I console myself with thinking that this is a real story and that, after all, real stories are probably told best in the way a person telling a story would tell them. They will then seem more real.
Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier.
I console myself with thinking that this is a real story and that, after all, real stories are probably told best in the way a person telling a story would tell them. They will then seem more real.
Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier.
His face hitherto had, in the wonderful English fashion, expressed nothing whatever. Nothing. There was in it neither joy nor despair; neither hope nor fear; neither boredom nor satisfaction. He seemed to perceive no soul in that crowded room; he might have been walking in a jungle. I never came across such a perfect expression before and I never shall again. It was insolence and not insolence; it was modesty and not modesty.
Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier.
I set out this year to make my reading a bit more diverse. I fell a tad short of my goal for women writers making only 39.6% when I was aiming for 40% but had 13.5% non-white. I ended up choosing my next book to read 10.8% of the time in pursuit of these numbers. I had 9.9% of my reading written by dead white men and 30.1% by non-US authors.
69.8% of the books I read were by authors new to me, and I’ve met 10.8% of the authors of the books I’ve read. 60.8% was fiction and 5.9% was poetry. 3.9% was in translation and 1% was in Spanish.
And now, my top books of the year:
Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood
Great short stories by a master of the form.
The Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim
Magical realism and brutal realism in contemporary Iraq
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
I read this in college 25 years ago, coming back to it, I still love it.
Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
A great account of a mystical experience.
The Instructions by Adam Levin
A work of pure genius. Once I finished, I went back to page one to read it again.
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
A lyrical tribute to libraries of all kind.
Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar, Dave Johnson, Killian Plunett, Andrew Robinson and Walden Wong
An alternate version of the Superman story done brilliantly.
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
A great investigation of identity and deception,
The Year of What Now: Poems by Brian Russell
A beautiful depiction of painful experience through poetry, even more impressive in that it’s fiction!