Joshua Ferris, THE UNNAMED
Julie Klausner, I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR BAND
Meghan Daum, LIFE WOULD BE PERFECT IF I LIVED IN THAT HOUSE
Brady Udall, THE LONELY POLYGAMIST
David Mitchell, THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET
David Foster Wallace, A SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING I'LL NEVER DO AGAIN
Notes
1. I think it's inevitable that I will reach the midpoint of the year and effectively say, "Is that all?" I do the same thing for movies (would struggle, in fact, to put together a comparable list of 2010 films of note, there's been so much dreck). That's why I only chose the six superlative ones and left off half a dozen more that were very good, but not great.
2. Biggest disappointments so far, proportionately, have been all the books I've read this year that weren't published in 2010. Stupid free reading, be more engaging!
2 comments:
Good selections.
Other than people, like yourself, who review new books for a living, how many people read books in the year of their publication? I usually drop everything to read the new Chabon/Eggers/Michael Lewis/Neil Gaiman etc book, but, for the most part, even if I buy it in hardcover, I'm usually in the middle of a few other things at the time and inevitably end up putting it aside for a few months, if not longer. I still think of "Home" as a new novel, and that's a couple of years old by now.
Hardcover sales would indicate at least that a lot of people are not buying new books in the year they are published. I think even if they're reading them, they aren't thinking of them as the newest or putting them in context as such. The hardcover/paperback transfer may be the only clue that a book isn't "new" anymore. The concept of books belonging to a particular year is mostly of interest to outlets that review them (or publishing nerds like myself).
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