kels fjord

Dec. 19, 2011 at 2:01pm with 24 notes View comments

I hesitate to even write this, because it seems so filled with ego, but I thought it would be nice, at least for my own sake, to record what I’ve enjoyed the most, felt the most conflicted over, etc. So. I’m going to do this the best I can by memory, which will hopefully mean the rambling will be weaned some, since my memory is notoriously awful. I guess I’ll put asterisks after the ones I especially loved, but since I’m doing this from memory, it probably means I at least very much loved whichever ones I mention. All come with a strong recommendation.

The obligatory Moby-Dick related books: I started the year with The Whale by Philip Hoare. Two months later, I reread MD**********; I spent the first half of spring break biking down to the public library to read Melville’s Quarrel with God beneath those huge gorgeous vaulted ceilings, and then during the second half, I stayed in Boston for a few days and dragged my friend to New Bedford, while reading In the Heart of the Sea*** by Nathaniel Philbrick. A few months ago I finally read Bartleby***** and then somewhere in there I read Delbanco’s biography of Melville, too. Phew.

Out from New Directions, I read and loved Woolgathering, The Seamstress and the Wind, Between Parentheses******, Lightning Rods, Tres, Driven to Abstraction, others…

I loved NYRB’s new book by Tove Jansson, Fair Play**. Also two more NYRB favorites I read this year: A Way of Life, Like Any Other by Darcy O’Brien and The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares*****.

During a trip to L.A. in May, I read John D’Agata’s About a Mountain and Anne Carson’s The Beauty of the Husband*****. I walked like two miles to a green patch by a reservoir and read there while a family played frisbee. But then the sprinklers came on, so I got up and decided to walk the three miles to Skylight. Three miles in L.A. is very different from three miles in NY, but still a good day. Around then, I also read Carson’s Decreation***. I don’t talk about my love for Anne Carson enough, but she’s a stalwart for me. One of the solids. Also on the L.A. trip: Inferno by Eileen Myles.

Oh, gosh. And in Paris, I read so many great ones. Pitch Darkby Renata Adler, which I found in the $3 bin outside Shakespeare & Co. The copy was disintegrating, so I paper-clipped the pages together and read them while sitting on the bench outside the store. The Children’s Hospital**** by Chris Adrian (oh, and I read A Better Angel****** and The Great Night this year, too), which was probably my favorite reading experience. I spent thirty minutes or so every morning reading it, before the city woke up, sitting on the Seine and eating a pain au chocolat. There are probably still crumbs in my copy. I also read The Great Gatsby and A Moveable Feast and reread Wuthering Heights.

And the poetry I read! This list is getting unwieldy, but. Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Adrienne Rich, Marie Howe, Nick Flynn, more Anne Carson. Others.

Also great but not easily categorized by the time in which I read them: A Room of One’s Own, Blue Nights******** by Didion, A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Keep**** by Egan, The Third Reich** by Bolaño, Three Sisters by Chekhov, Remainder** by Tom McCarthy, Misadventure by Kaufman. I probably reread Lydia Davis and Alice Munro too many times to count. New issues of A Public Space and The Paris Review.

I felt conflicted over The Marriage Plot, Madame Bovary, Libra by DeLillo, A Journey to the End of the Night by Céline. Probably others, too. But I don’t like being conflicted over books, so I try to shove those into the back of my mind.

I’m sorry for the asterisks. They were fairly arbitrary, really only based on the excitement I felt at each title. I probably should have contained myself more. Also this is the longest thing. I’m sorry to whoever (anyone?) made it to the bottom of this. And I’m also sorry to all of the books I forgot to include. I’m sure there are many many great ones my mind is blanking on.