Part of the fun of end of year movie and music lists is their immediacy. Even if you’ve been hiding under a rock during 2010, listening only to NPR or the music of your youth and watching televison in a stupor before you drift off to sleep around 10 pm, you can still get back up to speed during a YouTube/iTunes fueled weekend or a few cinema visits during the Christmas holiday.
Not so with book lists. If you are anything like me, you probably have no idea what was published this year (with the exception of a certain Time cover boy). I try to pay attention, but Daily Show and Fresh Air guests tend to blend together and it honestly might be years before I get around to reading the offerings of 2010. However, I still like to keep track of the end of year book lists because if, heaven forbid, I ever make it all the way through the stack on my bedside table (technically that stack has overflowed into a stack beside the table) or find myself stymied one summer day while pondering the quick selection rack at the library, I want to have a few ideas in my back pocket.
Below, in no particular order, are the list of books published in 2010 that have caught my attention:
Fiction
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Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, Franzen’s tale of a disintegrating suburban family arrived in a storm of publicity and controversy. This will be my first read of 2011 and is actually already on the bedside table waiting for me to finish the last 200 pages of Anna Karenina. (More about that in a future post.)
- Room by Emma Donogue, A little scared of this one, but I like to face my fears.
- A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
- Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas, I always find Thomas’ novels to be ambitious, uneven, but highly enjoyable.
- The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson, Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize, but note the bad reviews on Amazon. I’m totally intrigued.
- Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine
- Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1, by Mark Twain, ed. Harriet Elinor Smith et al., I’ve only read excerpts of Twain’s autobiography, this new and highly praised definitive version seems like the perfect excuse to read the whole thing.
- Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
- Life: Keith Richards by Keith Richards, Have I mentioned how much I love rock bios and autobiographies? No? I really love rock bios and autobiographies. This one sounds great.
- Just Kids by Patti Smith, Love Patti Smith. Love books about art and artists and rock stars (see sentence above).
What did I miss? What were the best books you read in 2010? Anything you are looking forward to reading in the new year?
I just read the Franzen article on Time…. I think he’s brilliant. I got through most of ‘The Corrections’ a few years back, but – for some reason I can’t remember – I got derailed midway. I need to get back and read that again, and his others. ‘The Finkler Question’ looks good too.
The Corrections was a rare hardback purchase for me. I really, really liked it — as controversial as the praise for Franzen has been, he is undoubtedly a great writer. That said, The Corrections is not a favorite — for me, it was strikingly beautiful, but a little cold. I’m still excited to read Freedom
I was a big fan of The Corrections and rate Freedom at the same level. It gets bogged down a little at the two-thirds point — I won’t spoil the how/why/where — but soon picks up again and finishes strong. Franzen writes from at least four points of view (i.e. four different characters/voices) throughout the novel, but the most fascinating voice is the lone female perspective, that of Patty Berglund, former college basketball star and current suburban housewife.
What I like best about Franzen and Freedom, and is something pointed out in the Time piece (if I remember correctly), and elsewhere, is Franzen’s interest and daring to write the big, social novel, like Tolstoy, Dickens, Steinbeck, etc. Something that feels bigger (while remaining intimate) than itself, and defining of it’s time and place. The Corrections did that for the 90s, and Freedom does that for the 00s.
Regarding the social novel, Franzen says, “Well, “War and Peace” was admittedly a model, because I think reading that novel is an experience everyone who can read should have at some point in their life. To have a book that is not so short that it’s over in an evening, something that becomes part of your life for a series of days and that you just don’t want to have end. That’s really the goal. And again that’s with the view to pushing back this electronic culture of tiny little bits of information bombarding you and gratifying you every five seconds. It’s a model, and the 19th century novels in general are a model of a different kind of time of thinking and feeling in a somewhat slower but hopefully more intense way.”
Of course, beware of the Freedom naysayers who are out in full force. Inevitable really, following the initial hype and praise, and given Franzen’s polarizing personality. I point this out to guard against the both hype/praise and the backlash, to enjoy Freedom on it’s own merits, and not on its secondary level, as a lightning rod for pundits and critics.
When the novel was released in the states, I was so disappointed that I would have to wait until the October UK release. But I am grateful that I’m going to be reading it after the fact, without so much noise to make my expectations too high or unfairly low.
I had read Franzen’s comments about the big social novel as well as some thoughtful reviews that say he has actually moved away from postmodernism and towards social realism, which I find very intriguing, although, I think an argument can be made that he has always been a social realist. However, IMO, The Corrections shows a lot of influence from Foster Wallace and Nabokov.
I just posted a similar list/question on my FB page yesterday. I’m always up for good book recommendations.
Here are the books I read in 2010 that stand out in my mind the most:
1. Walking with the Wind – John Lewis
2. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – Oliver Sacks
3. This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men & Women
4. The Help – Kathryn Stockett
5. Mama, Ph.D.
6. Made for Goodness – Desmond Tutu & Mpho Tutu
7. Half the Sky – Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn
8. To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee
9. In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment & Deliverance – Wilbert Rideau
10.Anne Frank Remembered – Miep Gies
Gah! I just realized I didn’t follow the instructions. I hastily read the title and went looking for the books I had read–not books that had been published in 2010. Yes, I’m quite unaware of new books that were published last year. I bought Brent a subscription of the New York Review of Books for Christmas, though, so maybe I’ll become more aware in 2011.
Two more that I loved from 2010: The Passage by Justin Cronin and Faithful Place by Tana French. The Passage is hefty – but so engrossing How can a post-apocalyptic vampire world not be? The premise sounds a little hokey, but it is soooo good. I’m a huge Tana French fan and Faithful Place was not a let down. A police mystery set in Ireland, and yes, you’ll probably figure out whodunnit before the end, but her exploration of family relationships was so well done.
I’ve never read Tana French, but I’ve read really good things about Faithful Place and I like mysteries, especially when they are well-written. Something to add to the list already. :)
Which reminds me, have you ever read Kate Atkinson? Her Jackson Brodie mysteries are wonderful.
No – I haven’t read Kate Atkinson — another one to check out! I only recently discovered that I really, really enjoy the police – thriller genre (never thought of myself that way….) Tana French and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series converted me. I’ve since read books by both Sophie Hanna and Laura Lippman. I think I’m biased toward the female writers (interesting….)
Would really love to read ‘Delusions of Gender’ sounds like my kind of book.. just wonder if the library will have it.. or if we should add yet more books to our collection.
I’ll order it for you!! I’ve got the Amazon page open on a tab already!! :D
…and it’s on its way! :D xxx
Helen — any interest in doing a book report for us? Andy is practically volunteering you. :)
Yeah – might be fun.. not sure how long the book is, but it may take me a while to get through it. I’ve been trying to read ‘The Feminine Mystique’ for ages now, and I hardly read any of ‘The Female Eunuch’ before I had to give it back to the library, I wasn’t allowed to renew it, and it took a while on order, it really is a book still in demand. As you can tell, I’m having a bit of a feminism read frenzy at the moment :)
In that case, you might like A Year of Feminist Classics, which is an informal on-line reading group. From the site:
I am planning to do this.
Thanks for that Heidi – looks great. Think I’ll try and read along as well :)
I listened to the author if “Room” talking about the book on NPR, she was this really upbeat, pleasant mom-sounding woman. It was a little shocking in contrast to the subject matter of her book, but I am certainly intrigued.
I’ve just finished Room. It was fairly light-fare really but it raises some interesting questions about shared suffering. I liked it but think that is probably good ‘Book Club’ material – esp. Mormon book-clubs – but probably not a classic and is certainly not likely to be remembered.
Franzen is also on my must read list. Also, George Handley’s ‘Home Waters’ is also on that list as is Philip Roth’s Nemesis. I love me some Roth.
Aaron, thanks for the review. I’ll wait for it to make its way into my book club and replace it with Roth on my personal list. :) Has anyone read the new one?
The Review Show had short segment on the new Roth during the same week they did the Franzen interview. It might still be available on iplayer. Roth’s book was well received though there were some differing interpretations and it did not seem to be one of his more challenging texts, rather it seemed to be a book by a man who has honed his craft, similar I would say to the later DeLillo books, like ‘Falling Man’. Mind all this is said with the caveat that I have not read it but this is what I gleaned from the discussion and other reviews I have read.