This year, I read 36 books.
2 of these were books I re-read
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and Jitterbug Perfume
24 were fiction
7 books of short stories
15 novels
1 young adult book
1 graphic novel
12 were non-fiction
4 were on the city of Chicago
1 on San Francisco
3 were books of collected essays
3 memoirs
2 on music
1 book of poetry
4 were published by the New York Review of Books
9 were recommended to me when I lived in Milwaukee, by the people I worked with
5 were recommended to me by people I worked with in Chicago
16 were books I can honestly say I came upon without any significant outside influence
12 were published since I became a Bookseller
19 published post-2000
13 first published before I was born
4 first published before my parents were born
3 were novels in translation (I’m actually really disappointed in this figure)
this year the author I read most was Bohumil Hrabal, with 3 novels (Too Loud A Solitude, Closely Watched Trains and Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age), which are also the 3 books in translation.
second was Jesse Ball with 2 novels (Samedi the Deafness and The Curfew)
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Probably my favorite book from the year is Chicago: City on the Make by Nelson Algren, which is something of a long-form love poem to Chicago. my favorite bits have to do with the El, the city’s “rusty iron heart”,
There, unheard by the millions who ride the waves above and sleep, and sleep and dream, night after night after night, loving and well beloved, guarding and well guarded, beats the great city’s troubled heart.
for anyone who knows anything about Chicago, I really can’t recommend it enough.
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other favorites from this year in no particular order
- Too Loud A Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal
- Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas edited by Rebecca Solnit
- The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
- The City and the City by China Mieville
- Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
- My Life in France by Julia Child
- The Curfew by Jesse Ball
- Boss: Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago by Mike Royko
& that’s it for 2011, because I don’t think I’ll be able to finish The World As I Found It before the new year.
