2013: What I Read

Herewith, a list of all books read in 2013. Roughly in order (I might have switched a couple around), with an asterisk if they deserve special note.

1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck * (with a !)
2. Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres
3. The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits
4. By Blood by Ellen Ullman
5. The House Gun by Nadine Gordimer
6. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
7. The Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein
8. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan *
9. The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham *
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte * (of course)
11. No Mark Upon Her by Deborah Crombie
12. The Gods of Gotham by Lindsay Faye
13. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
14. Where Memories Lie by Deborah Crombie
15. The Orientalist by Tom Reiss
16. Ali and Nino by Kurban Said
17. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout *
18. Carry the One by Carol Anshaw
19. This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz *
20. Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayer
21. The Host by Stephanie Meyer
22. What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan
23. Harvard Square by Andre Aciman *
24. Where’d You Go, Bernadette? By Maria Semple
25. The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer *
26. The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
27. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain *
28. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
29. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann *
30. The Cockoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling)
31. Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther
32. Frankenstein by Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley
33. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen *
34. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen *
35. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
36. Summer Reading by Hilma Wolitzer
37. Skylark by Dezso Kosztolanyi
38. The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani
39. The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri *
40. The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty
41. The Submission by Amy Waldman
42. Cartwheel by Jennifer duBois
43. A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz *
44. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
45. The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
46. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt *
47. Mastering the Art of French Eating by Amy Mah
48. The Circle by Dave Eggers
49. Anything that Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture by Dana Goodyear
50. Tenth of December by George Saunders

Beat the clock. Or the calendar.

Well, I'm probably not going to reach my goal of a book a week this year, 52 books total. Unless I read like a madwoman for the next 9 days, which may not be possible considering there's one family birthday (figlio minore, not so minore any more-aye?) (sorry), the arrival of figlio maggiore, some cousins visiting from out of town, a massive Feast of the Seven Fishes (more like nine in my menu) to prepare for Christmas Eve, then more feasting of the traditional ham-and-all-the-trimmings variety on Christmas Day. Not to mention various other festivities and presents to wrap and places to go and things to do.

But I can't say my output has been too shabby. And here come the last four (yes, four!) books I've mostly enjoyed (one of which really slowed down the total, but was so worth it). I'm still hoping there will be a couple more before the midnight bell strikes on 2013.

#45. The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro. I've read her stories over the years in The New Yorker, but never picked up a collection. My book group chose this one for December in honor of her receiving the Nobel Prize in literature this year. I had the same response to them that I always have to her stories: they are compelling, a little scary, somewhat creepy. Reading them feels like picking up a rock and seeing something slimy and awful slither out. Even when bad things don't happen there is still a lingering feeling of dread. I can't say I enjoy the experience of reading her, but I sure do admire her ability to conjure up a full, rounded character in just a few short sentences -- better than most writers manage in pages and chapters (sometimes entire books). If you don't believe me, just read the first few pages of the title story. She introduces three boys and with just a few brief strokes you know them, you know their families, their fears, their hopes, and their lives -- and then they leave the story, never to reappear. It's almost like she's showing off. But I give her more credit than that -- she's building a town and a time -- and then finding her way to the true heart of her story, set like a gem in this world that you now know and believe. It's quite something.

#46. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I'm a big Tartt fan and was very excited that a new novel -- and a big juicy one -- was to be published this year. I read the New York Times review and got even more excited. Nearly 800 pages later (this was the book that slowed me down) I completely agreed with what Michiko Kakutani wrote:

"Ms. Tartt has made Fabritius's bird the MacGuffin at the center of her glorious, Dickensian novel, a novel that pulls together all her remarkable storytelling talents into a rapturous, symphonic whole and reminds the reader of the immersive, stay-up-all-night pleasures of reading."

So true. The book was a captivating joy to read with brilliantly drawn characters, excitement, sorrow, joy, pain, love -- it had it all. I wanted to race through it and I wanted to savor it slowly because I loved every single one of the oh-so-many pages.

#47. Mastering the Art of French Eating by Amy Mah. Ms. Mah's husband, a diplomat, managed to achieve the dream and get posted to Paris. But then he is sent to Iraq for a year, where she cannot accompany him, and Mah is left alone, jobless, virtually friendless, in the city of her dreams. One of the ways she copes is by researching and writing this book, a look, chapter by chapter, at various regions of France and each one's iconic dish. Paris = steak frites, Brittany = crepes, Lyon = salad Lyonnaise, etc. Although her writing may not be brilliant, it's an interesting tale, and the recipes for each dish are included. One of these days I may get around to making the highly complicated standout dish of Toulouse, cassoulet.

#48. The Circle by Dave Eggers. It's the 1984 for the google generation. The time is now, and young Mae Holland goes to work for a google-like company called the Circle, which is aiming to consolidate all information, all knowledge, all identity, through its technology. Although it seems wild at first, it quickly comes to feel not very far away -- like we could be on the verge of this right now, and all those paranoid-seeming people who rant about loss of privacy are maybe onto something. Although the book has some flaws -- it gets preachy at times, and Mae is not very well drawn (by the end of the book I still had no idea what she looked like), Eggers is an entertaining and fast-moving writer, and the company and world he creates is both marvelously inventive and frighteningly believable. Almost made me delete my Facebook account.