouz's "Arabian Nights & Days"
A. Carter's "Shadow Dance"
A. B. Toumi's "Madah-Sartre"
G. Greene's "The Captain and the Enemy"
M. Amis's "Other people"
J. Conrad's "The Secret Agent"
I. Murdoch's "The Philosopher's Pupil"
F. S. Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise"
C. Buckley's "Little Green Men"
D. Lessing's "The Memoirs of a Survivor"
K. Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss"
N. Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"
R. E. Howard's "The Black Stranger and Other American Tales”
H. Hesse's "Peter Camenzind"
R. Banks's "Continental Drift"
T. Sturgeon's "More than Human"
E. S. Bowen's "Return to Laughter"
R. Banks's "The Book of Jamaica"
H. James's "The Wings of the Dove"
I. Murdoch's "The Time of the Angels"
U. Sinclair's "The Jungle"
E. Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales"
I. Bergman's "The Reduction Trilogy"
R. Bradbury's "The Golden Apples of the Sun"
I. Murdoch's "The Nice and the Good"
U. Saba's "Ernesto"
I. Murdoch's "The Italian Girl"
R. Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder"
O. Pamuk's "Snow"
I. Murdoch's "The Flight from the Enchanter"
V. Woolfe’s “Mrs. Dalloway”
I. Calvino’s “If on a Winter Night a Traveler”
J. D. Salinger’s “Nine Stories”
V.S. Naipal’s “Guerrillas”
C. Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”
R. Bradburry’s “Fahrenheit 451”
M. Atwood's "The Blind Assassin"
R. Davies's "A Mixture of Frailties"
T. Wolfe's "The Right Stuff"
J. Austen's "Pride and Prejudice"
W. Scott's "Ivanhoe"
H. Melville's "Moby-Dick"
G. Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"
R. Davies's "Leaven of Malice"
R. Davies's "Tempest Tost"
J. Joyce's "Ulysses"
A. Moravia's "Erotic Tales"
H. Ellison's "I, Robot"
E. Bronte's "Wuthering Heights"
W. Faulkner's "The Reivers"
S. Brijs's "The Angel Maker"
D. Lodge's "Author, Author"
G. Greene’s “Brighton Rock”
S. Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verse”
W. James’s “The Turn of the Screw”

[Melville]

Here's everything I read, arranged in the order in which I read them, and with ratings out of ten:

1. The Book of Chuang Tzu (Chuang Tzu) - 8
2. The Satyricon (Petronius) - 6
3. Growth of the Soil (Hamsun) - 8
4. Song of Roland (Anonymous) - 6
5. The Poem of the Cid (Anonymous) - 4
6. Nadja (Breton) - 8
7. From a Logical Point of View (Quine) - 7.5
8. The Problems of Philosophy (Bertrand Russell) - 2
9. Ideas I (Husserl) - 6
10. Course on General Linguistics (Saussure) - 5
11. The First Philosophers: the Presocratics and the Sophists (various) - 6
12. The Social Contract (Rousseau) - 6.5
13. Self-Reliance and Other Essays (Emerson) - 7.5
14. Discipline and Punish (Foucault) - 7.5
15. On Certainty (Wittgenstein) - 7.5
16. The Wings of the Dove (Henry James) - 5.5
17. Waiting for God (Simone Weil) - 4.5
18. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Harlan Ellison) - 1
19. The Castle (Kafka) - 8.5
20. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (Italo Calvino) - 5.5
21. Gravity’s Rainbow (Pynchon) - 8.5
22. Envy (Olesha) - 8.5
23. The Ravishing of Lol Stein (Duras) - 9
24. Time and Free Will (Bergson) - 7
25. Lazarillo de Tormes (Anonymous) - 7.5

Considering how short most of those books are, that's a pretty shameful list.

[Derek]

probably i won't finish anything else by the end of this year.

Seriously? You still have 3 full days. That should be time for at least 2 or 3 books at your pace.

[dreamdead]

I'll chime in with a depressingly short list.

Stephen Crane's Maggie
John Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer
Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers
Nella Larsen's Passing
Pietro Di Donato's Christ in Concrete
Cormac McCarthy's The Road

Lots of stuff that was skim-read throughout the semester as classes necessitated knowledge, but those ones were fully devoted reads.

[Spun Lepton]

probably i won't finish anything else by the end of this year. i rank my nonfictions from one to ten, but for fictions the ranking will overlap with my top 100 novels anyway. and obviously, a lot of these are re-reading.

Nonfiction

1. H.H. The Dalai Lama’s “The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World”
2. D. Adam's "Last Chance to See"
3. A. Sen’s “Development as Freedom”
4. T. L. Friedman's "Hot, Flat and Crowded"
5. C. Levi-Strauss’s “The Savage Mind”
6. R. Barthes's "Writing Degree Zero"
7. J. Derrida's "Of Grammatology"
8. E. H. Gombrich's "Art and Illusion"
9. J. Leslie's "Deep Water"
10. W. Kamkwanba's "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind"

J. Rawls's "A Theory of Justice"
K. M. Brown's "Mama Lola"
U. Eco's "Serendipities"
S. Freud's "Totem and Taboo"
P. Krugman's "The Conscious of a Liberal"
F. Taylor's "The Berlin Wall"
D. J. Levitin's "This is Your Brain on Music"
S. Ozment's "A Mighty Fortress"
S. Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought"
S. D. Levitt, S. J Dubner's "Freakonomics"
G. W. F. Hegel's "The Essential Writings"
M. Berman's "All That is Solid Melts into Air"
M. Foucault's "The Care of the Self"
S. Freud's "Civilization and its Discontents"
U. Eco's "A Theory of Semiotics"
E. Larson's "The Devil in the White City"
A. Rand's "Return of the Primitive"
C. Castaneda's "The Teachings of Don Juan"
O. Lange's "On the Economic Theory of Socialism"
A. Hewitt's "Political Inversions"
R. R. Nelson's "The Moon and the Ghetto"
C. Bongie's "Exotic Memories"
T. C. Schelling's "Micromotives and Macrobehavior"
E. K. Sedgwick's "Epistemology of the Closet"
G. P. Cestaro's "Queer Italia"
R. Williams's "Marxism and Literature"
K. J. Arrow's "The Limits of Organization"
M. Levitt's "Hamas"
U. Eco's "Turning Back the Clock"
N. Frye's "The Educated Imagination"
I. Calvino's "The Road to San Giovanni"

Fiction

S. O' Casey's "Three Dublin Plays"
N. Marfouz's "Arabian Nights & Days"
A. Carter's "Shadow Dance"
A. B. Toumi's "Madah-Sartre"
G. Greene's "The Captain and the Enemy"
M. Amis's "Other people"
J. Conrad's "The Secret Agent"
I. Murdoch's "The Philosopher's Pupil"
F. S. Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise"
C. Buckley's "Little Green Men"
D. Lessing's "The Memoirs of a Survivor"
K. Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss"
N. Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"
R. E. Howard's "The Black Stranger and Other American Tales”
H. Hesse's "Peter Camenzind"
R. Banks's "Continental Drift"
T. Sturgeon's "More than Human"
E. S. Bowen's "Return to Laughter"
R. Banks's "The Book of Jamaica"
H. James's "The Wings of the Dove"
I. Murdoch's "The Time of the Angels"
U. Sinclair's "The Jungle"
E. Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales"
I. Bergman's "The Reduction Trilogy"
R. Bradbury's "The Golden Apples of the Sun"
I. Murdoch's "The Nice and the Good"
U. Saba's "Ernesto"
I. Murdoch's "The Italian Girl"
R. Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder"
O. Pamuk's "Snow"
I. Murdoch's "The Flight from the Enchanter"
V. Woolfe’s “Mrs. Dalloway”
I. Calvino’s “If on a Winter Night a Traveler”
J. D. Salinger’s “Nine Stories”
V.S. Naipal’s “Guerrillas”
C. Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”
R. Bradburry’s “Fahrenheit 451”
M. Atwood's "The Blind Assassin"
R. Davies's "A Mixture of Frailties"
T. Wolfe's "The Right Stuff"
J. Austen's "Pride and Prejudice"
W. Scott's "Ivanhoe"
H. Melville's "Moby-Dick"
G. Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"
R. Davies's "Leaven of Malice"
R. Davies's "Tempest Tost"
J. Joyce's "Ulysses"
A. Moravia's "Erotic Tales"
H. Ellison's "I, Robot"
E. Bronte's "Wuthering Heights"
W. Faulkner's "The Reivers"
S. Brijs's "The Angel Maker"
D. Lodge's "Author, Author"
G. Greene’s “Brighton Rock”
S. Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verse”
W. James’s “The Turn of the Screw”

Holy crap! Are you, like, a brain in a jar with eyes and access to the Internet?

[Mysterious Dude]

1. Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnetugt)
2. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (Kenzaburo Oë)
3. The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
4. Confessions of a Mask (Yukio Mishima)
5. Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
6. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
7. The Prince and the Pauper (Mark Twain)
8. The Immoralist (André Gide)
9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Ken Kesey)
10. Death in Venice (Thomas Mann)
11. Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)
12. Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin)
13. The Satyricon (Petronius)
14. Chéri (Colette)
15. Zeno's Conscience (Italo Svevo)
16. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (Italo Calvino)
17. Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)
18. The Pillow Book (Sei Shonagon)
19. Half of a Yellow Sun (Chimamanda Adichie)
20. Beloved (Toni Morrison)
21. Cise De Rat (Piet Bakker)
22. The Sorrows of Young Werther (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
23. The War of the Buttons (Louis Pergaud)
24. The Song of Roland (anon.)
25. The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
26. Dracula (Bram Stoker)
27. Life of an Amorous Woman (Ihara Saikaku)
28. The Jungle (Upton Sinclair)
29. Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)
30. Nadja (Andre Breton)
31. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)

I'm currently reading Don Quixote; I don't think I'll finish it before New Year's.

[monolith94]

Not a terribly distinguished reading list, but honesty, honesty…

A History of the English Speaking Peoples: The New World — Winston Churchill
Soldier of the Mist — Gene Wolfe
Soldier of Arete — Gene Wolfe
Kidnapped — Robert Louis Stevenson
Swamp Thing Earth to Earth / Reunion — Alan Moore
Soldier of Sidon — Gene Wolfe
Endangered Species — Gene Wolfe
7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century — Andrew Krepinevich
The Book of Frank Herbert — Frank Herbert
Brainwash — Dominic Streatfeild
The Geography of Thought — Richard E. Nisbett
Three Victories and a Defeat — Brendan Simms
As Above, So Below — Rudy Rucker
Star Light, Star Bright (Vol. 2) — Alfred Bester
Underground Classics — Denis Kitchen
The Gothic War — Torsten Cumberland Jacobsen
Out of the Silent Planet — C.S. Lewis
Perelandra — C.S. Lewis
That Hideous Strength — C.S. Lewis
Hellboy Library Edition Vol. 2: The Chained Coffin, The Right Hand of Doom, and Others — Mike Mignola
The Moonstone — Wilkie Collins
The Book — Alan Watts
Hyperion — Dan Simmons
From Hell — Alan Moore
The Murder at the Vicarage— Agatha Christie

[ledfloyd]

hmm. i was keeping a list, but it was on my old computer. i'm pretty sure denis johnson's tree of smoke was my favorite thing i read this year. but you know, i could be wrong.

[lovejuice]

Holy crap! Are you, like, a brain in a jar with eyes and access to the Internet?

metaphorically yes, since i have no life. :P

[lovejuice]

8. The Problems of Philosophy (Bertrand Russell) - 2

have you ever read anything good by Russell? his idea seems compelling, but i've never found a good angle to approach it. his book on mathematical philosophy reads like a Math book for laymen.

[Hugh_Grant]

I probably read a thousand college essays over the course of the year, so my book-reading time is non-existent.

[Benny Profane]

This should all be in a separate thread!!!

[EvilShoe]

Good year for me:

1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
2. Rabbit Redux - John Updike
3. Rabbit is Rich - John Updike
4. Rabbit at Rest - John Updike
5. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
7. The Castle - Franz Kafka
8. Amerika - Franz Kafka
9. About a Boy - Nick Hornby
10. The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
11. Survivor: A Novel - Chuck Palahniuk
12. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
13. The Collector - John Fowles
14. Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
15. Women - Charles Bukowski
16. The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
17. Hollywood - Charles Bukowski
18. 2666 - Roberto Bolano
19. The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
20. Generation X - Douglas Coupland
21. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
22. Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
23. The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
24. Ex-Drummer - Herman Brusselmans
25. A Widow for One Year - John Irving
26. De Helaasheid der Dingen - Dimitri Verhulst
27. The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon
28. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
29. The Yiddish Policeman's Union - Michael Chabon
30. Animal Farm - George Orwell
31. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
32. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
33. Two Women - Harry Mulisch
34. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
35. Lullaby - Chuck Palahniuk
36. Homicide: A Life on the Streets - David Simon

Also plan on finishing A Scanner Darkly before the year is over.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I'm fairly ashamed at my small list this year:

Clockers – Richard Price
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
Election – Tom Perrotta
The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs – Chuck Klosterman
2666 – Roberto Bolano
World War Z – Max Brooks
The Neverending Story – Michael Ende
Florence of Arabia – Christopher Buckley
Tortilla Flat – John Steinbeck
The Pearl – John Steinbeck
Twilight – Stephanie Meyer
The Blind Side – Michael Lewis
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
The Executioner’s Song – Norman Mailer
Under the Banner of Heaven – Jon Krakauer
Persuasion – Jane Austen
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman – Angela Carter
Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
Nine Stories – J.D. Salinger
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
Straight Man – Richard Russo
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
Too Cool to Be Forgotten – Alex Robinson
Friday Night Lights – Buzz Bissinger
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card


That's in the order I read them, with those highlighted in red being the ones I loved. That's the least number of books I've read in five years or so. The best book I read this year was 2666.

[Dukefrukem]

Those are solid lists guys... I travel a lot and I read more than ANY of my friends combined!! My list included;

Why We Suck - Dennis Leary
Too Fat to Fish - Artie Lange
Cemetery Dance - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Rip Tide - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Tyrannosaur Canyon - Douglas Preston
The Codex - Douglas Preston

Currently Reading - The Cabinet of Curiosities - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

[Raiders]

Ranked by preference:

1. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Carson McCullers)
2. The Silent Cry (Kenzaburo Oe)
3. V (Thomas Pynchon)
4. The Member of the Wedding (Carson McCullers)
5. A Fable (William Faulkner)
6. On Chesil Beach (Ian McEwan)
7. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon)
8. A Dangerous Encounter (Ernst Junger)
9. "The Stories of Jacob" from Joseph and His Brothers (Thomas Mann)
10. The Glass Bead Game (Hermann Hesse)
11. The Crying of Lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon)
12. The Naked Sun (Isaac Asimov)
13. Fell Vol. 1: Feral City (Warren Ellis)
14. Love (Angela Carter)
15. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (Michael Pollan)
16. Insomnia (Stephen King)

[Benny Profane]

Ranked by preference:


3. V (Thomas Pynchon)

Did you ever post any thoughts on this one?

[Melville]

have you ever read anything good by Russell? his idea seems compelling, but i've never found a good angle to approach it. his book on mathematical philosophy reads like a Math book for laymen.

I've only read that one book and part of Why I am Not a Christian, which I also disliked. Is the book you're referring to Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy? I've considered reading that one, but your description of it doesn't sound so good. His most famous book is Principia Mathematica, which presumably reads like a math book for logicians, but I've heard that it is rather clunky and outdated. I know Qrazy likes him more than I do, so he's probably a better person to ask.

[Raiders]

Did you ever post any thoughts on this one?

No, and I really ought to read it again. Suffice to say that Pynchon's mastery of prose is second to none. There are countless passages I could isolate and just read over and over again. I'm not sure how successful he is in this book at balancing between the two main characters and so much of the little details just sort of flew by me on the first time 'round. I think the Benny stuff is rather easily digestable, but the Stencil stuff has, just ten months later, sort of blurred in my mind. I think that's probably the only con to Pynchon's style is that there's just so much there.

By contrast, Lot 49 felt a bit too much like a novel written with the feature film adaptation already in mind, if that makes any sense. It's Pynchon-lite with plenty to chew on but it felt a bit backwards from V.

[D_Davis]

1. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (Paperback) by Spider Robinson

2. Insomnia (Paperback) by Stephen King

3. The Tombs of Atuan (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 2) by Ursula K. Le Guin

4. Spacetime Donuts (Paperback) by Rudy Rucker

5. Under the Dome (Hardcover) by Stephen King

6. Dungeon Master's Guide: A 4th Edition Core Rulebook

7. Monster Manual: A 4th Edition Core Rulebook (D&D Core Rulebook)

8. Player's Handbook I: A 4th Edition Core Rulebook

9. The Stand (Expanded Edition) by Stephen

10. Night Shift (Paperback) by Stephen King

11. Use of Weapons (Paperback) by Iain M. Banks

12. High-Rise (Flamingo Modern Classic) by J.G. Ballard

13. Deeper (Paperback) by James A. Moore

14. The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicle, #1) by Patrick Rothfuss

15. Shambling Towards Hiroshima (Paperback) by James Morrow

16. Vamphyri! (Necroscope, #2) by Brian Lumley

17. Necroscope (Necroscope, Book 1) by Brian Lumley

18. We Can Build You (Paperback) by Philip K. Dick

19. Days of Life and Death and Escape to the Moon (Hardcover) by William Saroyan

20. The Tyrant (Paperback) by Michael Cisco

21. The Great God Pan and The Hill of Dreams (Paperback) by Arthur Machen

22. The Game-Players of Titan (Paperback) by Philip K. Dick

23. The House on the Borderland (Paperback) by William Hope Hodgson

24. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Perennial Classics) by Muriel Spark

25. Fears Unnamed (Mass Market Paperback) by Tim Lebbon

26. Extra (Ordinary) People by Joanna Russ

27. Pedro Páramo (Paperback) by Juan Rulfo

28. Zen Keys: A Guide to Zen Practice (Paperback) by Thich Nhat Hanh

29. Viriconium: The Pastel City/A Storm of Wings/In Viriconium/Viric... by M. John Harrison

30. The Variable Man and Other Stories (Paperback) by Philip K. Dick

31. Living Buddha, Living Christ (Paperback) by Thich Nhat Hanh

32. The Big Jump (Vintage Ace SF, G-683) by Leigh Brackett

33. Professor Dowell's Head by Aleksandr Beliaev

34. Different Seasons (Paperback) by Stephen King Different Seasons

35.To Sleep, Perchance to Dream... Nightmare (Hardcover)

36. The Driver's Seat (The New Directions Bibelots) by Muriel Spark


Top 10

10. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark – I discovered Ms. Spark this year, and instantly fell in love. I love her brisk style. With an economy of words that even Hemingway would be jealous of, Spark weaves a coming of age tale with a sinister streak of juvenile angst.

9. To Sleep, Perchance to Dream…Nightmare – Various Authors. A fantastic collection of weird fiction. The best of the bunch: The Drunkard’s Dream - Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu; The Yellow Sign - Robert W. Chambers; The Dreams in the Witch-House - H. P. Lovecraft; Dream of a Mannikin - Thomas Ligotti; In the Flesh - Clive Barker

8. Living Buddha, Living Christ – Thich Nhat Hanh – I would challenge every Christian to read Nhat Hanh, and to open their minds to his deep understanding. This is a very, very good book.

7. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (Paperback) by Spider Robinson

6. Zen Keys – Thich Nhat Hanh – I believe that it is impossible for the Western mind to truly grasp Zen and Buddhism. I believe this is why there are different religions – they represent different ways that God speaks to different cultures. Nhat Hanh does a wonderful job at explaining some of the deeper ways of Zen.

5. Shambling Towards Hiroshima – James Morrow – Hilarious and thought provoking. Morrow’s WWII satire is brilliant and endlessly entertaining. A great new discovery for me; I can’t wait to read more. He’s like a far less cynical and less emotionally disconnected Douglas Adams.

4. The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark – This novella blew my mind. It is unbelievably good. The prose is perfection, and the narrative is razor sharp and unforgettable. Contains one of the greatest characters in all of literature.

3. The Great God Pan – Arthur Machen – An early example of weird fiction, and still one of the best. This story is sinister. Because of the time it was written the most gruesome stuff is only implied and hinted at. At one time it was considered incredibly risque and dangerous, and I can see why. Unlike a lot of weird fiction of it's time, Machen's tale is easy to read, not burdened by the overly purple prose.

2. The Stand (Unabridged) – Stephen King - finally got around to reading this behemoth. Read the original when I was far too young to really get it, and now, as bona fide adult (I'm usually in bed before 11 p.m., and I am spending this Friday night doing house work), I totally loved it. It's a great American epic full of memorable characters (The Trashcan Man), and a dark apocalyptic narrative about a killer flu exponentially worse than the swine flu. Can't think of a better time to read The Stand than right now.

1. Under the Dome – Stephen King - I am prepared to declare this "King's best novel." It has some of his best characters, some of his best writing, a tense, relentlessly plotted narrative, and some of his darkest, most disturbing moments. King weaves a complex tale of small-town American politics and religious hypocrisy all wrapped around the very real atmosphere of fear and willful ignorance that currently plagues our country. The plotting is complex, and through deft narration King keeps things plowing along, juggling the actions of dozens and dozens of characters, through a number of harrowing action set-pieces offset with moving human drama face-to-face with one of his most evil villains - Big Jim.

[Mara]

Davis!

ritch:

[Benny Profane]

No, and I really ought to read it again. Suffice to say that Pynchon's mastery of prose is second to none. There are countless passages I could isolate and just read over and over again. I'm not sure how successful he is in this book at balancing between the two main characters and so much of the little details just sort of flew by me on the first time 'round. I think the Benny stuff is rather easily digestable, but the Stencil stuff has, just ten months later, sort of blurred in my mind. I think that's probably the only con to Pynchon's style is that there's just so much there.

By contrast, Lot 49 felt a bit too much like a novel written with the feature film adaptation already in mind, if that makes any sense. It's Pynchon-lite with plenty to chew on but it felt a bit backwards from V.

I agree with everything you just said. Needless to say, he bounces forwards from Crying to Gravity's Rainbow, so don't be dismayed.

[Raiders]

I agree with everything you just said. Needless to say, he bounces forwards from Crying to Gravity's Rainbow, so don't be dismayed.

Oh I'm not. I already have Gravity's Rainbow at home. Might be the next book I tackle. That or I'll finish up Mann's Joseph and His Brothers.

[ledfloyd]

i'm stuck at 500 pages in gravity's rainbow. it has some great passages, but overall i just don't dig it.

[EvilShoe]

Should probably also mention what I thought was best. Read a lot of good stuff, so there's a lot that stand out:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier, the Rabbit books, The Great Gatsby, Breakfast of Champions, Blood Meridian, The Collector, 2666, Animal Farm, Grapes of Wrath, Anna Karenina & Homicide: Life on the Streets.