Tuesday, November 29, 2011

10 FAVORITE BOOKS I READ IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE YEAR. 2011


(
without commentary or justification and maybe not in order)

1. The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas - Davy Rothbart (reread)
2. The Sisters Brothers - Patrick DeWitt
3. The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom & Party Girl - Marc Schuster
4. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides
5. The Lover's Dictionary: A Novel - David Levithan
6. Waiting - Ha Jin
7. The White Boy Shuffle - Paul Beatty (reread)
8. Rule of the Bone - Russell Banks (reread)
9. You Can Make Him Like You - Ben Tanzer
10. I AM THINKING I WILL RUIN IT AHEAD OF TIME AND TELL YOU WHAT I AM THINKING WHICH IS PARK IT YOURSELF. METALLICA BREATH. I AM THINKING I STOOD WITH MY PEN BUT YOU WERE NOWHERE - Nicolle Elizabeth


Honorable Mentions

Yellow Medicine - Anthony Neil Smith
The Dead Man - Georges Bataille


BOOKS I COULDN'T WAIT TO READ BUT ENDED UP BEING A BIG TIME LET DOWN

Lost Memory of Skin - Russell Banks
American Pastoral - Phillip Roth
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

7 comments:

Matt Rowan said...

I liked "Waiting" too. Have you read "War Trash"? Really enjoyed that one, too. Highly recommended.

Kind of agree about "Middlesex" -- although I was cautiously optimistic going in. It was a very readable read, to its credit. I love books you can tear right through, and "Middlesex" was definitely that.

Gay Degani said...

I liked "Waiting" but I also loved "Middlesex." I'm wondering if you'd read it when it first came out, you might have liked it more. I've found that after I've listened others praise something from here to the mail box, my expectations are so high, nothing can meet them. It's the discovery of something great, before you hear a lot about it, that surprise that makes the difference for me. I'm currently reading "Let the Great World Spin" which took me a long time to get into because a friend told me it was the best book she ever read.

It's good, but....
I'm not done with it yet so that may change.

The thing that nailed "Middlesex" for me was the ending. A literary book with a terrific ending. It was like reading "Tess of the D'Urbevilles for the first time all over again.

Anonymous said...

"White Boy Shuffle" is amazing. Have you read his new one? He's always been a musical writer, but "Slumberland" takes it to a new level. I wish Beatty was a little more prolific.

DOGZPLOT said...

matt: havent read war trash yet but im looking forward to it. waiting was actually my introduction to ha jin. i found it at a library book sale for a quarter...

gay: i actually found eugenides the same way i found ha jin. at the library book sale. which was just this past summer. i picked up the virgin suicides and kind of fell in love with it and i really dug the description for middlesex so i gave it a try. wasnt impressed, but im still gonna give marriage plot a try. i think thats what its called.

misener: ill try slumberland, thanks for the recommendation. yeah i only met beatty once and that was about a year and a half ago and rutgers and he seemed like he had about a thousand places he would have rather been. but awesome dude. awesome books. cant wait to read slumberland...

Anonymous said...

Glad you liked Wonder Mom & Party Girl!

TBWCYL, Inc. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
TBWCYL, Inc. said...

Great list and big thanks for the Top Ten love Dogzplot. This is some quite heady company to be hanging with.