This year I decided
to track my reading, to look for patterns and to work toward broadening my
horizons – specifically, to that final point, I wanted to read more non-fiction
and to read more books written by women, and I think I achieved that.
Overall, I read 38
books this year – 12 novels, 13 works of non-fiction, and (if you’re doing the
math at home) 13 books that fell under the “Other” category, which includes
plays, books of poetry, short story collections, novellas, and anything else
that did not fall neatly under the Novel and Non-fiction ones. To be honest, I am surprised at how well it
spread out. I did not go into this
trying to be so even, in the spread across these categories. Must be my weird, subconscious “math-wired”
brain at work.
Anyway. The novels were split evenly between male and
female authors, with two of the best I read this year from women – Mrs.
Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, which defines lustrous prose for me, and Save
Yourself by Kelly Braffet, which was a riveting, genuine, powerful coming of
age story, something I am not attracted to, as a sub-genre. Really powerful stuff. Other notables would be my first Elmore
Leonard novel, Road Dogs, Toni Morrison’s latest, Home, Country Hardball, by
Steve Weddle, which is an amazing crime novel-as-collection-of-short-stories,
and This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, who is one of my favorite
contemporary authors whose turns of phrase are beautiful and poetic and moving,
all at once. Great stuff.
Some of the notable
non-fiction I read this year included Difficult Men, which looks at the shift
in television brought about by HBO, FX, and similar cable stations, led by a
vanguard of distinct and strong-willed showrunners like David Chase, David
Milch, David Simon, and David (actually, Vince) Gilligan. I also read Julius Caesar: the Life &
Times of the People’s Dictator, which was interesting and allowed for a better
understanding of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, when I read that directly after,
and The New Middle East by Paul Danahar, which sheds light on what has actually
been going on in the middle east from the BBC’s primary correspondent there the
past few years, and Rez Life by David Treuer, which gives voice to the pain and
injustices Native Americans have been forced to deal with ever since Europeans
arrived here, centuries past. It is a
harrowing, disturbing, heartbreaking book, but one that everyone American
should read (though I doubt half of those would take away any life lessons from
it; yes, the half who thinks Fox News is actually news).
I only got four of
Shakespeare’s plays read this year – Julius Caesar, Antony & Cleopatra,
Hamlet, and Macbeth – but they were a joy to read. Looking forward to more Shakespeare in 2015,
which is always inspirational, to me. I
also read four books from Harlan Ellison, my favorite author, including a
collection of short stories, a collection of his teleplays (Brain Movies III),
a re-read of Mefisto in Onyx, the novella that was my introduction to Ellison,
and his first collection of essays on television from the 70s, The Glass
Teat. I’ve read a healthy number of his
books, but I look forward to whittling away at the stack even more, in the
coming year. And I also read two Cormac
McCarthy books, neither one of them novels – The Stonemason, a brilliant play
that included some of the most insightful and brilliant prose I read this year,
and his screenplay for The Counselor, which was interesting if a bit of a
let-down. This one felt more like an
exercise in extremes rather than a desire to craft something of
significance. That said, the
disappointment in the plot did not take away from the brilliance of the man’s
prose and. McCarthy is a singular
talent. Can’t wait to read more of his
work.
And that’s
that. Hoping next year to expand the
number of books I read, but that may be tough.
Because I need time for my family and time to write.
-chris
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