5 Books (of poetry) for Kate Wolf

1. Barbara Guest "Fair Realism"
2. Rae Armantrout "Next Life"
3. George Oppen "Collected Poems"
4. Myung Mi Kim "Dura"
5. Fanny Howe "Selected Poems"

49. Jean Donnelly "Anthem"

48. Zoe Heller "The Believers"

Via Bookslut (of all places [no disrespect]): a link to a great new(ish) site called The Second Pass (as opposed to, you know, an attack on Philip Roth). On the main page (of The Second Pass, not Bookslut) right now--a list of ten books that ought to be removed from the canon.

47. D.A. Powell "Chronic"

46. Carl Phillips "Speak Low"

45. John Ashbery "The Tennis Court Oath"

44. J.D. Salinger "The Catcher in the Rye"

43. Tennessee Williams "A Streetcar Named Desire"

42. Ann Lauterbach "Or To Begin Again"

So, you know that best-song-of-the-summer problem you've been having? Solved.

41. Mary Ruefle "The Most of It"

40. Christine Schutt "All Souls"

39. Elizabeth Strout "Olive Kitteridge"

38. Rae Armantrout "Versed"

37. Josh Bazell "Beat The Reaper"

36. Denis Johnson "Nobody Move"

35. Junot Diaz "Drown"

34. W.S. Merwin "The Shadow of Sirius"

5 Books for Claire Michie

1. Wells Tower "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned"
2. Allegra Goodman "Intuition"
3. John Cheever "The Wapshot Chronicle"
4. Rebecca Curtis "Twenty Grand and Other Tales of Love and Money"
5. Carl Wilson "Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste"

33. Wendy Wasserstein "The Heidi Chronicles"

32. Akilah Oliver "A Toast in the House of Friends"

31. Deborah Digges "Rough Music"

30. Monica de la Torre "Talk Shows"

I was totally going to post Cam'Ron's "I Hate My Job" because I sort of hate my job. But then I saw this and felt better.

29. Carl Wilson "Let's Talk About Love"

28. Sloane Crosley "I Was Told There'd Be Cake"

Sloane Crosley's book to become HBO show

27. Chelsey Minnis "Poemland"

26. John Wray "Lowboy"

25. Wells Tower "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned"

Wells Tower's "Wild America" read by a relay operator

24. Patricia Smith "Blood Dazzler"

23. Leni Zumas "Farewell Navigator"

22. Katie Degentesh "The Anger Scale"

21. Alice Sebold "The Lovely Bones"

20. Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons "Watchmen"

19. Katy Lederer "The Heaven-Sent Leaf"

18. Shanna Compton "For Girls (& Others)"

17. Alice Notley "The Descent of Alette"

16. Francine Prose "Blue Angel"

15. Margaret Edson "Wit"

14. Marjorie Welish "Isle of Signatories"

13. Gertrude Stein "Mexico: A Play"

12. Mary Ruefle "A Little White Shadow"

11. Noah Eli Gordon "Novel Pictorial Noise"

10. Kenneth Lonergan "This Is Our Youth"

9. David Berman "Actual Air"

8. Sarah Ruhl "Dead Man's Cell Phone"

7. Richard Greenberg "Take Me Out"

Doing a buck in the latest drop:

"'Eileen Myles Reads You Lucky Ducks Some Poems'"

6. Jerry Saltz "Seeing Out Loud"

5. David Lindsay-Abaire "Rabbit Hole"

4. David Mamet "Glengarry Glen Ross"

3. Erik Larson "The Devil in the White City"

2. Anne Carson "If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho"

1. Joan Retallack "Memnoir"

...and sometimes "Single Ladies"

No favorite book this year. While I had a lot more time to read, I spent much of 2008 working on a new book and perversely didn't get to many of the novels you would expect to find on a list of this kind (see "2666," "Home," "The End," "A Mercy," the-started-then-stopped [because of moving] "Netherland").

Plus pretty much everything I encountered, book-wise, film-wise, clothing-wise, otherwise was just playing catch up with "A Milli" (and sometimes "Single Ladies") anyway.

65. Kristi Maxwell "Realm Sixty-Four"

64. Thomas Pynchon "The Crying of Lot 49"

63. Ada Limon "Lucky Wreck"

62. Raymond Chandler "The Long Goodbye"

61. Daniel Mendelsohn "How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken"

60. Peter Schjeldahl "Let's See"

59. James Tate "The Ghost Soldiers"

5 (more) Books for Lauren Atlas

1. Richard Yates "Revolutionary Road"
2. Michael Chabon "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh"
3. Jeanette Winterson "The Passion"
4. T.C. Boyle "Drop City"
5. Steven Millhauser "Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer"

58. Tracy Letts "August: Osage County"

57. James M. Cain "The Postman Always Rings Twice"

7 Books for Xaviera Simmons

1. Marilynne Robinson “Housekeeping”
2. Tom Perrotta “The Abstinence Teacher”
3. Alice Munro “Runaway”
4. Donna Tartt “The Secret History”
5. Claire Messud “The Emperor’s Children
6. Philip Roth “The Plot Against America”
7. Joan Didion “Play It As It Lays”

56. Ian McEwan "Amsterdam"

55. Jen Hofer "Slide Rule"

54. Philip Roth "Indignation"

53. Heather Ramsdell "Lost Wax"

52. Curtis Sittenfeld "American Wife"

51. Valzhyna Mort "Factory of Tears"

50. George Pelecanos "The Turnaround"

49. Jonathan Miles "Dear American Airlines"

48. Joe Wenderoth "No Real Light"

47. Robert Haas "Time and Materials"

46. Harper Lee "To Kill A Mockingbird"

45. George Orwell "Animal Farm"

George Saunders

VICE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW

44. Luc Sante "Kill All Your Darlings"

Luc Sante's "Living With Music Playlist"

The one and only comment I have ever made in the comments section of any website (aside from agreeing with Michael Nicoloff about how rad that Ghost Town DJ's song "My Boo" is) was a response to Rebecca Walker's "Living With Music Playlist." Usually these things are filled with the usual suspects: Bob Dylan, Velvet Underground, Talking Heads (all of whom I love, of course). So it was nice to see someone talk about Black Star and Yaz. Same goes with the above, with Luc Sante's list, probably the only time you'll ever see Rich Boy mentioned in the New York Times Books section.

My Repertoire is U.S.S.R.

Not necessarily

43. Caroline Knox "Quaker Guns"

42. Michael Chabon "Maps and Legends"

41. Mike McGonigal "Loveless"

40. Steve Erickson "Zeroville"

Steve Erickson/Bookslut interview

39. James M. Cain "Double Indemnity"

38. Rae Armantrout "Up to Speed"

37. Raymond Chandler "The Big Sleep"

SO MUCH:

(as Erica would say)

36. Michael O'Brien "Sleeping and Waking"

35. Steven Millhauser "Dangerous Laughter"

THIS IS WAY BETTER

than that Liv Tyler movie.

More pairings: two great rap videos set in school.

34. Tao Lin "Bed"

33. Peter Gizzi "The Outernationale"

32. Marjane Satrapi "The Complete Persepolis"

31. Matthew Rohrer "Rise Up"

30. Mary Jo Bang "Elegy"

DO YOU KNOW

what's wrong with the new Rick Ross song?



Yep. More of this.

Also, the video--the Ross video--makes no sense. Snoop and Slim Charles in a botched something or other? I just don't buy it.

29. Alice Munro "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage"

28. Denis Johnson "Tree of Smoke"

Two great black and white rap videos, old school and new...

27. Susan Choi "A Person of Interest"

26. Jean Valentine "Little Boat"

"IT'S AN HONOR JUST TO BE NOMINATED:"

Junot Diaz has won the Pulitzer Prize.

Which makes me two for two (just in case you were counting) in terms of my-favorite-book-from-the-previous-year-winning-the-Pulitzer.

Poetry and (so I'm told) drama winners are exactly who you expected.

Apparently customers who bought Christine Schutt's "All Souls" also bought one of Jennifer Weiner's novels and the recently released Disney film "Enchanted."

Also: who knew Schutt's new book was out already?

I can't wait.

25. Matthea Harvey "Modern Life"

24. Ann Patchett "Bel Canto"

23. Herman Mellville "Bartleby the Scrivener"

APROPOS OF NOTHING:

TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS

I was worried for a second:
"Remainder" over "Then We Came To the End?"

Is Stephen Curry moonlighting on their (er, his, McCarthy's) team?

But they got it right in the end.

Sorry Thea's bookclub. Congratulations Mr. Diaz.

22. Jhumpha Lahiri "Unaccustomed Earth"

21. Prageeta Sharma "Infamous Landscapes"

20. Chris Martin "American Music"

19. Rebecca Curtis "Twenty Grand and Other Tales of Love and Money"

18. Richard Price "Lush Life"

James Wood on Richard Price's dialouge

17. Jennifer Egan "Look At Me"

16. Cate Marvin "Fragment of the Head of a Queen"

(This is super low quality video [plus they spelled her name wrong on YouTube] but whatever)

15. Charles Brock "Beautiful Children"

14. Daniel Clowes "Ghost World"

13. Elaine Dundy "The Dud Avocado"

12. August Wilson "Gem of the Ocean"

11. Troy Jollimore "Tom Thomson In Purgatory"

10. Dawn Lundy Martin "A Gathering of Matter/A Matter of Gathering"

9. Alice Notley "In the Pines"

8. Dorothea Lasky "Awe"

7. Eileen Myles "Sorry, Tree"

6. Rae Armantrout "Next Life"

5. Sarah Manguso, Dave Eggers, and Deb Olin Unferth "One Hundred and Forty Five Stories in a Small Box"

4. Adrian Tomine "Shortcomings"

3. Graham Foust "Necessary Stranger"

2. Felix Feneon "Novels in Three Lines"

Best christmas present ever.

1. Jim Shepard "Like You'd Understand, Anyway"

(Belated) '07 Wrap up

Once again, instead of a top 10, I will say only that Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" was the best book I read last year. Thanks to the great city of New York and its absurd cost of living and the fact that I had to work way more than I did last year, I did not read nearly as many books as I would have liked. Which is not too say that Diaz's novel wouldn't have taken first place if I'd had time to read, say, "Tree of Smoke."

Other notable books of 2007: Miranda July's "No One Belongs Here More Than You," Lydia Davis' "Varieties of Disturbance," and Joshua Ferris' "Then We Came to the End."

63. Anne Enright "The Gathering"

62. Christian Hawkey "Citizen Of"

61. Jesse Ball "Samedi the Deafness"

60. Tom Perrotta "The Abstinence Teacher"

59. Ann Patchett "Run"

58. Michael Chabon "Wonder Boys"

57. Junot Diaz "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"

56. Tracy K. Smith "Duende"

55. Courtney Queeney "Filibuster to Delay a Kiss"

54. Rick Moody "The Ice Storm"

53. Ian McEwan "On Chesil Beach"

52. Jess Walter "The Zero"

51. Philip Roth "Exit Ghost"

50. George Saunders "The Braindead Megaphone"

George Saunders on David Letterman

49. Joshua Ferris "Then We Came to the End"

48. Noelle Kocot "Poem for the End of Time and Other Poems"

47. Chelsey Minnis "Bad Bad"

46. Nick Flynn "Some Ether"

45. Ariana Reines "The Cow"

44. Eleni Sikelianos "The Monster Lives of Boys and Girls"

43. Vendela Vida "And Now You Can Go"

42. Prageeta Sharma "The Opening Question"

41. Rick Moody "Right Livelihoods"

40. Ben Lerner "Angle of Yaw"

39. Daniel Clowes "Ice Haven"

38. Darcy O'Brien "A Way of Life, Like Any Other"

37. Natasha Trethewey "Native Guard"

36. John Ashbery "A Worldly Country"

35. Donald Margulies "Dinner With Friends"

34. Adam Rapp "Red Light Winter"

33. Eleanor Lerman "Out Post-Soviet History Unfolds"

32. Lydia Davis "Varieties of Disturbance"

31. Michael Chabon "The Yiddish Policemen's Union"

30. Haruki Murakami "After Dark"

29. Miranda July "No One Belongs Here More Than You"

28. Ian McEwan "Enduring Love"

27. F. Scott Fitzgerald "The Great Gatsby"

26. Claudia Emerson "Late Wife

25. Anna Moschovakis "I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone"

24. Tom McCarthy "Remainder"

23. Dara Wier "Remnants of Hannah"

22. Kirk Varnedoe "Pictures of Nothing"

21. Terrance Hayes "Wind in a Box"

20. Jane Smiley "Ten Days in the Hills"

Sontag:

"'Time exists in order that everything doesn't happen all at once ... and space exists so that it doesn't all happen to you.'"

19. Lydia Davis "Almost No Memory"

"You Are The Weakest Link!" (Break It Down is still desert-island-top-five, however...)

18. Gillian Conoley "Profane Halo"

17. Alice Munro "The View from Castle Rock"

16. Jonathan Lethem "You Don't Love Me Yet"

15. Alison Bechdel "Fun Home"

Alison Bechdel's "Dykes To Watch Out For"

14. Vendela Vida "Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name"

13. Ward Just "An Unfinished Season"

12. Tracy K. Smith "The Body's Question"

11. Saskia Hamilton "Divide These"

10. Natasha Trethewey "Domestic Work"

9. Matthew Zapruder "The Pajamaist"

8. John Knowles "A Seperate Peace"

7. Seamus Heaney "District and Circle"

Seamus Heaney's Nobel Lecture

Heaney at MIT

6. Uzodinma Iweala "Beasts of No Nation"

Ali Smith on "Beasts of No Nation"

5. Kate Atkinson "Case Histories"

NY Times Review

Atkinson's Guardian Top 10

4. Arthur Bradford "Dogwalker"

From the Desk of...Arthur Bradford

Village Voice review

3. E.L. Doctorow "Creationists"

So, the problem with volumes of this kind, beyond the normal concerns with clarity, diction, syntax, etc., is one of subject matter. Where the focus (and its corollaries) of a non-fiction book dealing with a single subject can be reasonably sustained for hundreds of pages, the essayist dealing with multiple subjects must consider the whole, as well as the particulars of each segment. In much the same way works of short fiction can lead us onward in one of two ways (either as a loosely connected riff on one character or place [see: Denis Johnson's "Jesus' Son"] or as a less-connected assemblage united by a stylistic consistency [or an inconsistency that works, perversely, to the same effect] collections of essays dealing with a wide array of "characters" should (though perhaps not necessarily) commit to one and only one sort of viewpoint (and by viewpoint I do not mean an ideology but rather the way in which the authors sets pen to page when she or he is well past the point of "deciding" on an ideology; when the actual work begins). The degree of consistency to which the author adheres is another matter. In Elizabeth Alexander's "The Black Interior,” we find parts as disparate as JET Magazine, Denzel Washington, and Langston Hughes. To the casual observer these examples are united in their being products and (more interestingly) producers of African American culture. Upon closer inspection, however, JET can stand in for "low" culture, Denzel (though very much indebted to the coverage typically found in JET) for "high" culture, and Langston Hughes, as the Most Famous Black Poet of All Time, the most known "unknown" (to borrow a phrase from Three Six Mafia) becomes something else altogether different. The point being that, though all of the above are united by being black, they have, at the end of the day, about as much in common as Hawaiian Punch and Punch Drunk Love.

But I (because I am forever annoyed by complex matters reduced to platitudes; by vast histories scuttled away into single months) digress. "Creationists" is compelling mostly because of how much it makes of the idea of being consistent. Doctorow, the critic is obviously at play, though more importantly, Doctorow the historian and teller of tales is with us, guiding us with the same faculties that made Sherman's long march beside the coast that much more illuminating. His viewpoint, if we are generalizing, is ultimately that of the storyteller; forth and back in a chronology tied to what came before only as it relates to both what we know now and what the plot reveals of what might arrive later still.

"What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them:"

Zadie Smith on "honorable failure"

2. Forrest Gander "Eye Against Eye"

1. Gabrielle Calvocoressi "The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart"

(Belated) '06 Wrap-up

In lieu of a top 10 or top 50 or 87 best one-act plays written by teenagers in the Tri-State area, I will say only that "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy was the best (new) book I read this year (best "old" book honors would probably go to Hanif Kureishi's “The Buddha of Suburbia”). Also notable (and in no particular order): Marisha Pessl's "Special Topics in Calamity Physics," Claire Messud's "The Emperor's Children," and Edward P. Jones' "All Aunt Hagar's Children."

As for '07, you can expect more of what you saw in '06--that is, a list of books, plus links to others lists of books, plus, per Jeremy Sosnoff's suggestion, short reviews of said books and/or links to reviews/essays of said books (when there is, for example, a conflict of interest, as in the case of likely-book-number-one-for-'07, Forrest Gander's "Eye Against Eye").

And since you are, I am sure, still smarting from the loss of another best of list, I offer as a consolation:

Books I Am Looking Forward to Reading in 2007:

Richard Powers' "The Echo Maker"
Lisa Moore's "Alligator"
Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day"
Alice Munro's "The View from Castle Rock"
Tisa Bryant's "Unexplained Presence"
Vikram Chandra's "Sacred Games"
Colm Toibin's "Mothers and Sons"
Diane Williams' "It Was Like My Trying To Have a Tender Hearted Nature"
Jonathan Lethem's "You Don't Love Me Yet"
Kate Schatz's "Rid of Me"
Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union"
Ian McEwan's "On Chesil Beach"

120. Heidi Julavits "The Uses of Enchantment"

119. Joshua Beckman "Shake"

118. Ryan Boudinot "The Littlest Hitler"

117. Paul Muldoon "Horse Latitudes"

116. Rachel Sherman "The First Hurt"

115. Stephen Elliott "My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up"

114. Richard Ford "The Lay of the Land"

113. Mark Strand "Man and Camel"

112. Sarah Manguso "Siste Viator"

111. Matthea Harvey "Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form"

110. Nathaniel Mackey "Splay Anthem"

109. Karen Russell "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves"

108. Haruki Murakami "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman"

107. Paula Vogel "The Mammary Plays"

106. A. Van Jordan "M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A"

105. Cormac McCarthy "The Road"

104. Jonathan Franzen "The Discomfort Zone"

103. Claire Messud "The Emperor's Children"

102. Nilo Cruz "Anna in the Tropics"

101. Dennis Lehane "Coronado"

100. Kiran Desai "The Inheritance of Loss"

99. Ken Kalfus "A Disorder Peculiar to the Country"

98. Alice Munro "Lives of Girls and Women"

97. Doug Wright "I Am My Own Wife"

96. Ian McEwan "The Comfort of Strangers"

95. Craig Thompson "Blankets"

94. Gary Shteyngart "Absurdistan"

93. John le Carre "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold"

92. Dana Spiotta "Eat the Document"

91. Allegra Goodman "Intuition"

90. Salvador Plascencia "The People of Paper"

89. Robert Creeley "On Earth"

88. Patricia Highsmith "The Talented Mr. Ripley"

87. Charles D'Ambrosio "The Dead Fish Museum"

86. Ismail Kadare "The Successor"

85. Nick Laird "To a Fault"

84. James Salter "Last Night"

83. Dashiell Hammett "Red Harvest"

82. Kathryn Davis "The Thin Place"

81. Scott Smith "The Ruins"

80. Franz Wright "God's Silence"

79. Denis Johnson "The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly"

78. Don DeLillo "Mao II"

77. Tobias Wolff "This Boy's Life"

76. Yukio Mishima "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea"

75. Edward P. Jones "All Aunt Hagar's Children"

74. John Patrick Shanley "Doubt"

73. T.C. Boyle "Talk Talk"

72. Charles Burns "Black Hole"

71. Jennifer Egan "The Keep"

70. Joshua Clover "Madonna anno domini"

69. Louise Gluck "Averno"

68. Ron Padgett "You Never Know"

67. Suzan-Lori Parks "Topdog/Underdog"

66. Sheila Heti "Ticknor"

65. Marisha Pessl "Special Topics in Calamity Physics"

64. Jennifer Moxley "Often Capital"

63. Joshua Clover "The Totality for Kids"

62. Curtis Sittenfeld "The Man of My Dreams"

61. Ander Monson "Other Electricities"

60. Tim O'Brien "The Things They Carried"

59. William Golding "Lord of the Flies"

58. Jena Osman "An Essay in Asterisks"

56. Alice Munro "Runaway"

57. Anselm Berrigan "Some Notes On My Programming"

55. T.S. Eliot "Four Quartets"

54. Martin McDonagh "The Pillowman"

52. Saul Bellow "Dangling Man"

53. Christine Schutt "A Day, A Night, Another Day, Summer"

51. Bret Easton Ellis "Glamorama"

50. Tony Hoagland "Donkey Gospel"

49. James Tate "Worshipful Company of Fletchers"

48. Christopher Sorrentino “Trance”

47. Amy Hempel “At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom”

46. James Tate “Return to the City of White Donkeys”

45. Don DeLillo “Love-Lies-Bleeding”

44. Carl Phillips “Riding Westward”

43. James Baldwin “Giovanni’s Room”

42. Martin McDonagh “The Lieutenant of Inishmore”

41. George Saunders “The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil”

40. Graham Greene “The End of the Affair”

39. Dave Eggers “How We Are Hungry”

38. Amy Hempel “Tumble Home”

37. Gary Lutz “Stories In the Worst Way”

36. Gabriel Garcia Marquez “Memories of My Melancholy Whores”

35. Jay McInerney “The Good Life”

34. Ian McEwan "The Cement Garden"

33. Tom Wolfe “The Bonfire of the Vanities”

32. Ann Lauterbach "Hum"

31. Bret Easton Ellis “The Informers”

30. Colson Whitehead “Apex Hides the Hurt”

29. E.H. Gombrich “A Little History of the World”

28. Philip Roth “Everyman”

27. Hanif Kureishi “The Buddha of Suburbia”

26. Dan Chiasson “Natural History”

25. George Saunders “In Persuasion Nation”