Better hold my MacArthur grant

I have been a Kindle owner for just over a year. I just now figured out how to change the font size. You guys, I'm going to read all the things so much faster! (...I'm so ashamed.)

Image credit: Hyperbole and a Half

Agree or disagree?

"A good author photo will last you several books. A truly iconic image can be repeated infinitely. If you are attractive enough, you can put the picture on your book. If you are a talented enough writer, no one will suspect that anyone buys your book because of what you look like." --Molly Lambert

"America, the next time you see me I'll be a bookshelf."

How your New York Times Book Review sausage is made

1. Take someone who clearly doesn't like memoirs because too many people get to write them, and there should really be a high council above to decide who deserves to write on. Or to be a little kinder, someone who maybe just doesn't want to be on the memoir beat any more, and would be happier writing about other genres. 
2. Assign that person 4 recent memoirs to review.
3. ????
4. Profit?*

All I can say is, Neil Genzlinger, you are entitled to your opinion. You even had me briefly at "current age of oversharing." But if you ever decide to write a memoir in your life, to put it mildly, you will struggle.

P.S. Is it still okay to write something autobiographical if you aren't doing anything with it? Please get back to me soon Asking for a friend!

*"New York Times Co. Posts $4.3 Million Loss," October 19, 2010

Notes from packing

EVIDENCE

Boxes of books packed so far: 11
Forecasted number of boxes remaining: 1
Books I found against the wall when I moved my largest bookshelf: 2, Meredith Hall's WITHOUT A MAP (read, donating) and Henry Miller's TROPIC OF CANCER (unread, holding onto because it's a mass-market paperback and on the Modern Library list)
And what else happened: The entire backing of the shelf, held on by a few flimsy nails, fell away, causing it to rock back and forth rather violently for a 6' particleboard mess.
Price of bookshelf in 2007: $25 from a Taiwanese grad student
People it took to carry 3 blocks: 2
Current destination: Lobby with curb potential
People it took to get it there: just 1 unbelievably strong person who happens to write this book blog
Secret source of strength: Taking all the shelves out that weren't nailed in... obvious.

Books donated so far during moving: Over 100, if you count from mid-November or so.
Primary recipients: the St. Francis Thrift Store on 96th Street, and the people in my building
Identity of the person or people who are taking most of the books I leave downstairs in the lobby: Would that I knew! We'd probably get along.

TIME's The Page blog is the latest to call Mark Salter the author of O: A PRESIDENTIAL NOVEL. Note however that Salter has not commented nor has it been confirmed, so this is basically a list of coincidences.

I'm about a fourth of the way through this book and it is not magically full of insights on anything. The character of Maddy Cohan is kind of insulting, but not in a creative way. I'll probably still finish it because of an interesting plot development, which I both hope and fear will turn into something.

Please, make this movie

"If the history of the American sentence were a John Ford movie, its second act would conclude with the young Ernest walking into a saloon, finding an etiolated Henry James slumped at the bar in a haze of indecision, and shooting him dead."

Filmbook: Your Oscar Nominees Reading List

• Charles Portis, TRUE GRIT (10 nominations, including Best Picture and a very young Best Supporting Actress)
• Ben Mezrich, THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES ("The Social Network," discussed here to death; 8 nominations including Best Picture)
• Aron Ralston, BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE ("127 Hours," 6 nominations including Best Picture)
• Daniel Woodrell, WINTER'S BONE (4 nominations including Best Picture)
• David Lindsay-Abaire, "Rabbit Hole" (okay it's a play, but still -- 1 nomination)
• Chuck Hogan, PRINCE OF THIEVES ("The Town," one nomination)

The ceremony is February 27 and the one book on this list I would really like to read despite having already seen the movie is TRUE GRIT. I looked, I waited for the library book, and... I threw caution to the winds.

More business: The gleeful delete

It is a testament to the 3.75 regular readers of this blog, all genteel and did I mention very good looking, that I almost never get spamful or inappropriate comments. That said, to the Rockville Centre, New York resident who keeps leaving unrelated links to your self-published book: This is not your free billboard, so scram.

Business

Have you mailed me books or catalogs in the past, or would you possibly mail me books or catalogs at some point in the future? My mailing address has changed; if you would leave your contact info in comments or email me, lnvsml (at) gmail.com, I will update you.

(Please excuse the boring purposefulness of this post.)

#positiveday

Some people I follow on Twitter declared today Positive Day and it's something I think would be useful to observe across all my Internets. Hence:

• Is this weather not perfect for book-hibernation? (Caution: may not apply to Southern Hemisphere, equatorial regions, lizards.)
• I left some books in my lobby over the weekend, and someone wrote a thank-you note on the communal whiteboard. Not shabby! (Photo evidence forthcoming.)
• I got some quality time in reading yesterday while I was taking the subway everywhere.
• Even though most of my books are in boxes right now, it's only a temporary separation.
• Less than 3 months till THE PALE KING comes out. And O: A PRESIDENTIAL NOVEL (feel compelled to write the whole title) is out tomorrow.
• Down to 2 library books! And one is finished!

NBCC Finalists: The Usuals, Plus Murray, Smith, Mukherjee, Hitchens

I didn't vote on the finalists for this year's National Book Critics Circle Awards, but I'm excited to get some of their picks done before the winners are announced March 10th. Especially intrigued by COMEDY IN A MINOR KEY and the Biography category (hey Marjorie, is that the Montaigne book you raved about?)

Also nice to see that David R. Dow is getting some notice for AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EXECUTION, his memoir on defending death-row prisoners. It's the kind of quiet but powerful book Twelve is staking out a name printing.

When You Say Wharton, You've Said It All

Or have you? THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and THE HOUSE OF MIRTH are just two of the books on Doree Shafrir's terrific list of favorite New York fiction. Our lists would overlap in a lot of places but I'm so happy to see THE BEST OF EVERYTHING on there as a choice I think is somewhat overlooked. And HARRIET THE SPY! A book I never really associated with New York City, but she did eat egg creams and own a dumbwaiter, so.

Tournament of Books '11

The bracket isn't live yet, but the Morning News' annual best-of feature has posted its list of contenders so you can start reading before the March 7 start. The books are also 30 percent off at Powells.com, which is... very enticing.

And in one pivotal scene, a bear shits in the woods

The New York Post speculates that McCain's ghostwriter Mark Salter is behind O: A PRESIDENTIAL NOVEL, the PRIMARY COLORS of our time. Also, that the book "isn't flattering" to politicians. Really?!?!??!

Nevertheless, I've preordered my Kindle copy so I can read it before and around the State of the Union. I hope it's entertaining, or at least not racist.

Not the dog's fault

Hey Jen! Saramago makes an appearance in "The Most Emailed 'New York Times' Article Ever", a touching story about getting into college, Barack Obama, fake trends, fad diets, rich people and how behind the Chinese we are. All I can say is, I knew a guy in high school who used the façade of a pétanque club to get into Amherst, and we all know pétanque is the new bocce (or it was in 1999).

Your Assistance, Please

Which IKEA bookshelf is the strongest, which the easiest to put together, and which sits at the intersection of those things?

And Jimmy Buffett didn't have the correct visa to enter Margaritaville

Turns out Ernest Hemingway didn't keep cats in Key West:

[The Ernest Hemingway House] is a privately owned and operated business that has brilliantly capitalized on three things in the following order: people love cats, people love Ernest Hemingway, and Ernest Hemingway loved cats... In a 1994 interview with the Miami Herald, Patrick Hemingway stated the cats in the picture were his neighbors' who wrote in to the paper to confirm. The cat myth began with Bernice Dickson, who bought the Hemingway house in 1964 and opened the estate as a tourist attraction. At some point she started breeding and selling six-toed cats, even sending them through the mail, and claming, "they are a special Asiatic breed that Mr. Hemingway had when he was here."

--A.N. Devers for Lapham's Quarterly, "House Hunters." My life is over I'd rather see Hemingway's Cuba, frankly.

"In the early nineteen-sixties, books, for some reason, were bombs." Louis Menand in The New Yorker on THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE

Scoff

No, actually, if you want to read the whole Modern Library list you can't skip the D.H. Lawrence books you don't like. I mean, what kind of lawless land is this? (And before you say anything else, see: THE RAINBOW, WOMEN IN LOVE)

Tell-all subject speaks out

Surely you have all been following the saga of Amy Chua, author of a book called BATTLE HYMN OF THE TIGER MOTHER whose Wall Street Journal column about her parenting methods (one word: harsh) apparently earned her death threats (also one word: harsh!) I don't think I can handle reading the book myself, although curiosity is certainly driving me in that direction. Anyway, today's New York Post features a letter from one of Chua's daughters (now 18) defending her mother, which I sincerely hope was not under duress.

Irrelevant but interesting fact, Chua's husband (mocked gently in the WSJ for being the fun parent) is also a published author, INTERPRETATION OF MURDER novelist Jed Rubenfeld.

Damned if you do...

Am I wrong in saying that this Wall Street Journal article on authors running their own promotions is kind of backwards in its opener? After describing Ayelet Waldman's giveaway efforts despite her own aversion to it, it really gives her the bitchback by describing her as someone who "frankly, seems approximately as shy as a Kardashian."

This seems a bit unfair. First, I take her honest word when she says she didn't want to do Facebook giveaways, but the fact is she still did. And second, the Kardashian sisters are a blight on whatever channel their 800 shows are on, and all Waldman did to earn her oversharey reputation was write one Modern Love piece. Come back when she is endorsing a perfume, I guess I would say.

Well anyway, Christopher McDougall of BORN TO RUN fame gets a brief mention further down without any snippiness. (But where is Jennifer Belle? NEVER FORGET.)

I do wonder though how the author got away with describing sex toy shop Babeland as "a sort of FAO Schwarz for adults." (Obviously, don't search for it at work.) I see a lawsuit a-comin'.

Like, we have so much in common!

"I also like to work at the library and spill things on myself!"

If you aren't particularly sad about the (potential) fate of (maybe) ailing Borders Inc., consider what it will do to the state of Michigan. Even though its stock was slightly up on Friday, Jim Cramer is apparently more optimistic about Big Auto. Meanwhile, the chain just closed its Magnificent* Mile store in Chicago. Thanks to Lisa at Early Morning Run for pointing this out.

*Correction; thanks, Elizabeth!

"Blomkvist is less promiscuous, Salander is more aggressive, and, most notably, the ending—the resolution of the drama—has been completely changed." W Magazine on the American remake of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, with NSFW (I know, I know, it's Saturday) picture of Rooney Mara as the girl. I haven't seen the forthcoming movie, obviously, but I already don't like it! Because I don't like change. Also, get off my lawn.

"I liked the internet better before."
--Jonathan Lethem on Wikipedia.

Hey, did you read...?

Preview for a new series on IFC called "Portlandia," or your familiar conversational rut?

A new, puzzling addition to the Goodreads metadata:

I can understand a certain type of pickiness when it comes to perspective, but I feel they could have been more creative with the examples. I.e.

1st person ("In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.")
2nd person ("You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning.")
3rd person ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.")

(or)

1st person ("I'll march my band out, I'll beat my drum")
2nd person ("You wait, little girl, on an empty stage")
3rd person ("The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plan")

I could go on...

Filmbook-to-be: "One Day" this summer

Unpopular opinion: I will probably like the Jim Sturgess-Anne Hathaway adaptation of David Nicholls' book more than the book itself. And it's nice to see potential celebrity twin Romola Garai getting work!

Celebrity bookshelves

Flavorwire collects pictures of bookshelves from Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Sinatra...

Grounds

If the bare scrapings of detail about Michael Chabon's next book will surprise and delight you, definitely read a tiny bit about it at the Atlantic.

NYC: Charles Bock Benefit

Good Cause Of The Day Department: A whole passel of authors often appearing on this blog (Shteyngart, Ferris, Safran Foer, Wilsey among them) are throwing The World's Most Literary Rent Party Ever on Feb. 6 to benefit the Bock family (you'll remember debut BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN from a few years ago) as Mrs Bock battles leukemia.

"Inchoate anti-authoritarianism"

Laura Miller has a thoughtful piece in Salon about the reading habits of Jared Loughner, the man charged with shooting 19 people this weekend in Arizona.

Even a modernist builder like Steve Hermann in Los Angeles, who makes sleek multimillion-dollar houses for buyers like Christina Aguilera, includes acres of shelves in his high-end spec houses. Mr. Hermann designed a glassy Neutra-like house with a 60-by-14-foot shelving system, which has room for 4,000 books, he said.  “But who has 4,000 books?” he said.
--New York Times, "Selling A Book By Its Cover"

Anonymous Obama Administration Novel Out Jan. 25

Oh my God, it's the PRIMARY COLORS of our time. 2011 looks so much brighter already.

I didn't even get to say goodbye! Gothamist has photos from the giant Upper West Side Barnes & Noble which closed Sunday.

Maybe I'm naive, but I thought this was a rental ploy and they wouldn't actually go through with it.

Re. editing HUCK FINN

And while we're at it, let's just leave all that uncomfortable racism business in the past. Racism is over! It's totally over, all we have to do is say it is. It's 2011, it's just find and replace, people! Find and replace.

Hide your books

James Franco is adaptin' errrrbody out there with planned projects BLOOD MERIDIAN and AS I LAY DYING. Okay, I saw a Faulkner adaptation for stage once and it was glorious, but would that not be the most depressing movie ever? (Then again, prolific screenwriter Faulkner wrote a TV adaptation of AS I LAY DYING in the '50s, so that didn't bring the empire to a halt. That we know of.) On the other hand, I can clearly see Cormac McCarthy throwing a typewriter at someone. Maybe ask him from a safe distance.

Filmbook: "Never Let Me Go" (2010)

For all the hype (I think I saw my first trailer 8 or 9 months ago) this was a little movie that disappeared with hardly a ripple in the early-fall wave of prestige pictures. One minute it's a showcase for a crop of soon-to-be-Oscar-nominees, the next it's a quiet adaptation that will probably be added to your parents' Netflix account and forgotten about. So it goes.

"Never Let Me Go" wasn't my favorite movie of 2010 (... so far while I continue to catch up on the year-end onslaught). Yet I can't stop thinking about its sunwashed pastoral landscapes and scenes which are most often underwritten, going against the adaptive grain. The trio of young actors as the students at Hailsham have great group chemistry and stand well on their own; it wasn't too long ago that Andrew Garfield's role in this movie was paired with his "Social Network" supporting turn in profile, while Mila Kunis sits in the Best Supporting Actress Globe chair that should have been Keira Knightley's. (You know it's true.) Mulligan has the most complicated turn, and the world's worst haircut under which to deliver it, but she's just as good as she was last year in "An Education," just not as showy.

Surprised as I was that the movie trailer gives away substantial plot information, I think its development in the movie itself is very subtle and well handled. (Trailer editors! They ruin everything that's good!) If you've read the book, if possible, rope someone in to watch who hasn't read the book. Normally I would advise all to start, but since there is no love lost between this particular Ishiguro and me, experiencing the suspense secondhand of not knowing how Ruth, Tommy and Kathy are being raised and what becomes of them is almost as intense as seeing it onscreen. A little safe overall, but it doesn't deserve to just disappear.

I remember standing in Bluestockings bookstore on Allen Street probably 4 or 5 years ago, flipping through this book nervously, grabbing it and pivoting towards the register and then putting it back, wondering if it was for me, or if it was for me yet. I stood there for a good 10 minutes deliberating, pacing nervously. If you are at a bookstore with someone, this is your basic nightmare (well, depends if you are the One Who Waits), but fun when no one else is with you, if not a little worrisome because YOU HAVE NO IDEA IF YOU SHOULD BUY IT AND WHAT IF YOU SHOULD AND DON’T? WHAT IF YOU DO AND IT SUCKS? If you do and it sucks (or is good but not in the You Needed It way), then you risk losing this sacred/secret idea that you always read the perfect book at the perfect time, that they come into your life just when you need them, etc etc. I’ll stop because these things are not supposed to be said out loud.
- Life is hard, here is someone

Unbookening

Checked out 7 books from the library
Got 2 to review
Borrowed one
Received 9 for Christmas
(19)

Returned 12 to the library
Gave away 7
(19)

It was pointed out to me that my real reading resolution for the year should be, "find a place to move all your books, and while you're at it, you can live there too." I'm pretty sure in the years I have lived in this apartment I quintupled my book collection. QUINTUPLED. It's a delightful word till you are giving your roommates notice and thinking, "How many boxes is this going to take? Oh, lord."

I admire people who can live out of a suitcase, and at various points I have. And this isn't going to be one of those hyperminimalist moves because (I hope) I'm only going across-town-and-a-bit. (I may have to hire a mover anyway, being a weakling.) But I'll probably be leaving a few dozen books behind at least, and that makes me regretful. It's a little late for Operation Read It Or Move It.

This close to a tiny earthquake

Book critic Sam Anderson is leaving New York to write for the New York Times Magazine. You know Mr. Moss, I'm busy, but I'm not that busy. Just saying.

All The Books I Read In 2010

I took a few off this list before posting (gotta have some secrets!), but I believe there were 146 total.

January

Tobias Wolff, OLD SCHOOL

Jonathan Dee, THE PRIVILEGES

Michael Greenberg, BEG, BORROW, STEAL

Katie Arnoldi, POINT DUME

Joshua Ferris, THE UNNAMED

Rebecca Goldstein, 36 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

Matthew Crawford, SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT

Amy Sohn, PROSPECT PARK WEST

Liz Robbins, A RACE LIKE NO OTHER

Julie Klausner, I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR BAND

Noah Tsika, GODS AND MONSTERS

Jose Quiroga, LAW OF DESIRE

Sheila Weller, GIRLS LIKE US

Zachary Mason, THE LOST BOOKS OF THE ODYSSEY

February

“The Uptight Seattleite,” A SENSITIVE LIBERAL’S GUIDE TO LIFE

Dan Brown, THE LOST SYMBOL

David R. Dow, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EXECUTION

Stewart Copeland, STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN

Lynn Barber, AN EDUCATION

Julie Powell, CLEAVING

Kate Rockland, FALLING IS LIKE THIS

Elizabeth Gilbert, COMMITTED

John Banville, THE INFINITIES

David Shields, REALITY HUNGER

Patrick O’Brian, MASTER AND COMMANDER

Peter Hedges, THE HEIGHTS

March

Chang-Rae Lee, THE SURRENDERED

Sandman #3: DREAM COUNTRY

Peter Bognanni, THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW

Francis Wheeler, STRANGE DAYS INDEED

Stephen Dobyns, THE WRESTLER’S CRUEL STUDY

Piper Kerman, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

Matt Kepnes, NOMADIC MATT’S GUIDE TO SUCCESSFUL WORLD TRAVEL

April

Christopher MacDougall, BORN TO RUN

IT’S A BEAUTIFUL LIE: 26 TRUTHS ABOUT LIFE IN YOUR 20S

Mark Kurlansky, THE EASTERN STARS

David Plante, THE PURE LOVER

Cornelia Read, INVISIBLE BOY

Peter Carey, PARROTT AND OLIVIER IN AMERICA

Russell Hoban, RIDDLEY WALKER

Jen Lancaster, MY FAIR LAZY

Meghan Daum, LIFE WOULD BE PERFECT IF I LIVED IN THAT HOUSE

May

Lorrie Moore, A GATE AT THE STAIRS

Christos Tsiolkos, THE SLAP

Conor Bowman, THE LAST ESTATE

Louis Menand, THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS

Emily Gould, AND THE HEART SAYS WHATEVER

Christine Wunnicke, MISSOURI

Brady Udall, THE LONELY POLYGAMIST

Frederick Reiken, DAY FOR NIGHT

Stieg Larsson, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST

Marguerite Duras, DESTROY, SHE SAID

Dean Karnazes, 50/50

Nicholas Carr, THE SHALLOWS

Leo Tolstoy and Ben H. Winters, ANDROID KARENINA

Simon Rich, ELLIOTT ALLAGASH

Michael Idov, GROUND UP

Joe Queenan, CLOSING TIME

June

Gretchen Rubin, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT

Bret Easton Ellis, LESS THAN ZERO

Bret Easton Ellis, IMPERIAL BEDROOMS

Sam Lipsyte, THE ASK

Bret Easton Ellis, THE RULES OF ATTRACTION

Bret Easton Ellis, LUNAR PARK

Bret Easton Ellis, THE INFORMERS

Sloane Crosley, HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER

Henning Mankell, FACELESS KILLERS

Laurence Cosse, A NOVEL BOOKSTORE

D.H. Lawrence, WOMEN IN LOVE

David Mitchell, THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET

Philip K. Dick, A SCANNER DARKLY

David Foster Wallace, A SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING I’LL NEVER DO AGAIN

July

Matt Stewart, THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Gary Vaynerchuk, CRUSH IT!

Allegra Goodman, THE COOKBOOK COLLECTOR

Carolyn Parkhurst, THE NOBODIES ALBUM

Sharon Pomerantz, RICH BOY

Susan Fletcher, CORRAG

(reread) David Mitchell, CLOUD ATLAS

David Foster Wallace, EVERYTHING AND MORE

Eliot Asinof, EIGHT MEN OUT

Avis Cardella, SPENT

August

Philip Roth, THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL

Jonathan Mahler, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE BRONX IS BURNING

(reread) Colson Whitehead, THE INTUITIONIST

Jim Bouton, BALL FOUR

Rosecrans Baldwin, YOU LOST ME THERE

Jerry della Femina, FROM THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO GAVE YOU PEARL HARBOR

Scarlett Thomas, OUR TRAGIC UNIVERSE

Tom McCarthy, C

September

Ralph Sassone, THE INTIMATES

Julia Glass, THE WIDOWER’S TALE

Daniel Kehlmann, FAME: A NOVEL IN NINE EPISODES

William Powers, HAMLET’S BLACKBERRY

Steven Milhauser, MARTIN DRESSLER

Norman Maclean, A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT

Sara Marcus, GIRLS TO THE FRONT

David Foster Wallace, CONSIDER THE LOBSTER

October

Gish Jen, WORLD AND TOWN

Bernhard Schlink, THE WEEKEND

Mike Birbiglia, SLEEPWALK WITH ME

Jennifer Belle, THE SEVEN-YEAR BITCH

Adam Levin, THE INSTRUCTIONS

Ian Frazier, TRAVELS IN SIBERIA

John L Parker, ONCE A RUNNER

Haruki Murakami, AFTER DARK

Rachel Shukert, EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE GREAT

Colson Whitehead, APEX HIDES THE HURT

Colson Whitehead, THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK

Colson Whitehead, SAG HARBOR

Colson Whitehead, JOHN HENRY DAYS

Jane Smiley, THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE COMPUTER

Don DeLillo, MAO II

Patti Smith, JUST KIDS

Dinaw Mengestu, HOW TO READ THE AIR

November

Josh Karlen, LOST LUSTRE

Deborah McKinlay, THE VIEW FROM HERE

Bill Carter, THE WAR FOR LATE NIGHT

Joanna Smith Rakoff, A FORTUNATE AGE

Randy Frost and Gail Sketeree, STUFF: COMPULSIVE HOARDING AND THE MEANING OF THINGS

Douglas Coupland, MARSHALL MCLUHAN: YOU KNOW NOTHING OF MY WORK!           

Rachel Toor, PERSONAL RECORD

Laura Hillenbrand, UNBROKEN

Beryl Bainbridge, WATSON’S APOLOGY

December

Steve Martin, AN OBJECT OF BEAUTY

Darren Dochuk, FROM BIBLE BELT TO SUNBELT

David Nicholls, ONE DAY

(reread) Dodie Smith, I CAPTURE THE CASTLE

Siddhartha Muhkerjee, THE EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES

Matthew Gallaway, THE METROPOLIS CASE

Jennifer Baggett, Holly Corbett and Amanda Pressner, THE LOST GIRLS

David Lipsky, ALTHOUGH OF COURSE YOU END UP BECOMING YOURSELF

Haruki Murakami, A WILD SHEEP CHASE

2011 Reading Resolutions

Read 2666. I've owned a copy for over a year now and it seems like every time I read a best of decade list, or the A.V. Club does some kind of round-up, some self-appointed conscience-person pipes up to ask why this book isn't represented. Then I look at it on my shelf and think "Well but first I should read X, Y, and Z and also those essays by A" and then my brain shuts down and I make some more coffee instead. Let's do this thing this year. Love it or hate it (probably love given all its accolades up to now). 
Read the 3 David Foster Wallace short-story collections. I finished THE BROOM OF THE SYSTEM in bed this morning (when I said I was going to give that up, I lied).
Knock 3 books off the Modern Library list. That should be stupidly easy.

So, what are yours? (Edited to add: I feel mine are devastatingly simplistic now that I've read the L.A. Times list of reading resolutions from authors. Please to note.)