2010 Book List

This is my new answer to keeping track of what I am reading, have read or have tried to read this year. Note's where appropriate.

1. Jonathan Lethem: "Chronic City". See Diner Review, review at the link below. This is just a really good book. Everything he does knocks me out. A myth or creepy fairytale of NYC.

http://stldinerreview.blogspot.com/search?q=chronic+city

2. Jonathan Sanford: "Wicked Prey" Sanford is a guilty pleasure. In this one the bad guys arrive in Minnesota to the republican convention to steal money from the bag men. Carnage ensues. Lots of dead people. You have to like the genre of bloody serial killings. Who doesn't?

3. Jim Henderson: "Evangelism Without Additives". Not for everyone. A different approach to explaining Jesus to people.

4. John Fante: "Ask The Dust". Somehow I missed this guy. A really good easy read. I will need to read all of his stuff but after reading Bukowski who clearly was "influenced" or perhaps just copied the style it might get boring. Still... very good stuff.

Is it creepy that the first 4 books of the year I heave read were written by guys whose first names starts with J? Maybe.

5. Joe Abercrombie: "The Blade Itself" Another J. Author recommended by the Kowert it is Genre Sword and Sorcery fiction that I have not read in a long time. It takes a while to get going but is a good read and of course... there is a triligy.

6. Stieg Larsen: "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo". Buzz book and movie. Really well written. Dark. At times extremely gruesome vut very well written. If you are squeamish, miss the movie.

7. Eoin Colfer: "And Another Thing..." An attempt to continue the fabulous "Hitch hiker's Guide To The Universe" series. Douglass Adams...dead. This guy, takes us no where. Miss it.

8. Stieg Larson: "The Girl Who Played With Fire". More of the same but still a great weird story about a great weird girl. I am finally getting that this is all about abuse of women in society.... every society... and every form of abuse.

9. Dave Eggers: "Zeitoun": had no interest in reading this. got it because I was a member of Mc Sweeney's book club. For a hundred bucks a year they send you a book a month. this is a true story (Like "What Is The What") that he tells of a Syrian business owner who stays in New Orleans after Katrina and his experiences. REALLY GOOD BOOK. Depressing, thought provoking and makes you consider how easily society breaks down and how much we take our "rights" for granted.

10. Stieg Larson: "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest". I don't know. I had to read it and finish the series. So this guy delivers these three books and croaks? Wow. Really good page turners. Tired of the series now.

11. Brett Easton Ellis: "Imperial bedrooms". A continuation of his self involved "Less Than Zero". I don't know. I am a really big fan of self involved nihlism but how much can he hit this same note over and over again and expect me to consider him relevant? This is not an essential read.

12. Harper Lee: "To Kill A Mockingbird". This is imply and easily the best thing I have read all year. not even close. I read it in high school and clearly did not read it well. I did not remember any of it and it was all awesome, all the time. Simply told, beautifully written and almost a "Sermon On The Mount" tour de force regarding how you are suppose to live your life. Read this book again or read it for the first time but read it. America needs this book now when we are talking about ground zero mosques and anchor babies we need another refresher on how we are supposed to act as Americans...as people.

13. Kurt Vonnegutt: Slaughterhouse 5. This was part of my new plan to re-read a lot of the books I have read and loved and somehow not internalized. I really miss Kurt Vonnegutt. I miss reading him as a teen ager and I miss my mom worrying about what i was reading and what is was doing to me. Of course she was right. So it goes.

14. Anthony Bourdain: Kitchen Confidential: This would now be the best book I have read this year. I had never read Bourdane before and this was a brilliant, funny, real book. I am looking forward to getting all of his stuff now. I feel like I was given a gift. Go read him now.

15. Frank Herbert: "Dune" I forgot what a great book this one was too. Each chapter starts with something of the false history or the deep sayings from Muad Dib, or the Orange Catholic Bible or other recollections of "The Princess Irulian". It is well written and I have to love the universe that Herbert constructed. He makes good so good and evil so evil through almost all of the book and you sense a satisfying morality play... and then then you realize that it is all more complicated... it is always more complicated. i did not appreciate nearly enough the first time I read it 30 or so years ago.

16. Jonathan Franzen: "Freedom". This book was over hyped from the start but his last book "The Corrections" was so awesome I had to go again. This one was just as well written, just as funny. In the end it was more preachy then I remember "The Corrections". Franzen though never married is a biting commentator on the institution and on families and ultimately on people. Do not have babies. Over population is evil. Money is evil, government is evil. Liberals are misguided and evil.

17. Gary Shtengart: "Super Sad True Love Story". This book beat me. it was supposed to be clever and funny and deep and well written. I could not get 100 pages into it. Perhaps I start again next year.

18. James Hannaham: "God Says No". OK, I got this book from Mc Sweeneys and I thought it would be interesting. A black guy at a small Christian Seminary in the south realizes he is gay and..wrestles with it. It just exhausted me. Perhaps it is well written but...

19. Thomas Pynchon: "Inherent Vice". I have never been able to get through a Pynchon book. This book was recommended to me as a detective story and was his effort at Bukowski. I was able to get through it. I wish that I would not have.

20. Keith Richards: "Life". Not a bad way to end the year. I hated the first hundred pages and could not care less about how he grew up. I mean it is kind of cool that he was friends with Mick from the time they were kids. The book starts to get awesome when he talks about music, songs, how they were made, how they worked, when they were written and who they were written with and how they were played. So many awesome songs form two guys. Unbelievable really. It was really an awesome read.

We will see what 2011 Brings