The Top 10 of 2010: Back To The Herd Mentality

New Year's Eve is upon us and so it is time for me to unveil my favourite ten books of the year. As I've said before it was a rather patchy one for literature. A few great authors released passable but not particularly good books. Many an ordinary debut saw the light of day. Someone even told me that they had lost faith in fiction this year.

As for me, I read a lot of excellent books but very few of them were published in 2010. Indeed, when looking back over the 155 books I managed to get through, there were only 12 that deserved a place on this list. One I cut because, although it was translated for the first time in 2010, it is in fact 58 years old (Hans Keilson's Comedy in a Minor Key). The other, Keith Richards's Life, was edged off the list by an arguably greater musical legend.

Overall, it seems comedy was the big winner, taking five of the ten spots. There were also three debut novels, which is always a good sign for things to come. Yet it was a French author of whom I was only peripherally aware who came in at number one. And so, without further ado, I bring you the Bait For Bookworms Top 10 of 2010:

1. Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel. A lowly bureaucratic functionary is sent into a small town to investigate the murder of a mysterious stranger. What he discovers will quite literally take your breath away. Brodeck's Report is one of the most astounding books about wartime guilt and complicity ever written. A murder mystery, artistic meditation and revelation all rolled into one. Simply brilliant.

2. Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahariar Mandanipour. This amazing story of two students pursuing their forbidden love through the pages of great Persian and world literature continues to resonate with me eleven months after I first read it. I'm not usually one for romance, but when it came to Sara and Dara I have to admit I swooned! It is also harrowing in its portrayal of life in a totalitarian state. Almost perfect on every level.

3. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. This hilarious debut novel drove a great metal barb through the heart of the pretentious print media world. Documenting the rise and slow demise of a semi-fictional English language newspaper in Rome, its pastiche of journo-stereotypes, some snooty others pitiable, had me laughing out loud, and not only because I recognised half of my friends drowning in the mix.

4. How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu. A year of heavy reading was topped off by this hilarious celebration of the scientifically absurd. Whether you are a certified brainiac or, like me, a total grognard this is the funniest book that you are likely to encounter in any universe, including this one. In comic terms, it seems there is nothing funnier than a time machine repairman in love.

5. Little Hands Clapping by Dan Rhodes. Britain's king of quirk struck gold again with this deliciously nasty gem. Creepy, hilarious and unexpectedly tender it kept me smiling even while my skin crawled.

6. Nemesis by Philip Roth. These days Roth is as patchy as he is prolific, but this powerful tale of a polio epidemic in 1940's New Jersey really hit the mark. The combination of a decidedly non-Roth protagonist and some brilliant metaphorical social commentary about the economic collapse and the perceived terrorist threat make Nemesis his best book since Indignation.

7. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson. This very worthy winner of the Man Booker Prize shone an excoriating light (if there is such a thing) on the triumphs, insecurities and downright absurdities of Diaspora Jewry. High Lit that makes you laugh and cringe at the same time.

8. C by Tom McCarthy. Forget the experimental tag! C was a complex and mesmerising examination of the way in which we communicate from a writer who is shaping up to be one of our generation's greatest commentators. And yes, it had a conventional plot.

9. Solar by Ian McEwan. Sure, it had the cookie-cutter McEwan plot device but this foray into deep science, petty academic jealousies and the indignities of ageing disgracefully was a real winner. I never thought McEwan had it in him to make us laugh. I also thought he was well past his prime. Turns out I was wrong on both counts.

10. Just Kids by Patti Smith. Yes, a non-fiction book made it to my Top 10. Who'd a thunk it? This double eulogy for Robert Mapplethorpe and the heyday of New York counterculture is 300-odd pages of pure street prose poetry. The only book that made me cry this year.

So there you have it. An unexpectedly eclectic top ten for my first year of lit-blogging.

Happy New Year! Here's hoping 2011 brings us all a library (being my collective noun for books) of great reads!

Not This Year In Review!

I thought I'd start my end of year roundups with something of a non-list. Or, rather, a list with little relevance to the past twelve months. I figure that it makes no sense to include books that weren't published in 2010 in a "Best of 2010" list, but it would be equally silly of me to ignore them altogether. After all, fair few of my favourite books of 2010 were not published this year.

And so, with less than two weeks to go until we celebrate the arbitrary distinction that is the new year, I bring you my alternative list; my favourite non-2010 books of the year. Obviously I'll exclude everything from my Dog Bite Degustation challenge, seeing as they were my top 10 books of all time and would make this endeavour redundant.

So pretending that we are not really counting from 11, and naming them in no particular order, I loved:

The Rehearsal - Eleanor Catton (2009)
The Book of Chameleons - Jose Eduardo Agualusa (2004)
Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (1949)
Saville by David Storey (1976)
Mephisto - Klaus Mann (1936)
The Education of a Stoic - Fernando Pessoa (tr. 2004)
The Cremator - Ladislav Fuks (1967)
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes(1605)
The Mahabharata (ummm....)
The Behaviour of Moths - Poppy Adams (2008)

Stay tuned for my Best of 2010... Coming soon (most likely on December 30... I'm holding out for a last minute supernova)

Reality Check: The Box by Gunter Grass

I was pretty excited to get my hands on the latest instalment of Gunter Grass's memoirs, even more so because I had heard that this volume was stylistically more interesting, perhaps even with a fictional flourish. Alas, halfway through this short (especially short given the heftiness of Peeling The Onion) curiosity of a book, I was struck by a Solzhenitsyn-inspired Eureka moment. I actually don't really like Gunter Grass. Sure, I waxed lyrical in the past about The Tin Drum but, at the end of the day, he is kind of boring. Sorry Professor Graewe (my fantastic German Literature lecturer of yore), I want to like your hero but I just can't. And not because of his past, I don't really care about that. It's just that his turgid meanderings put me to sleep. I get it, Mr. Grass. You screwed around, had eight kids and wrote books of which you are rather proud. But this added nothing to your canon. When all is said and done, The Box will be a minor footnote, if it even makes it that far.

So without further adieu, here is The Box as rhyming verse.

I've come to believe the Nobel is a curse
For all of its winners grow gradually worse
After great revelations of Wafen SS
Grass comes in again and wants us to assess
Through the lens of his camera, an old fashioned box
This life in eight pieces is slight and a flop

Reality Check: The December Challenge

Forgive me Fyodor, for I have sinned. When I made my new year's resolution to write a literary blog I intended from the outset to quirk it up with absurd challenges that took me out of my reading comfort zone into new, mostly humorous, territory. I started off quite well but, alas, the best of intentions have fallen by the wayside, victim to my penchant for self-indulgence. I wanted to read books I liked. Shoot me.

It's now December and I figure I have but one last chance for redemption. I must tackle the thing I dislike reading more than anything else (except perhaps the crap I had to read for February's Books I Swore I'd Never Read challenge). Yes, in a last ditch attempt to save me from having to admit defeat come December 31, and consequently forcing myself to repeat this whole shebang again next year, I intend to spend a month reading non-fiction. To be fair, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I have built up a respectable pile of mildly interesting looking tomes of truth over the past few years. The fact I get to finally open them, and knock them all over in one month, makes the whole task seem almost bearable.

I know I might be accused of bandwagon-jumping, but I'm starting off with Patti Smith's National Book Award winning memoir, Just Kids and will follow it with Elif Batuman's examination of Russian bibliophiles (that is, people who love and obsess over Russian literature, not just anyone from Russia who can read), Possessed. I figure, with those two, I at least have a connection, spurious as it may be: early punk rock and wanky literature are two of my great areas of interest. Next up I'm going to hit something I've meant to read for years, Jerzy Ficowski's biography of and meditation on the criminally under-appreciated Polish writer Bruno Schulz, Regions of The Great Heresy. If the name doesn't ring a bell, wait for Jonathan Safran Foer's next book. I suspect you will find yourself chasing down copies of his two amazing story collections, Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, before you can say Drohobycz. I'll also give my high school obsession with true crime another run with The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi. Comic relief shall be provided by Keith Richards and his anti-Jagger bitchfest, Life. And, finally, I'll round out the month with two memoirs by great authors, Gunter Grass and Chinua Achebe.

Now I know what you're thinking. This all sounds a bit too easy for the very last challenge of the year. Don't worry, spanner, meet works. I am going to attempt to review them all in six line verses of rhyming couplets. I don't even really know what that means. Oh, well, I guess it could have been worse. There was always the chance I'd be lumped with haiku again.

Drop Everything and Read!

What on Earth was I thinking? Don Quixote? In October? I've always meant to read Cervantes's great tale of the knight errant, but holy crap it's massive! I set aside last year to read the big classics, the tomes, but I could only get through so many. So while Melville, Hugo and Musil got a guernsey, Cervantes didn't make the cut. I've found it difficult to rev myself up about big books since then. There are just so many smaller ones I'd rather tackle. Let's face it. What can you say in nine-hundred pages that can't be said more succinctly in three?

My recent trip to Toledo, and purchase of a metal Quixote statuette pushed me over the edge. I could hardly place the thing in my library without having read the book. I'd look like a schmuck. So I prepared myself for two weeks of committed reading (far removed from my usual literary promiscuity), and dived in. Glad to say I'm loving it. But by the time the gallant madman was charging his first windmill, I received a package with Nicole Krauss's latest novel inside. Plus Charles Yu's How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. And The Weekend by Bernhard Schlink. Then, just as Don Quixote attacked a flock of sheep (an hilarious scene, I know), I happened upon the new Paul Auster novel in my local bookstore, a month before I thought it was due to be published. It was sitting alongside the latest from Mister Pip author Lloyd Jones. Yes, it's October. The month of big releases. Which means now I don't know what I should do.

I have very little self-control and even less patience. There are some authors for whom I will drop whatever I am doing, even take days off work, to read their latest work the day it is released. J. M. Coetzee is the main one. Philip Roth and Cormac McCarthy as well. Jose Saramago while he was still alive. And Paul Auster, though I have grown a little wary of his later output. There are also times when a particular book, whether I have read the author before or not, actually causes me to salivate. Right now, there is an ever-growing stack of such novels, including a couple by the authors I just mentioned, tilting perilously in my direction. I am at serious risk of physical harm from the imminent collapse of my bedside book tower. So do I drop Don Quixote halfway though? Do I do the unthinkable and put down a book without finishing it? Sure, I might intend to go back but we all know I won't. Such existential angst. I don't know if I can bear it. For now I'll persist, but I am beginning to think that turning a blind eye to the excitement I feel for the books released this month, the ones poking their tongues out at me from their colourful spines, would be like doffing my brass barber's bucket at a fair maiden in the field. Truly mad!

Ten For 2010

The new year is upon us and it is time to get excited. 2009 was a very good year for books. The big blockbusters did their blockbusting thang, while many a serious literary novelist published strong additions to their ouevre. So what do the next twelve months hold in store for us? At the risk of making yet another arbitrarily numbered list, here are the ten things I'm most looking forward to.

1. Bolano Bolano Bolano. Yes, it's a triple treat from the Chilean wild child (though his friends insist he was no Kurt Cobain). Three newly translated novels are due out before the year is through. Probably most exciting is the 144 page novella Monsieur Pain which is due out in early January. It seems to promise echoes of Kafka which, in Bolano's hands, ought to be nothing if not interesting. Next up comes Antwerp and then, in July, The Return. Given that Bolano's short fiction is, in my opinion, his best, I can barely contain my excitement. What a year 2010 will be!!! ***News Just In*** Turns out there is a fourth, The Insufferable Gaucho, to be published in August! Bonus!!!

2. The Boat to Redemption by Su Tong. He wrote one of my favourite books of all time, Binu and The Great Wall. This one recently won the Asian Booker. The blurb suggests another beautiful fable. I can't wait!

3. Solar by Ian McEwan. Sure his later works have been pretty average and this has all the marks of Auster's Invsible, but I still cling to the hope that McEwan has something important to say. I note at the outset that I have been warned, but when it comes to literature I am a sucker for punishment. On the plus side, I can only be pleasantly surprised!

4. Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel. Was Life of Pi a fluke? Can Martel do it again, this time with an Holocaust novel? My antennae dip about cautiously on this one, but I am excited nonetheless to see what he does with it

5. Nemesis by Phillip Roth. He may be the world's greatest living writer, but he has an unfortunate habit of publishing whatever his typewriter spews out. Only Bryce Courtenay publishes more. Thankfully Nemesis looks promising - with echoes of Camus, Saramago and Miller. Like McEwan I continue to hold out hope. Let's just pray he resists the temptation to descend into cringeworthy descriptions of sex. Put on your yellow raincoat and go for a walk, Mr. Roth. Then come back and write the good stuff!

6. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. Sweet FA is known about this book other than that it is massive and 'buoyant'. Will this herald a welcome return or is Franzen still treading water? Time will tell.

7. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. How do you follow up a critically lauded 'masterpiece' like Cloud Atlas? Apparently with an 18th century tale of a dutchman in Japan. Could be interesting. Could also win him a consolation Booker seeing as so many people seemed to think he was robbed last time time.

8. The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis. The grumpy, middle-aged curmudgeon of English letters is finally back with his much delayed new novel. Can he claw back a modicum of literary cred without brazenly pissing off every minority group in and out of sight, or will this just be another drop in the ongoing fall of a briefly good writer?

9. Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco. Another Asian Booker winner, the blurb has a certain air of Montano's Malady about it. A literary detective tale in which a writer's acolyte investigates his murder by piecing together fragments of the great man's life and searches for a long manuscript, the English translation is long overdue. Come April I can stop bitching.

10. Point Omega by Don Delillo. Hopefully, Delillo has clawed his way out from under the crushing weight of September 11. As Andrew Hagan so boldly pointed out, Falling Man was a disaster, showing up the limitations of this otherwise great author. Thankfully, this slim novel looks to be a return to the brilliance that made me fall in love with his early works. Indeed, the idea of a single shot film about 'a man and a wall' reaks of the 'world's most photographed barn' in Delillo's finest novel, White Noise (I am willing to defend it against those who would put Underworld at the top). All crossable body parts are hereby crossed.

And then, of course, there are the books and authors about which I know nothing yet. The surprise finds are always something to look forward to!

Bring on the new year.