Archive for December, 2011

James Renner is the author of two books of nonfiction that detail his adventures in investigative journalism: Amy: My Search for Her Killer and The Serial Killer’s Apprentice. His novel The Man from Primrose Lane will be published by Sarah Crichton Books / Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February 2012. You can follow him on Twitter @JamesRenner.

The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale
Cool idea: the first chimpanzee that learns speech. Sort of a modern-day Pinocchio. Wish it had been more fun, less creepy.

The Last Child by John Hart
Three mysteries are at the core of this thriller set in the Deep South. Hart’s in his prime as an author and beginning to explore with structure a bit. Great beach read.

The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
What a fun book. An exploration of the changeling myth set in present time. A welcome change of pace from all the popular stories about vampires.

The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
Hands-down my favorite book of the year. An ensemble of tragic and desperate characters in small-town America slowly converge on one another. Sparse, gritty, truthful. Brilliant.

The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett
Found this one at a used-book store in Kinsman, Ohio, for two dollars. Brackett is best known for writing the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back. This is her story about what happens when only the Amish survive the end of the world.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The classic ghost or-is-it story. A study on tone. A companion to Jane Eyre. Good stuff.

At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft
A great fall read and the best way to jump into Lovecraft. You need to read this just to see how it influenced pretty much every sci-fi movie ever made.

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
Three separate tales of characters in search of identity: a twin tracking his brother to the Arctic Circle; a young man faking his death; a high-school girl eloping with her teacher. Then the stories begin to come together . . . and wow!

Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving
I wish I was always halfway through a John Irving novel. I love spending time with his fully realized characters. This one is about a father-and-son team on the run from a bad cop. But it’s also about logging, cooking, and, of course, writing.

All Authors’ and Editors’ Favorite Reads of 2011

The Introduction

Sheila Heti is the author of three books of fiction: The Middle Stories, Ticknor, and How Should a Person Be? In July 2011 Faber and Faber published her nonfiction book The Chairs Are Where the People Go: How to Live, Work, and Play in the City, co-written with Misha Glouberman. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, n + 1, and The Guardian. She regularly conducts interviews for The Believer. You can follow her on Twitter @sheilaheti.

There were some wonderful books in my hands this year. My favorites from those published in 2011 were Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station, Miranda July’s It Chooses You, and Helen DeWitt’s Lightning Rods. Each was gutsy in its own way; each gave us a unique, complete world.

Lightning Rods reminded me how fun following a narrative can be. It’s a great joke about sex and America, like a 1960s Playboy comic come to life. For It Chooses You, Miranda July went out into Los Angeles, into the world of people selling their used things, and returned with photographs of the people and their homes, and her hilarious and touching transcribed conversations with them. The whole thing is tied together with a searching narrative about her attempt to finish her second film. Leaving the Atocha Station is a brilliant first novel from the poet, Ben Lerner. He takes us into the world of a young poet on a fellowship in Spain, as he thinks about art, romantic love, and the love (and loathing) of oneself.

Some other books I loved this year, not published in 2011:

Lucinella by Lore Segal. For me, the most memorable scene was her depiction of a literary party, which highlights the pain of seeing the self one was, and then the pain of the self one becomes. I hope to read everything she’s written.

Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis is a brilliant biography that reads like Michaelis was there, standing by Charles Schulz his whole life. It’s a compelling and beautifully written narrative of a singular artist.

Parts of Books Copied Without Permission by Anonymous is a chapbook someone gave to me at a reading in Montreal. No permissions were sought or granted; the guy just reproduced his favorite stories and poems. “It is as if I dragged a photocopier through my bookshelves, glued it all together, and gave you what I made.” The best poetry I read this year came from here.

The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth. I don’t know how it took me so long to get to this. I then quickly read all of the Zuckerman books, but loved The Ghost Writer best.

Finally, as great as any book I read this year was Louis C.K.’s series, Louie. He plays a version of himself (a divorced comic with two daughters living in New York). Each episode has its own original structure. He wrote, produced, and edited the series. He really understands and sees people, and some of the episodes (like the Iraq episode, and the one where his friend is planning to commit suicide) contain scenes so richly and sensitively imagined they’re not only hilarious, but also profound and unforgettable.

All Authors’ and Editors’ Favorite Reads of 2011

The Introduction

Frank Bill lives and writes in southern Indiana. Crimes in Southern Indiana is his first book. You can follow him on Twitter @HouseOfGrit.

Volt by Alan Heathcock
I picked this book up and immediately wished I’d scribed the damn thing myself. The first story, “The Staying Freight,” in my opinion ranks next to Larry Brown’s “Samaritans” as it not so much keeps your eyes glued to the page but welds the prose into your brain, as a father confronts the demons of guilt from the death of his son. And this sets the tone for the entire book of 100-proof reading material.

The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell
Here’s the blood poet of the Ozarks. He says more in one sentence than most writers can say in an entire book. Like his novels, each story in The Outlaw Album takes on the human condition by making the dirt and ill will of downtrodden characters shine on the page like no other writer writing today. If you haven’t read Daniel Woodrell then you’re dead to me.

The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
Donald Pollock tells you a story by nailing your privates to a chair with Scripture, damnation, and blood—lots of blood—and won’t give you the option to quit reading, as the intersecting story lines build to a tension that will leave you paralyzed and salivating for more.

The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart by Glenn Taylor
Quite possibly the best storyteller no one has gotten hip to—yet. Spinning a wild tale of moonshining, snake handling, sharpshooting, the coal mining wars, and even a stint as a journalist for a small-town newspaper while running from his rollicking past. This is a book to be searched for, read over and over until the binding glue crumbles and you have to staple it back together for your grandkids to read.

Dust Devils by Roger Smith
Ever wonder what a normal man would do if he lost his family to a killer? Read this book and take a tour of an adrenalized hell as a husband is left with blame in one hand and redemption in the other. Roger Smith’s words will leave bruises throughout your endocrine system while pumping you up with page-turning prose. Call it pulp, hardboiled, or crime fiction. I call it badass writing!

All Authors’ and Editors’ Favorite Reads of 2011

The Introduction

Bill Loehfelm was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Staten Island. He is the author of the novels Fresh Kills (which won an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award), Bloodroot, and The Devil She Knows. Loehfelm lives in New Orleans with his wife, the writer A. C. Lambeth. You can follow him on Twitter @BillLoehfelm.

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran
One of the most unique characters I have encountered in a long time. Mixes everything from the magical to the macabre. It’s set in New Orleans in 2007, which made it a tough read for me, and I mean that as a compliment. Gran shies away from nothing and never loses her sense of humor. I hear this is the first book in a planned series featuring Claire. Can’t wait for the next one.

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
Atkinson is pretty much my hero these days. I think she’s one of the best novelists working today, and except for maybe James Lee Burke (and it’s close), she’s the best crime writer I know. Each of her Jackson Brodie novels (this is the fourth) starts with a collection of characters that seem as randomly placed and connected as stars in the sky. Over the course of the story, Atkinson connects them into a gorgeous constellation. Her books function at the highest level in every way.

A Death in Summer by Benjamin Black
Black’s Quirke novels are high-quality noir set in 1950s Dublin. Like a lot of my favorite books, Black’s books are peopled by complex, dark characters, both the recurring ones, like the pathologist Quirke and his daughter, and the other characters unique to each novel. Following Quirke as he tries to manage his relationships can be as compelling as watching him try to solve the murder that forms the core of each book. This one gets out into the Irish countryside in high summer and is completely immersive. I enjoy Black’s subversion of the simplistic fairy-tale portraits of Ireland we often get in popular entertainment.

Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke
He is still King James. This is the third book in a deep and dark new series featuring a Texas sheriff named Hack Holland. This book, the most recent Holland book (Rain Gods), and the most recent Robicheaux novel (The Glass Rainbow) all show Burke on an incredible creative run deep into his career. I know this is on every year-end list out there, especially genre lists, but it belongs there.

The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman
What gets me about Lippman’s work, and my favorite thing about it, is how she makes it impossible to spectate, to be passive. She forces you to engage your own moral standards and sense, and not in any heavy-handed way but by making you care about the characters making the decisions. I think that’s a real skill, one that’s near its best in this book. I don’t know how many times, especially with this latest book, I’ve asked myself what I would do or would’ve done. She writes books you think about even when you’re not reading them.

All Authors’ and Editors’ Favorite Reads of 2011

The Introduction

Here are a few recent additions from our Longreads page, our repository for articles, interviews, and stories longer than 2,000 words. (Also keep an eye out for our Twitter posts marked with the #longreads tag.) From the past thirty days:

• “Reality Effects: John Jeremiah Sullivan’s Essays” by James Wood, in The New Yorker
• “The Fracturing of Pennsylvania” by Eliza Griswold, in The New York Times Magazine
• “How to Dispel Your Illusions” by Freeman Dyson, in The New York Review of Books