Posts Tagged ‘Jesse coleman’

Jesse Bering's Bookshelf

With more and more books published every year, it’s increasingly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Does this increase the usefulness of all the annual “Best of” lists? Perhaps. It’s irresistible when a critic distills a year of reading into a simple hierarchy, especially if her tastes match your own. It’s just so efficient. I tend to eschew those books awarded the most (or loudest) hosannas in favor of the previously unknown novels that slipped past me at publication. (This year it’s Ben Lerner’s excellent Leaving the Atocha Station.)

Sites like Salon, The Millions, and The Guardian go straight to the authors for their recommendations. I decided to do the same, canvassing our writers and editors. With a couple caveats: First, the editors couldn’t choose their own titles; Second, one’s choices didn’t need to be published in 2011, just read in 2011. Old classics and novels from 2010 and 2009 are all welcome.

Some submitted a straightforward list, while others penned brief summaries. (The Spanish-Argentinian novelist Andrés Neuman even separated his list by language.) I hope you’ll find your next favorite book among them.

Favorite Reads from 2011: (more…)

Jesse Coleman is an associate editor at FSG.

For me, 2011 was the year of rereading, and my favorite reads of the year were books that I have read before:

Mating by Norman Rush

The Bathroom by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Erasure by Percival Everett

The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

All Authors’ and Editors’ Favorite Reads of 2011

The Introduction

In 1949 Theodor Adorno famously said that “To write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric.” How, Adorno seemed to be asking, could existing forms of artistic representation be expected to convey something so aberrant, so distant from normal human behavior? Adorno’s comment thus represents a challenge to artists who seek to present the horror of the Holocaust in general and of Auschwitz in particular: to do so, they must move beyond traditional modes of representation and create new structures and forms. (more…)