I can hardly believe 2011 is drawing to a close. It seemed to slip by far more quickly than I'd have liked. Regardless, I did a great deal of reading over the course of the past twelve months. I firmly believe that life is too short to waste on a bad book, so I didn't waste any time reading things I did not enjoy. Instead, I spent 2011 reading books that left me both entertained and amazed (and as a writer more than a little envious.) I spent quality time with
Allen Ginsberg,
Edwin Muir, and
David Jones. I savored the play-writing skills of
Samuel Beckett and
Tom Stoppard, relished the short stories of
Joyce Carol Oates and
Reggie Oliver,
Rhys Hughes,
Paul Kane,
Allyson Bird and
John Langan. I fell in love with novellas like
Isis, by
Douglas Clegg,
The Man in the Picture, by
Susan Hill, and
Paul Auster's
Travels in the Scriptorium. I revisited the work of
Albert Camus and sank my teeth into widely varied works by (again) Rhys Hughes,
Kazuo Ishiguro,
Haruki Murakami, and
Ryu Mitsuse; got lost in the imaginations of men like
China Mieville,
William Gibson, and
Roberto Bolano, and simply shook my head at the talented and stunningly speculative skills of writers like
Margaret Atwood and
Robert Holdstock, and the poetic beauty of literary gifts like
Catherynne M. Valente and
Michael Cisco.
I read thought-provoking philosophies served up by
Terry Eagleton,
Michael Krasny and
Eugene Thacker, shared in the literary philosophies of the wondrous
Susan Sontag,
Stephen Greenblatt,
Roland Barthes and
Umberto Eco. As the year draws to a close I find myself reading two final books;
The Hidden Reality, by
Brian Greene, and
Kraken, by
China Mieville.
I originally intended to list my top ten favorite reads of 2011, but when the list hit twenty I gave up on the idea. This post would be infinitely longer than it already is!
Edwin Muir's poetry collection,
Labyrinth is superb, the sheer beauty of
David Jones' language in
In Parenthesis is second to none in my mind. The new
Joyce Carol Oates collection,
Give Me Your Heart is quite simply JCO at her very best. There are few writers alive who can rival her mastery of the short story.
Paul Kane's
Butterfly Man represents, in my opinion, his best work to date. For depth of meaning and sheer, blistering literary talent you needn't look further than Beckett's
Waiting for Godot, Stoppard's
Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Camus'
The Stranger, and the wondrously witty, often absurd work of
Rhys Hughes (the finest example of a Welshman I've ever known.) Although I am a Murakami fan,
After Dark did not capture my imagination the way his novels have. I could say the same about Ishiguro's
Nocturnes, (although his novel
Never Let Me Go remains among my top ten all-time favorites.) Atwood and Gibson continued to impress me with
Oryx and Crake and
Zero History respectively. Oates, Hughes, Murakami, Ishiguro, Atwood, Valente, Gibson: these are standards. They never disappoint. The books that surprised me this year were by writers I had never read before.
Michael Cisco,
Reggie Oliver,
Lucy M. Boston,
John Langan,
Susan Hill and
Douglas Clegg either caught me off guard or flat-out blew me away.
Because I read fiction and non-fiction in equal measure, I've decided to pick two favorites for the passing of 2011. My favorite fiction came from the gifted mind of Reggie Oliver.
Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories, published by Tartarus Press, and
The Dracula Papers, published by Chomu, simply amazed me. Both Oliver and Chomu Press were new to me. I bought Oliver's
The Dracula Papers, Cisco's
The Great Lover, and
Revenants, by
Daniel Mills when I ordered
Link Arms With Toads, by
Rhys Hughes. Although I am not a fan of vampire fiction, I put my faith in the fine folks at Chomu Press. With writers like Hughes and
DF Lewis in their lineup I knew it wouldn't be bad. I never guessed it would be brilliant. It quickly surpassed
The Historian as my favorite Dracula tale. I was so impressed by Oliver I promptly ordered
Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories. Tartarus Press introduced me to
Rhys Hughes. Had I not read
The Dracula Papers I likely would have purchased
Mrs. Midnight simply because I trust
Ray Russell to put out brilliant books. Tartarus did not disappoint me.
Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories frightened and delighted me.
I found it just as difficult to pick my favorite 2011 non-fiction read. I had to narrow it down to three before deciding which I enjoyed the most.
Michael Krasny's
Spiritual Envy is an Agnostic manifesto of sorts. It's an extremely personal book that hit very close to home, and while Krasny's religious background is Jewish and mine Christian, the same internal struggles apply.
Terry Eagleton's
On Evil is a brilliant, mind-opening book about the active role evil plays in our world. In the end, however, I chose
This is Not the End of The Book, a moderated dialogue between
Umberto Eco and
Jean-Claude Carriere. It is easily the best book about books I have ever read. Eco tends to come across as arrogant, perhaps distant, in his non-fiction works. In this wonderful book I found him incredibly personable, his bibliophilic passion worn on his sleeve throughout.
So there are my favorites for 2011. Reggie Oliver's
Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories, and his novel,
The Dracula Papers, and the Eco/Carriere collaboration,
This is Not the End of The Book. In truth, I enjoyed everything I read. If I gave it more thought
, Link Arms With Toads could very easily replace
Mrs. Midnight while
On Evil or
Spiritual Envy, or even
Thacker's
In The Dust of This Planet could supplant
This is Not the End of The Book at the top of my 2011 list. There are many more stories and books, articles and whatnots I did not mention here, by writers as varied as Hawthorne and Newton, that could easily make my list as well. Suffice to say 2011 was a very good year for reading, and given the books still on my reading list, 2012 is bound to be better!
