 Most of the books I’ve read since my last update were for my capstone seminar, entitled “Endings” and directed by Dr. Will Marquess. It was a pleasure to read them, and their companionship really took the edge off the harrowing “capstone” experience.
If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino, brought to English by the impeccable William Weaver. If any well-apportioned library lacks If on a winter’s night a traveler, I forgive the slight at once. If any library has it, however, I extend almost irrevocable esteem. The novel is a book about reading a book by the same title, but by the end of the novel covers censorship, and—in my reading—the delicate connection of art, artifice, and deception. This book is a haven for theory wanks, but anyone who loves books should be able to approach this with all due reverence.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Most everyone I knew had to eat this bullet in high school, but I skirted its edges until now. Awakening is a problem book for me, but mostly because I hate Edna. A critic, whose name escapes me, said something to the effect that Chopin sympathized with Edna, but never pitied her. Perhaps I am the opposite.
Beloved by Toni Morrison. I gave this book multiple readings, because I couldn’t finish in one attempt. Or two. Or three. Beloved is widely-regarded as a success, that is, it achieves the goals that Morrison articulated, but I find that her aesthetic sense rarely appeals to me. Contemporary literature has a lot of bad aesthetic habits, and Beloved legitimizes them.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. Of course any course about “Endings” would include Roger Ackroyd. There is no doubt that Christie left an indelible impression on popular fiction, and the device she used in Roger Ackroyd will be forever hers.
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. As much as I hate to say it, I like Palahniuk but I hate his fans. Well, perhaps that isn’t true—perhaps I just haven’t yet seen a “transgressional fiction” manage to transgress itself, and I find that it has a penchant for tedious regression. In any event, I’m biased because I feel that David Fincher’s directorial grasp of the story surpassed Palahniuk’s authorial treatment. I find something about Fight Club truly distasteful: not the blood, anarchy, explosions, or any other moral distaste. It’s not an aesthetic distaste either. The book is intentionally polarizing, and divides readers into two camps: “omfg I love Fight Club it’s so raw and manly and let’s all fight and blow something up because nothing really matters” versus the camp of readers who think, “My, this writer is offering an interesting commentary on how it is so easy to misplace our faith when we try to rebel against our consumerist culture.” The latter is the theory wank, the former is what Laura Miller so lovingly called the “stoned high school student who has just discovered Nietzsche and Nine Inch Nails.” The problem is that these two readings cannot exist side-by-side: something that all thoughtful readings are (axiomatically) supposed to be able to do. The wanks look down on the eyeliners because they’re missing the subtle, enlightened reading, whereas the eyeliners look down on the wanks for being tools of what the book fights against. If I wasn’t any smarter, I’d say that Palahniuk panders to those who buy his bread while trying to reassure the rest of us that it’s exactly not what it says it is.
My edition came with an afterword from Palahniuk. If I didn’t dislike him before, he did a great job making sure I do now.
Other books I’ve read:
Freemasonry and Its Etiquette by William Preston Campbell-Everden. I was unable to trace the genealogy of this book: Preston wrote it, but it was updated somewhat in New York or Pennsylvania, but is still fundamentally about the English flavored Freemasonry. Bought this in a small bookstore in Montpelier because I had book money over the summer.
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson. I ultimately found this book to be a bit gimmicky, and it was almost fatally hampered by one of the most contrived happy endings ever, but there were moments of delicious uncertainty. The nameless, ungendered narrator is bisexual, and possibly a horrible liar, who really digs married women. That’s all I’ll say about it, because anyone who wishes to read it—please do, it’s a comfortably quick but satisfying read—should try to experience the prose in whatever uncertainty possible.
The New Yorker recently published a list of seven fantasy books for someone who’s looking to go to “second base” with fantasy. Reaction from the blogosphere has been mixed, but on the upshot I’ve been able to uncover many great minds who are blogging about speculative fiction / fantasy.
My Reading List-a-Thon continues with my annotations of the list, my additions, and pointers to other lists. I’ll hope to consolodate them into a Big ol List of Fantasy sometime soon. I do have some misgivings about this idea of “Well, people who like bonafide novels (The New Yorker’s phrase) should try to find something soft and easy to convert them to fantasy.” What on Middle-Earth is there to understand? You mean someone who puts down A Dance to the Music of Time or The Golden Bowl long enough to look at fantasy is going to be somehow confused, lost, or disoriented? “I . . . I just don’t understand . . . Dragons? Dragons aren’t real . . . How did they get into this book? Did Anne Rice interview a dragon, to know what dragonness is like? Oh, that was Anne McCaffery. Never mind.”
* The Dragonbone Chair: Tad Williams. “If you want to read a classic epic fantasy series that is not the Lord of the Rings, start here.”
I can’t disagree, primarily because I haven’t read it. But if you’re looking to start on something and the main component is “Don’t be LOTR,” this is just as good of a place as any . . . Except for maybe the Wheel of Time series. James Long respectfully disagrees: “its only redeeming quality in my eyes is the fact that it inspired [George R. R. Martin] to write [A Song of Ice and Fire].”
Alas, I’m really wracking my brains here, but only because the surest way to make me tire of a fantasy book is to put an elf in it . . . to my jaundiced reader self, “epic fantasy that’s not like LOTR” is like saying “A professional chef who isn’t, like, carbon based.” Of course, that’s tremendously unfair, but I think Jordan is the only other natural choice. Mark Charan Newton, author of Nights of Villjamur, accused the NYer list as being unimaginative, for such an imaginative genre. I agree.
* Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay. What kind of advice is that? Granted, they do specify several books in particular, none of which I’ve read. After reading Ysabel I don’t know that I’ll ever drag myself back to the GGK table. Adam Whitehead classified this as “Pseudohistorical Epic Fantasy” which is so much of a red flag you could use it to decorate Mao’s birthday party. Mr. Whitehead notes that it’s either Kay or Elliott’s Crown of Stars, whereby Kay would win.
What about . . . you know, I”m not sure if I can make this recommendation and live it down, but what about the Kushiel books? Several are quite good. Steamy, but that’s a given. But it isn’t smut, and it’s great fun. However, it’s not really “epic,” but each individual book helps build a huge, sweeping alternate world.
* Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind.
No no no no no. This list is dead to me. Observers rightly note that the NYer article mentions that only the first book in the series is worth reading, but I challenge that sentiment wholeheartedly. Again, Mr. Whitehead is spot-on when he notes that the first book is “okay” only in light of the tripe that follows it, but that’s like saying that you’re “okay” after getting run over by a Camry because you know the jackhammer powered garbage truck carrying a payload of lead is about to hit you next. I know a good friend who considers these books to be her favorites: nothing has ever made me change subjects in a conversation faster.
The first book is about a thoroughly unlikable man named Richard, in a world where every other character is named Zedd, Darken, Kahlan, and Demmin Nass. Richard? Anyway, the book starts rocky, ends with an eye-roller of a “twist” ending, and in the middle contains sexual abuse, torture, child abuse, sadomasochism, and I just can’t go on.
Like I said, this list is dead to me.
* Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb.
Haven’t read it, nor has Mr. Long. Mr. Whitehead dispenses with it in short order.
* Scions of Shannara by Terry Brooks.
Aidan Moher doesn’t think Brooks gets the respect he deserves, but I’m not going to be the first one to step up to the plate. I admit that I haven’t read this book in particular, but I can’t really get behind Terry Brooks in general. To be diplomatic, when I read Sword of Shannara I realized that it hadn’t age well. I read through as much of Elfstones as I could, but had to stop. So I figured I would jump ahead in his writing career and read what was then his latest book: Ilse Witch (”Voyage of the Jerle Shannara”). I haven’t gone back since, and I don’t know when I will.
* The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Again, I can’t comment – I haven’t read this, but it’s also the only book on this list that I feel badly about not reading. I did pick it up and sniff through the first page, and I realized two things: it was probably very good, to be honest, and two—like modern dance, I would need to be in the right frame of mind. I easily see this being my early-October pre-NaNoWriMo novel.
* Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
By the end of the “Beginner’s List” I felt as though I was illiterate: all these “gateway” novels that I haven’t read! However, our panel of commentators panned this one, unanimously saying that it didn’t begin to be on a “Beginner’s List.” Once more, I can’t comment.
Since I’m lukewarm about the New Yorker list, I guess it’s time to put up or shut up.
* Kushiel’s Scion, see above. These are easy to wrap your mind around, but are filled with spirituality, vibrant characters, and sex.
* A Wizard of Earthsea by the Ursula K. LeGuin. Since the New Yorker list is a gentle slide out of Harry Potter and into what the NYer lovingly referred to as grown-up actual novels, this might seem like I’m coddling. This book might show its age, but its Taoist undertones and fascination with the “true” can lead to the kind of contemplation a “serious” reader can appreciate.
* Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I was torn between Elantris and the Mistborn series, but as excellent as I find Elantris to be, the Mistborn trilogy is technically superior. Mr. Moher omitted Mistborn in favor of Memory, Shadow, and Thorn because that slot “is for those who enjoy taking a step back and falling into a novel, head over heels” while also saying it took him three attempts to fall into MS&T. I fell into Mistborn on my first attempt.
* American Gods by Neil Gaiman, in place of the seemingly obligatory “Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay”, which I’ve already qualified by saying “Anything except Ysabel.” This is an extraordinarily strong “urban fantasy” that’s well-paced and great fun. I was surprised to see this left off of so many lists, although Messers. Long, Whitehead, Moher, and Newton are all residents of Commonwealth countries, whereas I’m a staunch Yankee who doesn’t think twice about reading something called “American Gods.” In fact, I remark with a touch of self-deprecating humor, I was surprised to find that there weren’t any Kennedys represented therein.
* Sabriel by Garth Nix. Sabriel is a lot like Lord of the Rings, except you take away the Fellowship and replace it with a talking cat and amnesiac. And instead of elves, dwarves, and ringwraiths you put in zombies. So it’s nothing like Lord of the Rings.
* The Wheel of Time series. Ok, I’ll be the one to do it. Just because it has more secondary characters than the “professional reference” section of a gigolo’s resume doesn’t mean that’s its necessarily a hard or cumbersome read, and probably won’t scare away too many. Besides, Robert Jordan managed to employ every single possible trope, cliche, generic theme, and archetype into his writing, and that’s just in Eye of the World. Once a reader sees them in Jordan, he or she can move on to other ideas.
* This final entry is largely symbolic: So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane. I doubt any “serious” highbrow reader will stop chewing the fat of The Sound and the Fury in order to read the Young Wizards series. But this is fantasy, and if you don’t, in your heart of hearts, want to be a wizard, the best list in the world won’t help you.
So, here are the lists I cribbed when I wrote this, in no particular order:
James Long (Speculative Horizons), Mark Charan Newton, Adam Whitehead (The Wertzone), and Aidan Moher (A Dribble of Ink). Out of all the lists, I’m most excited to explore Mr. Newton’s, as it clearly offers a more advanced reading list. I feel similarly towards Larry’s list at OF Blog of the Fallen.
I assumed that this would be the boring part of the “Year in Reading” series, but by Jess’s popular demand, it’s time to publicize the books that are on my list, and are yet unread. To make it interesting, I will try to offer some annotations.
1. The Modern Library Top 100 That is comprised of the left-hand side, ignoring “The Reader’s Picks” I disregard any “Top 100″ list where Charles de Lint has 8 entries. This isn’t a dig at Mr. de Lint, I remember reading The Onion Girl vividly. It just goes to show that the list was poorly sampled.
2. The Radcliffe Rival Top 100 (ignoring overlap, obviously).
My 12th grade teacher’s commentary on those two lists: “Most of these should be under your belt by college.” Mrs. K. O’Brien.
The Jamie H. Gorton Originals
- Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. I want to write fantasy novels for a living. I’m still trying to chew down WoT. Give me time.
- The Anxiety of Influence Harold Bloom. I wasn’t sure if I believed in the anxiety of influence, it seemed tautological, until I finished Sanderson’s Mistborn series.
- Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace. This is the book that has been on my list the longest. It probably will win an all-time award for that, as I don’t see myself bedridden for 3 months in the near future.
- The Hugo Award Winners vol. I and II
- The Stand Steven King. Purportedly his best.
- Dante’s Girl – Kayla Steele. Just saw in a bookstore once.
- The Book of Mormon. This will continue to be an important religious text. Alas, it’s impossible to get past the Book of Alma.
- Jesus the Christ, James Talmage. An interesting chrisitological companion to the above.
- By Sarah Monette, vis a vis recommendation
- Melusine
- The Virtu
- The Mirador
- Louis McMaster Bujold’s The Sharing Knife series, vis a vis recommendation
- The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
- The Broken Crown, Michelle West
- The Land of Laughs, Jonathan Carroll
- Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Susanna Clarke. Someday I will get through the second half of this Time Book of the Year, Hugo winning pile of undigestible verbiage.
- The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
- Paradise Lost, Milton. All of Paradise Lost.
- The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly
- Sonny’s Blues, James Baldin
- The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Mila Kundera
- The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinkner.
- Something out of Brecht’s epic drama, by recommendation
- “W;t”, Margaret Edson, by recommendation
- Black Elk Speaks
- Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami by recommendation
- Cane, Jean Toomer
- The water studies by Maruso Emoto (scientific work)
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson
- Secret History of the World Mark Booth
- The Meaning of Masonry W. L. Wilmshurst (Masonic interest)
- The Memory Keeper’s Daughter – Kim Edwards
- Virgin Suicides, Jeffery Eugenides
- Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (yes, there is still someone on Earth who hasn’t read this)
- Look to the East (Masonic interest)
- Dragonsbane Brbara Hambly
- The Snow Leopard P. Matherson
- Cryptonomicon Neil Stephenson
- “The Decay of Lying” Oscar Wilde
- The short novels of Dostoevsky
- The Gambler
- Notes from the Underground
- Uncle’s Dream
- The Eternal Husband
- The Double
- The Friend of the Family
- The Devil in the White CIty Erik Lawson (bought at a book fair)
- Beloved, Toni Morrison
- Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
- The Million Dollar Molecule Barry Werth
- Warbreaker Brandon Sanderson
- Reading Lolita in Tehran Azar Nafisi
- Otherland I: City of Golden Shadow Tad Williams
This list is sadly not comprehensive. For instance, I know I’m going to Interlibrary Loan the only copy of Brandon Sanderson’s Dragonsteel. I also own a signed copy of Mara and the Priest which I need to read. A
lso, this list hardly touches the 19th century, where there are a lot of works, especially by Russians, I need to pick up.
You will notice that the list is heavily slanted towards the fantasy genre, and that I didn’t include any poetry on the list.
That’s all . . . for now . . . Read hard.
Books I’ve Read Since the List Began
As you’ll see below, this is a fairly comprehensive, but entirely thorough, list. The list started out as just a few notes about books I should read, but not really a record of books I had read. Since then, I’ve found both to be equally valuable, as so many books can get pushed out of our mind without small reminders. Of course, most of those books are forgettable anyway, and my list comprises a few of these less-than-classics. In this installment, I’lve included a brief, sometimes imaginary, adjective to pair with the book.
Stay tuned for Part III, where I betray the part of the list that I haven’t read yet . . .
Books on the List I read before 06/06
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (great)
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (good)
1984, George Orwell (good)
Animal Farm, George Orwell (tolerable)
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (great)
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway (readable)
A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor (great)
Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (great)
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (unique)
Books Read Between 06-06 and 05-07
Bummer, I wasn’t keeping a list, but I know I read some great books, like American Gods, The Kite Runner, Map of Bones . . . I should have kept a list.
Books Read Between 05-07 and 08-08
Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins (good)
Elantris, Brandon Sanderson (fantastic!)
Voyage to Arcturus, David Lindsay (different)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling (boring)
Book of the New Sun: Shadow of the Torturer, Claw of the Councilator, Sword of the Lictor, Citadel of the Autarch Gene Wolfe (powerful)
Mistborn: The Final Empire, Well of Ascention by Brandon Sanderson (I completed Hero of Ages in 2009). (Superb)
An Exorcist Tells His Story, Gabriele Amorth (interesting)
Book of Fate Brad Meltzer (terrifyingly bad)
One L Scott Turow (bland)
Freemasonry for Dummies (comprehensive)
Eye of the World Robert Jordan (overrated)
Cat’s Cradle Kurt Vonegut (impeccable)
 Seriously, don't bother.
Books Read From 08-08 to 08-09
The Great Hunt Robert Jordan (tolerable)
The Dragon Reborn Robert Jordan (almost unreadable)
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami (surprising)
The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters Gordon Dahlquist (a terrible, miserable chore)
Witch Week Dianna Wynne Jones (masterful)
The Alchemist Paulo Coelho (not the greatest)
Saints and Villains Denise Giardina (heartbreakingly good)
Ysabel Guy Gavriel Kay (a near miss)
Watchmen Alan Moore (a near hit)
Born in Blood Tom Robinson (provocative)
Love of the Last TycoonF. Scott Fitzgerald (a fragment)
Brush with the Law, Marquat and Byrnes (meh)
Goldfinger, Ian Fleming (pulptastic)
From Russia With Love, Ian Fleming (pulporrible)
If on a winter’s night a traveller Italo Calvino (a masterpiece)
The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman (enjoyable)
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov (scintillating)
Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald (dissapointing)
Mistborn: the Hero of Ages, Brandon Sanderson (a favorite)
Welcome to the annual review of My Year in Reading. In Part One, I will give an overview of my Books to Read List, the changes in the list, and the most notable or ignoble books I’ve read between August 2008 and August 2009. In Part II I’ll expose my list. I’m going to cut to the quick and place the awards up first.
Note: I’m not going into “best of” or “worst of” lists. But the book I’m most likely to reread was obviously a pleasurable experience that offered real depth. The book I’m most likely to recommend is one that, subjective tastes aside, I am willing to stake my reputation on. Biggest surprise is a book that exceeded my expectations. All inverses apply.
Longest time on list: Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
Newest book on list: The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (Added in 8/10/09, read 8/11/09)
Most recently read: The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Most likely to be read next: Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
2008 Book I Most Want to Reread: If on a winter’s night a traveller, Italo Calvino. I am 100% certain that I will reread this book. Runner-up: Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy.
2008 Least Likely to be Reread: The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters.
2008 Least Forgettable Award: Mistborn: the Well of Ascention, Brandon Sanderson. While Mistborn I had a “twist” and Mistborn III had a twist, Mistborn II had a TWIST. I will never forget how ashamed, angry, and delighted I was when I turned the last page of that book.
2008 Most Forgettable Award:The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, Gordon Dahlquist. I was (unpleasantly) surprised when I saw this highlighted as read on my list—I had, in fact, forgotten about it.
2008 Most Pleasant Surprise – Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami. I was afraid this book would be too bizarre and aspire to be too literary for my tastes. It was a wonderful introduction to Mr. Murakami’s corpus.
2008 Worst Surprise - Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald. While my professor enjoyed this book, he was surprised by the class’s backlash against the whiny hero, dull pacing, and the disagreeable secondary characters.
In 2008, there were 217 books on my Books to Read list. The list comprised the MLA’s Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century, plus the 53 non-duplicitous selections by the Radcliffe Publishing Course’s corresponding Top 100 list.
The remaining 66 were books of my own selection, of which the 12 Wheel of Time books were the single largest constituent.
As of 8/2008, I had read 24 of the 219, or 11%.
In the 12 intervening months, the list grew by 34 to include 253 items. The largest single constituent was a volume containing the “Short Novels of Dostoevsky” I purchased at a book faire for $2. The second largest subset was the four novels required for my senior capstone class. The list grew at an annual rate of 16%.
As of 8/09, I had read 44/253, or 17%, an increase of 20 books or 120%. 12 of those books were added to the list after 8/08. There is a margin of error of 2%*
At the current rate of reading and list expansion, I will have completed my list in 2013.
* The margin of error exists in regards to Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, which I was supposed to read in its entirety but didn’t quite finish.
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New in: Books 
Jamie picks up The Graveyard Book, Otherland Book I, Reading Lolita in Tehran . . . Read More!New in: Writing 
Chapter One is finished, plus using MediaWiki for notekeeping. Read more! |