Here's my reading list for 2007. I started keeping a yearly list a few years back and I found that it helped me remember individual books better (as well as the times and places associated with the reading of those books) so I continued the practice. There are a number of really good books on the list and only a few that were not so good--only one I did not finish. I ended the year on a light note with two books that were fun but not especially good. I also tackled a few of the "important" 20th century American writers this year: Faulkner, Roth, Delillo, Ford. Underwhelming mostly, though I did like White Noise for the most part. This was countered by the highlights: digging into McCarthy (who goes in the "important" category as well but who I really enjoy now), Russo (though my response to this book was more mixed than to any of his other novels), McEwan and the short stories as well as Chandra and my first Tyler and a few others that I enjoyed as well as a couple old friends I revisited. The best book I read in 2007 was The Road. Perhaps I will think differently when I go back to it someday but I cannot remember another book having such a visceral existential impact.
Here it is, last to first:
The Case of the Missing Books by Sansom
Eyeing the Flash: The Education of A Carnival Con Artist by Fenton
like you'd understand anyway by Shepard
All Aunt Hagar's Children by Jones
Blink by Gladwell
The Solitudes by Crowley (unfinished, threw in the towel after 150 pgs)
Bridge of Sighs by Russo
Cannery Row by Steinbeck
Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra (all 947 pgs of it)
Your Body is Changing by Jack Pendarvis
Digging to America by Anne Tyler
On Fire by Larry Brown
What is the What by Dave Eggers
NewJack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Saturday by Ian McEwan
As I Lay Dying by Faulkner
The Dogs Who Found Me by Ken Foster
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
White Noise by Don Delillo
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
Later, At the Bar by Rebecca Barry
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
In the Little World by John Richardson
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
The Forbidden Zone by Michael Lesy
Breakfast on Pluto by Patrick McCabe
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
The Sea by John Banville
The Amalgamation Polka by Steven Wright
The Places in Between by Rory Stewart
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
The Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
