Current location:	The dawn was breaking the bones of your heart like twigs.
Current mood:	good
Current music:	project jenny, project jan - 320
Entry tags:	books

I thought you said you didn't read much.
Here are the top 7 books I read in 2008, because that's how many I feel like listing. It is, of course, incredibly easy to not only remember what I read, but what I liked the most, because of Goodreads. Goodreads! You can keep track of what you want to read in the future, and get recommendations from your friends, and read what other booky people thought of stuff, and take geeky little quizzes, and save awesome quotes; it's social networking for book nerds! Why are you not using it?

In 2008 I gave myself permission not to try for 50bookchallenge, which I've been attempting since 2004 (& only actually accomplished in 2005), and done really badly on in recent years. Somehow I still made it to 40 books, despite hardly reading anything for the first couple of months of the year, and despite the bajillions of issues of Poetry, The New Yorker and the Dig I apparently needed to consume constantly.

01. China Mountain Zhang, Maureen McHugh [novel]
THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD. Recommended to me by bee_stung and throughadoor. It's my favorite kind of scifi (though speculative fiction might be a better term): fascinating, detailed explorations of everyday life against a really innovative backdrop. Set 200 years in the future, when China is the leading world power and the US has had a Chinese-led communist revolution, it takes place in New York, the Arctic Circle, China and Mars, with great, compelling characters and really clean writing that pulls you along. Lots of interesting stuff on race and queer issues. I could *not* put it down, and I've missed it ever since I finished.

02. Walking to Martha's Vineyard, Franz Wright [poetry]
This is a book about grace. It focuses on Franz Wright's newfound sobriety and conversion to Catholicism. It's my understanding that he got a lot of flack for the latter, since religion -- or earnestness about religion -- is an unpopular topic in modern American poetry. But he's unapologetic about it without ever being preachy, and the poems are careful and spare and intense. The senses of both hope and struggle are tangible.

I kept being astonished by how *not* overwritten these were. It definitely deserved the Pulitzer it won. I read every poem in here two or three times. I really highly recommend it. Here are some sample poems: Letter; The Only Animal; My Place.

03. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party, M.T. Anderson [novel]
This book is fantastic. Really wonderful writing and fascinating premise. I found it in the weirdest way: the author read a passage at a Marie Howe poetry reading I was at, and I was intrigued enough to go track it down -- and it ended up being a totally different story than I thought.

Set in Revolutionary Boston (and I don't even really like historical fiction), it's narrated primarily by a boy being raised in a household of philosophers and given a classical education as an experiment. There's more to it, but I won't give it away. And it's made up of a variety of documents -- mostly first person writings, but also letters, newspaper clippings, etc. (I just finished the sequel over the holidays. 600 pages! But really excellent, too. If anyone's interested in YA or scifi/fantasy, M.T. Anderson's also written about a future where the internet is implanted in everyone's brain, and slowly turning into a vampire.)


04. Wise Children, Angela Carter [novel]
A quick, charming read, recced to me by cheapmetaphor. Draws heavily on Shakespearean comedies with tons of twins, switcheroos, confusing parentage, Old Hollywood, the theater, and all kinds of hijinks, with narration that's funny and ribald and sweet all at once.

05. Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang [short stories]
Imaginative, well-written speculative fiction, recced by bee_stung. Lots of cool what-ifs: if the Tower of Babel hadn't been destroyed (which the author describes in a note as Babylonian science fiction), hyperintelligence, a documentary-style story and more. The title story made me cry (a lot, in public) and I kept thinking about it way after.

I also loved that there were notes at the end of the book where the author talked a little about each story -- all short story books should have that.

06. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Mary Roach [nonfiction]
Not only did this get me to read nonfiction, it got me to devour it. This is by the author of Stiff and Spook, which both sounded so interesting, but I'm totally squeamish about both dead bodies and ghosts.

Luckily I am fine with sex! This is basically a history of scientific sexual research -- lots of Kinsey and other scientists, from ye olde (relatively) ancient times through today. It was alternately (or simultaneously) funny and interesting and gross, and I learned way more than I thought I would.

07. Come to Me, Amy Bloom [short stories]
Fantastic short stories, excellent, enjoyable writing. Another cheapmetaphor rec. These focus on the complex, sometimes transgressive relationships between people, especially within families. She does that incredibly difficult thing, conveying depths of emotion without ever coming out and saying what characters are feeling. She basically rocks the show-don't-tell rule, and does it with such a light touch it seems easy. These characters are icebergs, and she makes you feel the hidden mass of what they're feeling without hitting you over the head. I also loved how she uses small details of everyday life and daily routines to create an atmosphere. I'm definitely going to track down more of her stuff.

[And here are all my 2008 books, from best to worst.]

Do any of you have a French press? I'm thinking of getting a little one for the office, since I'm trying not to spend a million dollars a month at coffee shops, and the work coffee sucks, and I really hate juggling a thermos on my whole commute. Are they worth it? Are they a huge hassle to clean? Will it let me be constantly so caffeinated that my coworker asks me if I'm on speed?

MUSICS: Oh No! Oh My! - Go To Work