Another Year, Another Wednesday

Not terribly much to report today. For those of you who like long lists of books, there will be a "books read in 2018" post soon.

What I've Finished Reading

I finished the last book of 2018, The Charioteer (by Mary Renault) and the first book of 2019, Another Country by James Baldwin.

What these books have in common: sad gay men with problems. Otherwise, they are pretty different from one another. In The Charioteer the question of who Laurie ends up with is of paramount importance, because Laurie is young but also because it's just that kind of book. In Another Country it doesn't matter who anyone ends up with, because none of us can know ourselves and we're all doomed to go on tearing each other to ribbons like so many Edwards Scissorhands. The characters in Another Country, like James Baldwin, are very concerned with the impossibility of authentic interpersonal relationships in America, a nation built on hypocrisy. I am not convinced they wouldn't find a way to disappoint themselves and one another in any country on earth, but that isn't a defense of America. I don't know exactly how I feel about Another Country, but it sucked me right in and I appreciated its messiness.

Holiday Book Gifts

The Cat Who Had 14 Tales (a short story collection by Lilian Jackson Braun), A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami - another ubiquitous writer whom I've never gotten around to reading - Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years: 1865-1871 by Joseph Frank. I started the latter on the plane back home and it has been fantastically difficult to put down. Frank's readings of Crime and Punishment are almost as good as reading Crime and Punishment. Dos has just married his second wife (the famous stenographer) and the Dostoevskys have gone to Germany in an attempt to save their marriage from the stress of his judgmental in-laws. Unfortunately, Germany is Roulette Country and Dos is a compulsive gambler. :(

Also In the Vicinity

Pale Fire is very silly and fun so far - exactly the kind of self-indulgence I can never help but like. An academic exile of Ruritanian background has generously stepped forward to edit his neighbor's last long poem, but surprise! his notes are mostly long stories about himself. The Innocent Moon is getting a little tedious now that Phillip has time to think and reflect in his diary, but not so much that I want to stop reading. I bought (at John K. King Books, the enormous and dusty four-story bibliocosmos in Detroit) Last Things, the very last C.P. Snow in 99 Novels.

2018: The Year in Books

I read some books in 2018, most of them Sue Grafton (as you can see below). This is numerically more books than last year, but the count is inflated: many of these are novellas or even chapbooks. On the other hand, I finished a few hefty ones this year, including Ulysses and The Life of Samuel Johnson (both highly recommended). I started out keeping track of a bunch of variables, then gave up. There are about 70 non-fiction books, 147 fiction, 24 poetry, and 25 miscellaneous - but I doubt those numbers are exact and I doubt I'll feel like counting again. Most of the books I read this year were good. The biggest disappointments were probably To Say Nothing of the Dog, which couldn't live up to its title or its premise, and Reality and Dreams, which wasn't terrible but was way below expectations for Muriel Spark.

Best book of 2018: I'm going to go ahead and say Gilgamesh the Hero, a stunning child-friendly adaptation by Geraldine McCaughren.

( Under the cut it's just a list of titles )

I did do a lot better on impulse book buying and clearing off my shelves this year. A lot of these books are either from the library or books I already owned; most of the ones I owned I've since given away. Some of the titles are still on my shelf (often in spite of intentions to the contrary): Gormenghast, The Life of Samuel Johnson, PrairyErth, Maud Martha, The Balkan Trilogy. I might have kept Hungry Hearts, because it was delightful, but it fell apart in my hands, poor thing.