Books of Long Ago

Don't feel quite ready to write about the marathon, but my mind has been full of books lately - ones I've read, ones I'm reading, the one I'm working on. A while back I started a list of my top books from 2016 and then never finished it - here you go.

A word on how I chose these books. I read a fair bit. Poetry, literary fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, urban fantasy, and at the top of my list, romance. For a book to make my top 10, rather than just receive a star in my book journal, it has be not only well-written and make me think, but it has to haunt me, to weave itself around my soul in some way so I can't forget it. These are books I might not be willing to lend out, and I'm usually pretty free in sharing.

So, in the order in which I read them, my favorite books of last year.

Voyage of the Sable Venus, by Robin Coste Lewis (poetry)

Difficult subjects, told beautifully. Each of these poems a story, complete in itself, but together a voyage.

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

Rich, tender, fascinating. A lot of the same sort of material as in his Sandman series but I felt done even better (or I may just like the format more).

Exterminate all the Brutes: One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide by Sven Lindqvist

Wrenching yet also poetic, and totally mind-blowing.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

This book amazed me. It was chilling and compelling and utterly believable. I kept being drawn on and on into it.

Glitterland by Alexis Hall

Oh, this just pulled me in, the language, the characters, the situations. I loved watching them change and develop, was impressed with the depiction of anxiety and the aftermath of depression and how they both kept fighting forward. (Plus super hot, of course, as all his are.)

Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera

There was so much packed in to this book, such inventive use of language while still absolutely, beautifully readable. (And an interesting translator's note at the end.) Dreamlike, haunting as a dream will, and also haunting knowing what we do about border policies.

      

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya

Oh my God, what a treat to find these in this edition. I started reading this series years ago, before it was done, and got overwhelmed with how many volumes there were to it. Still a bit overwhelming (there are 12 thick books of this and I'm about 2/3 through), but so worth it. The marriage of the story and the art - how there is so much unsaid that can be hinted at instead. Glorious.

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudine Rankine (poetry)

Brutal truths, an incredible weaving together of the personal and the metaphysical. The form as jarring as the material yet perfect.

Duma Key by Stephen King

This was good, good, good, and then it got great. One of my favorites of his.

Sexing the Cherry by Jeannette Winterson

How did I even think I understood this when I read it before (in college)? I don't think I did, I think I read it back then for the characters and the transgression of it, but certainly I didn't come close to understanding a fraction of what is going on. And of course her language is sumptuous.

Books in the running for top 10 of 2017? Though I read so much romance now it only makes sense to have a top 10 romance and a top 10 everything else.

Romance

   Pansies by Alexis Hall

   K. J. Charles - all of them!

   Burnt Toast B&B by Heidi Belleau

   A Boy Called Cin by Cecil Wilde

   Save of the Game by Avon Gale

   The Soldier's Scoundrel by Cat Sebastian

Everything Else

   Extracting the Stone of Madness by Alejandra Pizarnik

   Trash by Dorothy Allison

   Underground Airlines by Ben Winters

   The Romantic Dogs by Roberto Bolano

   Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

   The Vegetarian by Han Kang
   Thorn by Intisar Khanani

We'll see if these end up getting knocked out by others as I keep reading.

Happy reading,
Annie