2014 reading list

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Reading, 2014

Not a bad year. I read 116 books, which is about average for me. I’d call 59 of those books good reads, and 46 were very good reads. And I don’t have any entries in the what-was-I-thinking! category for a change. I didn’t finish any book I didn’t want to read, having brains enough to stop after 25 pages or so in the half dozen or so which were going to be obvious mistakes.

I do have a list of books I was disappointed in. But that was strictly a matter of taste this time around, not because I found the books particularly badly written. So I won’t besmirch any author’s name on a matter of subjective judgement I can’t back up with objective illustrations of “look how he or she blew this bit!”

At the end of 2014, combining my fiction and nonfiction lists, I find there are 17 books worth commenting on.  Starting at Number 17 and working my way up …

Seventeen: Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles. A novel I bought my wife. Sort of a romance.

A good, vaguely Gatsby-ish evocation of a bygone era. I liked the strong female narrator.

Sixteen: The Emperor of Ocean Park, by Stephen L. Carter. A novel I picked up in a secondhand store in hardcover, no less. A thriller with benefits.

I commented on this one a few months back, in my search for a great summer read. Carter’s novel was a good summer read, but as I decided at the time, maybe a better fall read all in all. Very intelligently written, and quite suspenseful at times. Again, a highly likeable central narrator. There was one run-on sentence about midway through the book that alone would have been worth the full price of the novel.

Fifteen: The Skull Beneath the Skin, by P.D. James. A novel I borrowed from the library. A mystery.

I completed reading the Adam Dalgleish novels in order in 2014, and topped them off with the two Cordelia Grays. I didn’t find the first of those to have much impact, but I quite enjoyed the second. I like the dwindling cast of characters trapped on an island with the murderer schtick, and as usual James’s precision of language was always a treat. P.D. James happened to die a few days before I started this book. I have to give her much admiration for continuing to produce quality work right into her eighties. She will be missed.

Fourteen: Fin-de-Siecle Vienna, by Carl E. Schorske. A nonfiction book lent to me by my friend Ron. Cultural commentary.

A group of essays on architecture, writing, and artists in the European centre leading up to the Twentieth Century. It made me actually go out and look at the buildings in my own city differently.

Thirteen: Picasso’s War, by Russell Martin. A nonfiction book I borrowed from the library. Cultural, historical and social commentary.

A few months back I decided I wanted to read a good biography of Picasso. I haven’t found one yet. There’s a six volume magnum opus out there I tried reading part of, but it was too detailed for what I wanted. And a bit too gossipy. Martin’s book is specifically about Picasso’s painting Guernica and the history behind it and after its creation. I find it’s rewarding to have certain things put in context for me. Guernica, the event and the painting, are well worth knowing the whole story of.

Twelve: Mr. Norris Changes Trains, by Christopher Isherwood. A novel passed onto me by my friend Nurit when she was cleaning out her personal library preparing to move. Literature (like the others ain’t).

I happened to read three novels in a row, one set in Madrid, one set in Paris, and this one set in Berlin, all telling stories from the same time period in the first half of the Twentieth Century. I like getting perspective on things, as I mentioned above regarding the Guernica book. Of the three, Isherwood’s Berlin stands out as the most lively. I think I liked this book better than I Am A Camera, which I reread a few years back.

Eleven: Making History, by Stephen Fry. A novel I purchased new. Time travel.

It’s difficult to go wrong with Stephen Fry, but I did find this book to have a better plot and to be written in less of a Tourette’s Syndrome manner than others I’ve read by him. The dialogue and humour are rich as ever.

Ten: Why Does the World Exist?, by Jim Foot. A nonfiction book I bought for myself for Christmas in 2013. Philosophy.

For philosophy, this book is quite accessible. Foot goes on a trek all over the world consulting experts in various disciplines on the question, comparing their answers. The conclusion he reaches of course isn’t necessarily a final word on anything, but it is perhaps a bit surprising. Although unquestionably quite reasonable.

Nine: Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith. A novel I borrowed from the library. A mystery, but so much more.

I came to this by rather a circuitous route. I love Hitchcock’s movie, and have seen it a number of times. Then I read The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin, and discovered Hitchcock lifted the legendary merry-go-round out of control final scene from that book, an entirely different novel. So I decided I needed to know how the original story actually ended.

And in the process of course, discovered just how creepy a writer Patricia Highsmith can be. The psychological complexities of this novel are so much more spider webbish than the movie, you can’t really compare the two treatments, even though they have the same nominal plot basis. An old one that will definitely never go out of style.

Eight: The Murder Room, by P.D. James. A novel I bought secondhand. Mystery.

As I mentioned, I finished reading all the Adam Dalgleish novels in order this year. I started in June of 2013, and read the last of the 14 in June of 2014. This one stood out the most for me of the later works, but I must say I liked them all. Any of the last five could have made this list.

Seven: The Angel Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. A novel I bought my wife. Literature, suspense, supernatural (?).

The Spanish really know how to write about the Devil like few other races do. Zafon’s two companion novels to this book are excellent as well, but you don’t have to read any of the others to enjoy each one for its own sake. An entertaining book for people who like to read about an author’s mindset as well.

Six: Two For Sorrow, by Nicola Upson. A novel I borrowed from the library. Mystery.

I read all of Nicola Upson’s books available to me this year, a series using real life mystery novelist Josephine Tey as Upson’s investigator. Thus Upson can write about at least two themes each book, the mystery unfolding in her own pages and the life of the mysterious Scottish authoress as well. Of the series, this book — the third in the group — stood out the strongest for me. More for the way she treats Tey’s life events than the mystery I think, but that is done well too.

Five: Railsea, by China Mieville. A novel I bought new. Ostensibly science fiction, but really Moby Dick redone. With giant rodents.

It bugs me that Mieville hasn’t topped my yearly lists once yet, although The Scar, The City and The City, and Embassytown could all probably have done so this year. But during the years I read them, there was always just one other book that was unbelievably even more exceptional. How unlucky can I be, right? Nevertheless, I rate China Mieville as one of my top favourite contemporary writers, and Railsea keeps him there. Wildly imaginative and tightly written as always.

Four: Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, by Sean Howe. A nonfiction book I bought new.  Cultural and economic commentary.

A modern day phenomenon I actually lived. The rise and fall of Marvel Comics from the 1960s through to the late 1990s, all during which I was an avid collector, living the triumphs and shaking my head over the disasters. After reading this astoundingly informative book I no longer have to shake my head about anything, everything comes clear. But even if you don’t care about comic books, the portrayal of the short term profit business acquisition and divestment scorch and burn philosophy of the nineties is chilling. An attitude that brought Marvel from its best selling years ever to bankruptcy in less than 5 years. Possibly even more pertinent in any number of other contexts today.

Three: The Eustace Diamonds, by Anthony Trollope. A novel I bought secondhand. Literature. It’s old, right, so I guess that means that classification’s more correct.

Trollope novels continue to place highly with me every year these days, a wonderful later discovery of an author who has so much to offer. I started working my way through the Palliser novels in 2014. Again, any of the first three I read could make this list, The Eustace Diamonds being the best representative of the bunch. Possibly because it’s the closest thing to a thriller I’ve read by Trollope yet. A genre that didn’t even exist when he was writing.

Two: Gödel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter. A nonfiction book I bought new at the behest of my son. Epistemological treatise.

One of those books that continues to stand alone, and is still worthwhile to read many years after its publication. It helps if you’re into math, but it’s not entirely necessary. Mind you, I couldn’t help wishing repeatedly that I’d read this back when I was a computer programming student in the early eighties.

One: Nova Express, by William Burroughs. A novel I bought new. A William Burroughs book.

It’s tricky tracking down books by William Burroughs in Winnipeg, if you’re determined not to order them over the Internet. Bookstores only maybe carry one or two titles at a time, and the library copies keep getting stolen, so you only have a limited resource there. As a result, I’ve ended up buying two copies of The Soft Machine, but had never ever been able to track down Nova Express or The Ticket That Exploded at all — until this year. When they were reissued in new editions and showed up on the bookstore shelves again. At least, on one bookstore’s shelf I was lucky enough to be in time to raid.

What can I say? I still maintain that since I survived emergency open heart surgery in 2005, William Burroughs is the only author that truly makes sense to me.

Now, what’s 2015 going to bring …

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

This week! The game gets under way in Monday’s post, and we hear the first round of results on Friday, January 9th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition hits the Dark Forest running. As always, at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Mak Skeeter — because how can you keep him out — explains the new rules; the 34 Entry Contestants make a mad dash for Hell; we hear from the Judges and everything comes across just a tad Dante-Ish. With illustrations by the author!