Top 10 Books First Read During 2012

[dreamdead]

1. At the Mountains of Madness, H. P. Lovecraft
2. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John le Carré
3. Pym, Mat Johnson
4. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
5. Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris
6. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie
7. Saffron Dreams, Shaila Abdullah
8. Goodbye, Columbus and Five Other Short Stories, Philip Roth
9. Fiskadoro, Denis Johnson
10. Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales

[Benny Profane]

1. The Savage Detectives (Roberto Bolano)
2. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (J.D. Salinger)
3. V. (Thomas Pynchon)
4. Beloved (Toni Morrison)
5. Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy)
6. The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (Cormac McCarthy)
7. Habibi (Craig Thompson)
8. Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe)
9. Other Electricities (Ander Monson)
10. 1Q84 (Haruki Murukami)

Wow, you've got 4 of my all-time faves on that list.

[ContinentalOp]

1. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett- 9.5
2. Double Indemnity by James M. Cain- 8.0
3. Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George Pelecanos- 7.5
4. What It Was by George Pelecanos- 7.5
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon- 5

[Melville]

1. The Silent Cry (Kenzaburo Oe, 1967) - 8.5
2. Under the Autumn Star (Hamsun, 1906) - 8.5
3. Concrete (Thomas Bernhard, 1982) - 8
4. A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings (Hamsun, 1909) - 8
5. Arthur Rimbaud: Complete Works (trans. Schmidt, 1868-1900) - 7.5
6. The Complete Stories (Kafka, 1909-24) - 7
7. Murphy (Beckett, 1938) - 6.5
8. Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, 1953) - 5.5
9. (32) Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Edgar Allan Poe, 1835-49) - 5
10. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886) - 4

The Kafka collection was surprisingly mixed in quality: some of the greatest things I've read—The Metamorphosis was even better than I remembered— but also some very tedious things. The stories with a particular focus on agitation and repetition (alongside the usual absurdity) were great, and they seem obvious influences on Beckett and Bernhard. Thirty-five pages of the obsessive anxiety of a burrowing animal = literary gold.

[D_Davis]

1. Matadora, by Steve Perry
2. In Other Worlds, by A.A. Attanasio
3. When We Were Executioners, by J.M. McDermott
4. The Turtle Boy, by Kealan Patrick Burke
5. The Wizards and the Warlords, by Hugh Cook
6. The Quest of the DNA Cowboys
7. Battle in the Dawn: The Complete Hok the Mighty, Manly Wade Wellman
8. Fifty-One Tales, by Lord Dunsany
9. Imajica, by Clive Barker
10. Wildest Dreams, Norman Partridge

[Kurosawa Fan]

1. Hamlet by Shakespeare
2. Richard III by Shakespeare
3. The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare
4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
5. The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare

Good stuff.

[D_Davis]

1. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett- 9.5
2. Double Indemnity by James M. Cain- 8.0

I need to read both of these. I see more hardboiled fiction in my future.

[dreamdead]

1. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
2. At the Mountains of Madness, H. P. Lovecraft
3. Zone One, Colson Whitehead
4. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John le Carré
5. Pym, Mat Johnson
6. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
7. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie
8. Marisol, José Rivera
9. Saffron Dreams, Shaila Abdullah
10. Radio Golf, August Wilson


[

Show Spoiler

In the Heart of America, Naomi Wallace
Goodbye, Columbus and Five Other Short Stories, Philip Roth
Cloud Tectonics, José Rivera
Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris
Fiskadoro, Denis Johnson
Each Day Dies with Sleep, José Rivera
Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales

]

[Benny Profane]

1. Underworld - Don DeLillo
2. Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe
3. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories - Franz Kafka
4. A Sport and a Pastime - James Salter
5. Here and Now! - Pat Martino (autobiography)

[D_Davis]

1. Matadora, by Steve Perry
2. In Other Worlds, by A.A. Attanasio
3. When We Were Executioners, by J.M. McDermott
4. The Turtle Boy, by Kealan Patrick Burke
5. The Wizards and the Warlords, by Hugh Cook
6. The Quest of the DNA Cowboys
7. Battle in the Dawn: The Complete Hok the Mighty, Manly Wade Wellman
8. Fifty-One Tales, by Lord Dunsany
9. Imajica, by Clive Barker
10. Wildest Dreams, Norman Partridge
[

Show Spoiler

The rest, in rating order

5-stars


4-stars


3-stars
Edge of Dark Water, by Joe R. Lansdale

2-stars


1-star

]

[TGM]

1. Goliath - Scott Westerfeld
2. The Neon Rain - James Lee Burke
3. Will Grayson, Will Grayson - John Green and David Levithan
4. Peter Pan in Scarlet - Geraldine McCaughrean

[ContinentalOp]

I need to read both of these. I see more hardboiled fiction in my future.

The Maltese Falcon blew me away. It's the second time I've tried to read it too. It felt too much like the movie version (which I love) the first time around, so I stopped reading. A couple years later, it's one of the best books I've ever read. Spade is twice the son of a bitch he was in the movie, the writing and dialogue are crisp, the structure is expertly crafted and the point of view is fascinating. No direct psychological insight, just detailed behavior and physical descriptions.

Double Indemnity is a complex, focused and ultimately haunting read. Kind of like reading Jim Thompson except the main character is aggressively normal to a point, which I really admired.

[dreamdead]

Been gorging on plays a lot this weekend.

1. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
2. At the Mountains of Madness, H. P. Lovecraft
3. Zone One, Colson Whitehead
4. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John le Carré
5. Pym, Mat Johnson
6. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
7. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie
8. Marisol, José Rivera
9. Radio Golf, August Wilson
10. Saffron Dreams, Shaila Abdullah


[

Show Spoiler

In the Heart of America, Naomi Wallace
The War Boys, Naomi Wallace
Goodbye, Columbus and Five Other Short Stories, Philip Roth
Cloud Tectonics, José Rivera
Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris
Fiskadoro, Denis Johnson
The Gift, Allan Havis
The American Play, Suzan-Lori Parks
Each Day Dies with Sleep, José Rivera
Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales

]

[Irish]

The Maltese Falcon blew me away. It's the second time I've tried to read it too. It felt too much like the movie version (which I love) the first time around, so I stopped reading. A couple years later, it's one of the best books I've ever read. Spade is twice the son of a bitch he was in the movie, the writing and dialogue are crisp, the structure is expertly crafted and the point of view is fascinating. No direct psychological insight, just detailed behavior and physical descriptions.

Double Indemnity is a complex, focused and ultimately haunting read. Kind of like reading Jim Thompson except the main character is aggressively normal to a point, which I really admired.

Heh, great write ups. I like that take on Cain. Have you read Serenade?

100% agree about Falcon. The movie is great but the book is better and wow, te ending is 1,000 times more powerful.

[

Show Spoiler

I really felt Spade's internal struggle not to break down & give in as he kept repeating "I ain't gonna play the sucker for you."

]

[Hugh_Grant]

1. 'The Imperfectionists', Tom Rachman
2. 'Freedom', Jonathan Franzen
3. '11/22/63', Stephen King

Rachman's book is such a truly wonderful debut novel. Magnificent use of a very clever narrative device and such a brilliant mix of humor, tragedy and empathy. The ending just devastated me. I can't wait to read it again some day.

Moving on to Howard Jacobson's 'The Finkler Question' next.

I didn't like The Imperfectionists as much as everyone else seemed to, but I always tell me six degrees of separation story with Rachman. A high school boyfriend went to Columbia U. for grad school in journalism where he became friends with...Rachman. (I guess that's two degrees?)

The Finkler Question is on my to-read list.

[kuehnepips]

I read David Peace's - 1974 + 1977 + 1980 + 1983 in a row.

[EyesWideOpen]

1. Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins) A
2. Haywire (Justin R Macumber) B+
3. Battle Royale (Koushun Takami) B-

I finished my first book this year, but now that I have a Kindle fire I'll definitely be reading quite a bit more.

[Derek]

1) The French Lieutenant's Woman (John Fowles) 9.5
2) The Republic (Plato) 8.5
3) Freedom (Jonathan Franzen) 8.0
4) Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell) 7.0
5) Apology (Plato) 7.0
6) Bend Sinister (Vladimir Nabakov) 7.0
7) The Symposium (Plato) 7.0
8) The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion) 7.0
9) Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card) 6.0
10) A Moveable Feast (Ernest Hemingway) 6.0

Rereads:

Franny & Zooey (JD Salinger) 10

[Melville]

2) The Republic (Plato) 8.5

Thoughts? I happened to finish it this morning. I thought it was some of the shoddiest philosophy I've ever read. All its arguments are specious (which makes for many amusing moments, given that Socrates' arguments, no matter their ridiculousness, are virtually always met with by a 'certainly' or 'inevitably' from the other speakers). Its definition of justice is a non-definition, relying on reason always leading to justice. And its ideas are repulsive: art is a mere copy of a copy, worthwhile only to provide models of good behavior, and most of it should be banned in the ideal society, which is one of blind obedience, strict lack of variation, eugenics, infanticide, totalitarianism, and propaganda. The repulsiveness puts the theory of forms, which I didn't mind so much in his other dialogues, in a very negative light: by essentially elevating concepts to the status of 'true reality' and lowering everything else to the status of a copy (or phenomenal representation) of that reality, Plato denigrates actual life with all its nuance, depth, and variety, and the call for strict self-control and totalitarian government makes sense in such a context, since it must be striving for a lifeless, anti-real ideality. Nietzsche was right: the whole thing is disgustingly anti-life.

The stuff about forms, particularly the allegory of the cave, does lend some interest to the more repulsive aspects, though.

1. The Silent Cry (Kenzaburo Oe, 1967) - 8.5
2. Under the Autumn Star (Hamsun, 1906) - 8.5
3. Concrete (Thomas Bernhard, 1982) - 8
4. A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings (Hamsun, 1909) - 8
5. Arthur Rimbaud: Complete Works (trans. Schmidt, 1868-1900) - 7.5
6. The Complete Stories (Kafka, 1909-24) - 7
7. Murphy (Beckett, 1938) - 6.5
8. Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, 1953) - 5.5
9. (32) Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Edgar Allan Poe, 1835-49) - 5
10. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886) - 4
11. The Republic (Plato, c. 380BC) - 3

[Milky Joe]

I recommend reading what Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom have to say on the subject of just how ironic Plato was being.

[Derek]

Thoughts?

I recommend reading what Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom have to say on the subject of just how ironic Plato was being.

Haven't read either of them, but I certainly felt at times that in following his definition of justice and good so thoroughly to its logical endpoints that he was clearly not always in support of the conclusions he came too. I also found it a surprisingly humorous text, even when Socrates came off as condescending and while I agree with Melville that some of the ideas are repulsive, particularly its notions of art and censorship, these seemed not to part of Socrates belief systems (he made a point of praising several forms of art that eventually, due to the restrictions already in place in the "utopian" republic being discussed, were deemed bannable) but rather part of the evil that would come from setting up such a restrictive yet philosophically sound (in some minds at least) political system.

I should also note that I'm coming at this as a relative philosophy n00b (aside from an Intro class yeeeears ago and some sprinkles of Nietzsche, Deleuze and Foucault since) so part of the joy was engaging with a text like this and see how Socrates builds his arguments.

[Melville]

Haven't read either of them, but I certainly felt at times that in following his definition of justice and good so thoroughly to its logical endpoints that he was clearly not always in support of the conclusions he came too.

I didn't get any sense of that, or of any irony in his arguments (except when responding to others' assertions early on, or mocking Athens later on). In his earlier dialogues, he takes some idea, carries it to its 'logical' endpoint, and then shows that that endpoint isn't at all what was wanted or that the original idea was incoherent—but he explicitly says so, and the dialogue ends with a newfound uncertainty. In The Republic, he argues that this society is the ideal, then spends two hundred more pages showing that some approximation to it is actually attainable and giving it a metaphysical justification in his theory of forms. Also, Plato in reality did try to help a king become a philosopher king and establish an ideal society.

some of the ideas are repulsive, particularly its notions of art and censorship

Not the eugenics and infanticide? :P

these seemed not to part of Socrates belief systems (he made a point of praising several forms of art that eventually, due to the restrictions already in place in the "utopian" republic being discussed, were deemed bannable)

He praises their poetic strengths, but basically only as a sop; he then explains that those strengths are being put to a bad use. And he even has a whole chapter providing a metaphysical justification for why ditching most art isn't so bad.

but rather part of the evil that would come from setting up such a restrictive yet philosophically sound (in some minds at least) political system.

Where is there any indication in the text that he thinks this (or anything else) is a significant evil in the political system, or that he thinks the political system is unsound?

I should also note that I'm coming at this as a relative philosophy n00b (aside from an Intro class yeeeears ago and some sprinkles of Nietzsche, Deleuze and Foucault since) so part of the joy was engaging with a text like this and see how Socrates builds his arguments.

It is certainly based on a more explicitly logical method of argumentation than Nietzsche, Deleuze, or Foucault. But how he builds his arguments was my biggest problem with the book. It's all vague, misleading analogies and ridiculous leaps in logic presented as if they were rock solid deductions. I remember his other dialogues being more logically sound, but I haven't read them in years. I plan to reread some this year.

[Benny Profane]

1. Underworld - Don DeLillo
2. Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe
3. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories - Franz Kafka
4. A Sport and a Pastime - James Salter
5. The Third Reich - Roberto Bolano
6. Here and Now! - Pat Martino (autobiography)

[Derek]

I didn't get any sense of that, or of any irony in his arguments (except when responding to others' assertions early on, or mocking Athens later on). In his earlier dialogues, he takes some idea, carries it to its 'logical' endpoint, and then shows that that endpoint isn't at all what was wanted or that the original idea was incoherent—but he explicitly says so, and the dialogue ends with a newfound uncertainty. In The Republic, he argues that this society is the ideal, then spends two hundred more pages showing that some approximation to it is actually attainable and giving it a metaphysical justification in his theory of forms. Also, Plato in reality did try to help a king become a philosopher king and establish an ideal society.

I suppose it could have been strengthened by explictly questioning the end point, but I simply didn't walk away from The Republic thinking that Socrates actually felt that the ideal republic formed via pure reason was either attainable or completely desirable.

Not the eugenics and infanticide? :P

I say this jokingly, but walk through a Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon and see how down on eugenics you are. But yeah, infanticide is going a bit far.

He praises their poetic strengths, but basically only as a sop; he then explains that those strengths are being put to a bad use. And he even has a whole chapter providing a metaphysical justification for why ditching most art isn't so bad.

I'd have to reread that section, but I agree there is something troubling about his justification and I don't remember much humor or irony.

Where is there any indication in the text that he thinks this (or anything else) is a significant evil in the political system, or that he thinks the political system is unsound?

It is certainly based on a more explicitly logical method of argumentation than Nietzsche, Deleuze, or Foucault. But how he builds his arguments was my biggest problem with the book. It's all vague, misleading analogies and ridiculous leaps in logic presented as if they were rock solid deductions. I remember his other dialogues being more logically sound, but I haven't read them in years. I plan to reread some this year.

There certainly were some giant leaps in logic, but for the most part, I found it logically sound and more interestingly, a fascinating look at reason and social, cultural and political mores of 4th Century BC shaping a distinct and exact political philosophy, even if it's not one that should ever be applied.

[D_Davis]

1. The Queen's Gambit, by Walter Tevis
2. Matadora, by Steve Perry
3. In Other Worlds, by A.A. Attanasio
4. When We Were Executioners, by J.M. McDermott
5. The Turtle Boy, by Kealan Patrick Burke
6. The Wizards and the Warlords, by Hugh Cook
7. The Quest of the DNA Cowboys
8. Battle in the Dawn: The Complete Hok the Mighty, by Manly Wade Wellman
9. Fifty-One Tales, by Lord Dunsany
10. Imajica, by Clive Barker


[

Show Spoiler

The rest, in rating order

5-stars


4-stars


3-stars
Edge of Dark Water, by Joe R. Lansdale

2-stars
Wildest Dreams, Norman Partridge

1-star

]