Year In Review: Book Awards

(Now with Wikipedia links!)

My 2008 book awards, drafted by the committee of me, approved by me, ratified by me.

Best New Book I Read: The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Who knew Alaskan Jews could be so treacherous and so much fun?

Best Book I Didn't Finish: A Perfect Spy. Not because I won't, it's just that I started this in the last week of the year and haven't gotten through it yet. If it finishes as well as it's begun it might be the best spy novel I've ever read.

Best Book I Re-Read: (Tie) Lolita, Foucault's Pendulum, Victory, Harry Potter 6. I re-read a lot of books this year, and these remain among my favorite books of all time. Christopher Hitchens re-reads Lolita every year, and I have to say that he's on to something. I was languishing with an insipid turd of a novel (see next entry) when I came across a copy of Lolita in a Barcelona book store. I picked it up (my 3rd copy of it, actually), dropped what I was reading and didn't regret it. Foucault's Pendulum is another of my favorites, those masters of the world are just always interesting to me. Victory is one of my favorite Conrad novels in part because its hero reminds me so much of myself. And for pop-lit giddiness there's nothing more fun than the tail end of the Harry Potter series.

Most Disappointing: The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. Eco is the author of some of my favorite books (the aforementioned Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose) but this one was a self-centered dud.

Maybe The Nazis Were Right Award: Gravity's Rainbow. Let me quote from the wikipedia page:

"Frequently digressive, the novel subverts many of the traditional elements of plot and character development, traverses detailed, specialist knowledge drawn from a wide range of disciplines, and has earned a reputation as a "difficult" book."

Ha! Difficult doesn't begin to describe the pointless meandering and constant confusing shifts in perspective and setting. Trying to read this novel is essentially signing one's self up for a headache. Burn it!

The What Did I Get Myself Into?!, But...It's Still Interesting Award: Guns, Germs, and Steel. This book is bigger and drier than the Sahara, but, some of its ideas are very important.

Don't Skimp On The Editor Award: I Am Charlotte Simmons.

Best Fantasy Novel Called "The Hobbit": The Hobbit.

Most Read Author Of The Year: John le Carre. This year I read Call For the Dead, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People, The Night Manager, Single & Single and The Mission Song (and I'm almost through A Perfect Spy). This man can write.

Book That Inspired Me To Write Something Myself: Travels With My Aunt. I think I wrote almost two full pages of fiction before I went back to watching TV.

Started It But Saved It For Later Award: Cryptonomicon.

Hat's Off To My Hero Award: Nostromo, by my personal hero (one of them anyway) - Joseph Conrad. When I came to China I brought this and the two other Conrad novels that have inspired me - Victory and Lord Jim. I fully expected to read Lord Jim first, I was after all a stranger in a strange land and somewhat on the run like Jim, but for whatever reason I didn't get around to it. I was in no hurry to get back to the sprawling Nostromo, I'd only read it once and quite liked it but it wasn't as impactful for me as the other two. I picked it up on a lark one lazy Starbucks afternoon and didn't put it down for quite a while. I had remembered the portrait of Sulaco, the political intrigue, the dire appraisals of men with ambition that is so typical of Conrad, but I also remembered after reading it the first time thinking the novel had been wrongly named. Nostromo, the character, though a large part of the story, doesn't figure prominently until the last acts of the drama. The novel could have just as easily been named "Gould" or "DeCoud," two other characters in the story. Well, I was wrong. I appreciated it much more during this second reading, and I think the novel is aptly named because of Nostromo's fate - his death (all great Conrad characters die at the end of their stories, except Marlow) is our lesson.

Well, that's enough navel-gazing for now. More to come.