Since I don’t read many new release books (I’m a used book store junkie and I like my books broken in before I read them), I will have to settle with the ten best books I read this past year. I’m keeping this list limited strictly to fiction, mostly because it is difficult for me to compare a collection of George Orwell political essays or narrative histories of Muhammad to the likes of these kind of stories. I read a lot of great books this past year though and as you can tell, I read quite a bit of Cormac McCarthy who makes the list an earth-shattering four times (Mr. McCarthy, get in touch and I’ll tell you how to collect your prestigious award).
Now, remember kids, reading is FUNdamental. Feel free to comment below about your favorite books you read in the past year.
10. The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy
Quotable: Yes, he said. I busted him and he busted me. That’s fair, ain’t it?
The boy was still silent, calmly incredulous.
No, Sylder went on, I ain’t forgettin about jail. You think because he arrested me that throws it off again I reckon? I don’t. It’s his job. It’s what he gets paid for. To arrest people that break the law. And I didn’t jest break the law, I made a livin at it.
9. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
Quotable: “Ellen, only last night, asked, ‘Daddy, when will we be rich?’ But I did not say to her what I know: ‘We will be rich soon, and you who handle poverty badly will handle riches equally badly.’ And that is true. In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.”
8. The Dying Animal by Philip Roth
Quotable: “You’ll always be powerless to this girl. You’ll never be in charge. There’s something there,” George told me, “that makes you crazy and always will. If you don’t cut the connection for good, in the end that something will destroy you. You’re no longer merely answering natural need with her. This is the pathology in its purest form. Look,” he told me, “see it as a critic, see it from a professional point of view. You violated the law of aesthetic distance. You sentimentalized the aesthetic experience with this girl – you personalized it, you sentimentalized it, and you lost the sense of separation essential to your enjoyment. Do you know when that happened? … I’m not against it because it’s digusting. I’m against it because it’s falling in love. The only obsession everyone wants: ‘love.’ People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you’re whole before you begin. And the love fractures you.”
7. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Quotable: “Oh all the world loves you,” Ruth says suddenly. “What I wonder is why?”
“I’m lovable,” he says.
6. Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
Quotable: Our waking life’s desire to shape the world to our convenience invites all manner of paradox and difficulty.
5. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Quotable: The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
4. Lolita by Vladimar Nabokov
Quotable: Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
3. Love in the Time of Cholera by Garbiel Garcia Marquez
Quotable: To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else’s heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.
2. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Quotable: There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was. It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. I don’t believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God – who knows all that can be known – seems powerless to change.
1. The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
Quotable: You do not know what things you set in motion, he said. No man can know. No prophet foresee. The consequences of an act are often quite different from what one would guess. You must be sure that the intention in your heart is large enough to contain all wrong turnings, all disappointments. Do you see? Not everything has such value.
This discussion currently has 20 responses.
January 7, 2009
I picked up The Road at the airport last december and almost read the whole thing on the plane to Florida. Good stuff and the first McCarthy book I’ve read.
I also picked up Let The Right One In ( Let Me In) which is a terrific read.
January 7, 2009
Andrew, just realize that The Crossing isn’t quite as easy of a read as those other two. And Blood Meridian, well… that’s on an entirely different level of literary existence if you ever plan on tackling that.
January 7, 2009
Ha, I just realized that I have the audio version of “Blood Meridian” on my iPod. Will start listening on the way home from work today!
January 7, 2009
I actually have the audiobook too, but have never attempted to listen to it, mostly because it was a book where I read ever sentence very carefully and re-read many sections immediately after I read them (which I don’t do very often).
I’m curious to see how listening to it works for you.
January 25, 2009
I picked up the Road.
I’m stealing an amazon review, because I really don’t care to comment upon it much further
“I just don’t get it.
What’s that?
Don’t get it. This book, that is. All they do is push a cart and look for shoes.
But it’s the one they all love. Isn’t it Papa?
Yes, because they are hungry for anything that sounds interesting.
But this?
Yes, this. Choppy sentences, over-hot language, no plot, no character. An isocline of nothing. No sense of place or meaning. No hope.
Why do they love it Papa?
Because empty barrels make the noise.”
January 26, 2009
I read The Road last year in prep for the movie. It was my first foray into McCarthy but I don’t think I’ll be going back any time soon. I did like it though it was hard to get through in parts.
And Lolita… How I love Lolita.
January 26, 2009
goon, u fag
but yes, Lolita could be the greatest book EVER written.
January 26, 2009
I’ve never been in a book review argument where one called the other a ‘fag’
You nazi.
January 26, 2009
i may be a nazi, but at least i won’t go to hell for not being impressed by Cormac Mccarthy.
January 26, 2009
Cormac Schmormac – I’ve done my looking around and even among huge Cormac fans I’ve seen a lot of people who say they hate this book. Certainly not the majority, but enough.
It’s boring. Period. And I can’t stand such simplistic books with unnamed characters, and that includes Heart of Darkness. I can’t get into the unpersonalized “poetry” of nothing happening.
January 26, 2009
It’s far too late to get into a debate on The Road, but if I had to sit down and rank the Cormac books I’ve read, it’d be something like this:
Blood Meridian
The Crossing
All the Pretty Horses
No Country for Old Men
Cities of the Plain
Child of God
The Road
The Orchard Keeper
Still, even with The Road being so low, I’d still give it an A. I’d give all of his novels I’ve read an A or A+.
Looking forward to starting Suttree and the Outer Dark when I can get the time and I still need to read his two plays.
January 27, 2009
I *hate* Heart of Darkness. I refuse to read any more Conrad because of it. I don`t care how good people say it is.
January 27, 2009
That’s a shame about Conrad.
I was the same way with Melville because of Moby Dick, and throughout high school and half of university, I refused to read anything by him. Once someone forced me to read Bartleby the Scrivener, I became a fan of his for life.
If you ever give Conrad another go, I’d recommend The Secret Agent. If not, you’ll live.
January 27, 2009
The hate has been dormant for years. May be worth checking out. I’ll add that to my growing TBR list. It’s longer than the movies to see list.
January 27, 2009
Ok I love Heart of Darkness, so once again, 180 degrees from Goon…
I did not like Secret Agent, and a lot of the other Conrad I tried I wasn’t much of a big fan, but I loved Lord Jim, and I always thought it should have been remade as a film today, that it is a great story and most people today have not seen the original.
January 29, 2009
wow… i have never met anyone that read Heart of Darkness that didn’t like it. Lord Jim is even better, imo.
February 4, 2009
surprised you don’t like Moby Dick, christian. A Tale of Two Cities is another great book i had to read in a college class of mine. he is a great writer.
February 5, 2009
I’ve actually come around to appreciating Moby Dick. I just had to take the long road to get there. In fact, I did a 90 minute lecture on Melville a couple of months back and I thought I promoted Moby Dick pretty well.
I think I was a victim of having an English teacher who focussed on the religious aspects of the book and nothing else; and when I was 15, that was the last thing I wanted to listen to.
I like Dickens quite a bit as well.
February 8, 2009
Moby Dick is a book to be admired not read. Couldn’t finish it.
June 27, 2009
Andrew – did you ever finish listening to Blood Meridian? If so, thoughts?