What I Read in 2011

The 10 best things I read in 2011 (in no particular order):

War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
 I wrote a post on it, but the long and the short of it is, yes, it really is as good as they say. The 'peace' parts are pretty so-so, but the war parts are so incredible that it's still probably one of the greatest books ever written.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz
Read it, then put it on the syllabus for a class I was teaching a few weeks later and read it again. A touching, funny, and generally wonderful book. The story of an awkward, overweight, comic-book reading nerd, but also a very intelligently done history, of a kind, of the Dominican Republic, and the story of a family. Not the kind of thing I normally go for at all, but this one is so smart and so funny and is really just a joy to read.

A Winter Book, Tove Jansson
Maybe my favorite Jansson book so far. She made my top 10 last year as well - I adore her. This one is also a series of vignettes, but it's about a relationship between two women, and it is a wonderful illumination of the vagaries of love and companionship.

The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman
Posted about this one as well - not a masterpiece, but just a very satisfying, pleasant read.

(Not that You Asked), by Steve Almond
Posted about it at length - intelligent, hilarious, and moving. I really enjoyed it.

Anecdotes of Destiny, Ehrengard, Winter Tales, by Isak Dinesen
Yes, I know, this is really a three-for-one. My love for Dinesen's writing is coming to rival the one I have for Tove Jansson. I am pretty much enraptured by every book of hers that I read.

The Marquise of O and Other Stories, Kleist
Posted about it. If you like Kafka, you must read these. They are cryptic and strange but absolutely incredible.

A High Wind in Jamaica, by Richard Hughes
Posted about this one too (I have gotten so much better about doing it regularly!). A-mazing. The more I think about it, the more I appreciate what an utterly brilliant book this is.

Seraph on the Suwanee, Zora Neale Hurston
Posted. It's really messed up in a lot of ways, but it's also an incredible portrayal of love and insecurity.

The last slot is a toss-up between Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Chimanada Ngozi Adichie's That Thing Around Your Neck, Rebecca West's Return of the Soldier, Charlotte Lennox's Henrietta, or maybe even Autobiography of Red, by Anne Carson. I can't make up my mind, and I feel like if they don't make the cut, they should at least get an honorable mention.

Full list of what I read after the jump (because it's long, there needs to be a jump.)


1. Studies in the History of the renaissance, Walter Pater
2. Memento Mori, Muriel Sparks

3. Civilization and its Discontents, Sigmund Freud (x2)

4. Gilgamesh, Translated by Stephen Mitchell, (also Epic of Gilgamesh, Translated by Andrew George)

5. Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace

6. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke

7. Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid

8. Light in August, William Faulkner

9. Dziady, Adam Mickiewicz

10. Jealousy, Alain Robbe-Grillet

11. Ireland, India and Nationalism in 19th Century Literature, Julia Wright

12. The Dead School, Patrick McCabe

13. Ciao, America! An Italian Discovers the US, Beppe Severgnini

14. Prize Stock; Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness; Aghwee the Sky Monster, Kenzaburo Oe

15. Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard

16. Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison

17. Wittgenstein's Mistress, David Markson

18. Shamela, Henry Fielding

19. Magpie Rising, Merrill Gilfillan

20. Seraph on the Suwanee, Zora Neale Hurston

21. The Curtain, Milan Kundera

22. Le Pere Goriot, Balzac

23. The Stoic Comedians: Flaubert, Joyce, Beckett, Hugh Kenner

24. S/Z, Barthes

25. The Dalkey Archive, Flann O'Brien

26. The German Bildungsroman: History of a National Genre, Todd Kontje

27. Lucinde, Friedrich Schlegel

28. Melmoth Reconciled, Balzac

29. Ennui, Maria Edgeworth

30. Modern Epic: The World System from Goethe to Garcia Marquez, Franco Moretti

31. Saturday, Ian McEwan

32. Wild Irish Girl, Lady Morgan

33. Strange Country, Seamus Deane

34. Music (??? I have no idea)

35. The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, ETA Hoffman

36. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, David Sedaris

37. The Confusions of Young Torless, Robert Musil

38. Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses, Michael Taussig

39. The Double, Dostoevsky

40. The Lover's Dictionary, David Levithan

41. Bai Ganyo: Incredible Tales of a Modern Bulgarian, Aleko Konstantinov

42. Consider the Oyster, MFK Fisher

43. Trotsky: A Graphic Biography, Rick Geary and Andrew Helfer

44. Talking to the Dead: A Study of Irish Funerary Traditions, Nina Witoszek and Pat Sheeran

45. On Poetic Imagination and Reverie, Gaston Bachelard

46. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, Henri Bergson

47. Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Novalis

48. The Romance, Barbara Fuchs

*49. War and Peace, Tolstoy

*50. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (x2)

51. The Heat's On, Chester Himes

52. The Blind Side, Michael Lewis

*53. A Winter Book, Tove Jansson

54. The White Castle, Orhan Pamuk (x2)

55. Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner

56. Jazz, Toni Morrison (x2)

57. How to Cook a Wolf, MFK Fisher

58. Good Women: Three Novellas, Jane Stevenson

59. East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey, Kader Konuk

60. Hadji Murat, Tolstoy

61. On Tremendous Trifles, GK Chesterton

62. The Fall, Camus

63. Carnet de Voyage, Craig Thompson

64. Ignorance, Milan Kundera

65. Coup de Grace, Marguerite Yourcenar

66. Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson

67. Snow, Orhan Pamuk

68. The Return of the Soldier, Rebecca West

69. The Heat of the Day, Elizabeth Bowen

70. The Epicure's Lament, Kate Christensen

71. Apology, Plato

72. Captive Mind, Czesław Miłosz

73. Georges, Alexandre Dumas

74. The Lover, Marguerite Duras

75. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

76. Season of Migration to the North, Tayeb Salih

77. Uncle Silas, Sheridan LeFanu

78. Manhood for Amateurs, Michael Chabon

79. Maus, Art Spiegelman

80. Erasure, Percival Everett

81. The Colored Museum, George Wolfe

82. Remapping the Rise of the European Novel, edited by Jenny Mander

83. Strange Concepts and the Stories they Make Possible, Lisa Zunshine

84. The Mighty Angel, Jerzy Pilch

85. Gargantua and Pantagruel, Rabelais

86. The Hothouse by the East River, Muriel Sparks

87. The Cookbook Collector, Allegra Goodman

88. Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs

89. Flaubert and Don Quijote: The Influence of Cervantes on Madame Bovary, Soledad Fox

90. The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester

91. Essential Neruda, Neruda

92. The Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver

93. Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin

94. Euthyphro, Crito, Plato

95. Wolf Hall, Hillary Mantel

96. Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Sophocles

97. Poetics, Aristotle

98. Glover's Mistake, Nick Laird

99. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

100. The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe, Andrew O'Hagan

101. The Unfortunate Traveller, Thomas Nashe

102. Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard, Isak Dinesen

103. Shame and Necessity, Bernard Williams

104. Kokoro, Natsume Soseki

105. The Thing Around Your Neck, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

106. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, Jonathan Shay

107. Iliad, Homer

108. The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean

109. The Appointment, Herta Muller

110. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell

111. The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman

112. Eline Vere, Louis Couperus

113. Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin

114. In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays, Anais Nin

115. The Devil's Elixirs, ETA Hoffman

116. Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life, Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes

117. Vathek, William Beckford

118. Play it as it Lays, Joan Didion

119. (Not that you Asked), Steve Almond

120.The Rise of Supernatural Fiction, 1762-1800, EJ Clery

121. The Monk: A Romance, Matthew Lewis

122. Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X, Michael Eric Dyson

123. Greek Street, Peter Milligan and Davide Gianfelice

124. A High Wind in Jamaica, Richard Hughes

125. Comedy in a Minor Key, Hans Keilson

126. The Female Thermometer, Terry Castle

127. Zofloya, or The Moor, Charlotte Dacre

128. Baltasar and Blimunda, Jose Saramago

129. Henrietta, Charlotte Lennox

130. The Marquise of O and other stories, Kleist

131. A True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs Veal... Daniel Defoe

132. Winter Tales, Isak Dinesen

133. Carmilla, by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu

134. The Children's Book, by A.S. Byatt

For those who are wondering how on earth I can possibly remember all the books I read this year - I adore bookmarks. I have a lovely bookmark holder made for me by a friend. I take the bookmark off the front read a book, write the name of the book I've just read on the back (and the date I've finished it), and put it on the back of the pile. I've been doing this for years. I mean, the writing on the bookmarks thing started in like, 4th grade. The pile system started sometime in high school. But I have a few bookmarks where the top title is something I read in elementary school, it's pretty awesome.