1. Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marias
2. Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut (reread)
3. The Heart is the Last to Go by Margaret Atwood
4. The Polish Officer by Alan Furst
5. Winter by Karl Ove Knausgaard
6. Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym
7. All Souls by Javier Marias
8. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston (reread)
9. Ulysses by James Joyce (a few hundred pages)
10. The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson (reread)
11. Zuckerman Unbound by Phillip Roth (reread)
12. The Anatomy Lesson by Phillip Roth (reread)
13. The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography by Phillip Roth (reread)
14. The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
15. The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. LeGuin
16. Your Face Tomorrow Volume One: Fever and Spear by Javier Marias
17. Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
18. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (reread)
19. NW by Zadie Smith (reread)
20. Summer by Karl Ove Knausgaard
21. Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
22. Exit Ghost by Phillip Roth (reread)
23. The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir
24. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
25. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (reread)
I’m grateful to all of these books for being companions on planes, trains, bars, the beach, hotels and my couch. And for being cool when I sometimes ignored them to zone out with CandyCrush or TV.
I’m disappointed that I didn’t get further with Ulysses, Joyce’s notoriously intricate puzzle of a novel detailing one day in Dublin. While I liked it, progress was slow. I wished I could study it in a class or with a detailed reference guide to help decipher symbols, styles and references I knew I was missing. Maybe I’ll revisit this in the future; maybe I’ll visit Dublin and be more inspired.
I didn’t list it above but also read a little of The Films in My Life by writer and director Francois Truffaut, in an effort to learn about French New Wave films and their contemporaries and influences. Because some of these movies I’ve watched are a puzzle, and clearly I didn’t torture myself enough with Ulysses.
When Philip Roth passed away I returned to several of his books, and remain a big fan of his uncommonly skillful writing and comedic timing, and the sometimes despicable but always magnetic narrator/alter-ego Nathan Zuckerman. Even though I knew it was highly unlikely, I always thought I might run into him in New York or New Jersey.
Marias and Knausgaard continue to hold titles of current favorite authors (who I still might run into one day). I’ve decided it’s OK if I don’t reach 24 books this year, as the important thing is that I am reading what interests me – and I still need to finish the last volume in Knausgaard’s autobiography. It was published in English several months ago, is phone book-sized and may take awhile. I’ve heard mixed reviews but feel invested in his project and have to know how he wraps it up.
Finally, if you’ve never read A Christmas Carol by Dickens, consider it next December. I’ve seen the movie more times than I can count (the George C. Scott version is the best in my opinion) but reading the original text, written with such warmth, cleverness and humor, gives you a new dimension of appreciation for this beloved story of redemption.
What are you planning to read in 2019? When I’ve got my cat, a book and a bourbon, winter is less depressing. I could hibernate well into spring.