Fifty Two Weeks - 2024 in Literary Terms

 

The sun sets on 2024, Morley, Dec 31st

The past year has been extremely busy, in a way that has led to nearly all of my books being packed in boxes and stacked in the corner of a room in my wife's house. Across the year we did all of the background planning to build a new house at my property, which took up a great deal of time and mental space, and then I moved house, with all that that entails. As a consequence my reading was curtailed, but I still managed to get through some tomes, both brilliant and mediocre. The best was undoubtably the Javier Marias novel, Tomas Nevinson (2021). Marias was an exemplary literary figure, regarded as Spain's greatest modern writer, it's a pity he passed away during the pandemic. Tomas Nevinson was also a book club read, and so was definitely the best book club novel of the year, followed by Table for Two by Amor Towles (2024). The worst book club book and also the worst overall read of the year was definitely The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop (2023), although it was still a long way from the worst novel I've ever read, the execrable The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (2010), it makes me shudder just thinking about it!

Some of my books, before being imprisoned in boxes

Honourable mentions go to the very entertaining In the Approaches by Nicola Barker (2014), I really must explore more of her work, and The In-Between by Christos Tsiolkas (2023), which was also the best book I read by an Australian author. Overall the reading year was quite an interesting mix, during which I tackled Dostoevsky, which almost defeated me, but I got through in the end by sheer bloody-mindedness, it's rare that I give up on a novel in any case. I also finally got around to reading some of the music books I have laying around, the best being Bee Gees: Children of the World by Bob Stanley (2023). The Bee Gees were a much better musical proposition than many people remember and their story is fascinating. On that (musical) note, I'm taking a vow to read more in 2025, particularly as all of the books I can't help but buy are piling up. I'm justified in buying all these new books, as my main collection is boxed up for the next year, but then really who needs such excuses?

Best and worst of the Year - 2023

 

This will be quick, due to laziness and the fact that I've already posted five times in December, probably a record for this blog.

Best book of 2023: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt (2013)

Genius level modern realism.

Worst book of 2023: The Siren's Sing - Kristel Thornell (2022)

Narrative structure did not work, but had some redeeming features.

The year of non-fiction: a good year! Six read overall, the best being Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli (2020)

The year was notable due to the fact that the overall quality of books was high - there were no mediocre ratings given. Also the library based book clubs I facilitate went on hiatus in September due to me going on long service leave and the external renovation of the library, which will not be complete till perhaps April 2024. It's freed up more time to read my own books, but I do miss the book club members and reading for a specific purpose.

All that's left to say is: Happy New Year!

Bookends 2019

It's been a great year for reading, with no books being rated by me as mediocre. The worst book of the year was The Last Hours by Minette Walters (2017), which merely read like a passable historical fiction novel, which is no great crime. There were some disappointing books, such as The Crying Lot of 49 by Thomas Pynchon (1966), which seemed dated and unfocused. David Marusek's sequel to the excellent Counting Heads (2005) - Mind Over Ship (2009), struggled for coherence and left me underwhelmed. 

The best by far were Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively (1987) and Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake (1946), two totally different but equally sublime novels. I'll be definitely reading more by Lively and Peake in the near future, and so should you! A shout-out goes to Sailor Twain by Mark Siegal (2012) and The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis (1986) for being the most entertaining books of the year. The most important book, for unfortunate reasons, was Sapiens by Yuval Harari (2011); a must-read if you want to understand where humanity has come from and exactly why it was almost inevitable the we should find ourselves in our current climate change predicament. Appropriate reading for humanity's last golden age? I wish that I could be more optimistic on the last day of 2019, but frankly rather than bury my head in the sand, like Australia's ruling Triple C Liberal Party (Climate Change Criminals), I'm going to bury my head in more books next year (including a recent Christmas gift - Bowie's Books (2019), hence the gratuitous Bowie picture above...).

Best and Worst of the Year - 2018

When I did my last post I realised that it had been a great year of reading. In the eight years of Excelsior I have only awarded the sublime rating thirteen times. This year I rated four books as sublime. I choose to believe that my critical faculties have not deserted me and that these books were genuinely brilliant. Two were collections of short stories: Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges and Store of the Worlds by Robert Sheckley, and two were novels: Solaris by Stanislaw Lem and Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima. Truth be told I cannot separate them and collectively they were the best literature I read this year and indeed, for many years.

None of the above were book club books, but the best of those was definitely Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, read way back in January. The book club was responsible for the worst book of the year, which was by far and away The Shadow District by Arnaldur Indridason, which was one of the dullest novels I have ever read, although the writing was technically proficient, which ultimately saved it from the rare occurrence of a reprehensible rating.

This year also saw the adoption of a new method of choosing books to read. I realised that many of my unread books were never really considered because they were stored in parts of the house that I didn't really go to when choosing something new to read; so I began selecting one book from the six main areas where I store books in a systematic fashion. Books that I've had sitting there unread for years are now getting a look in and I even suspect that this is why I've had a cluster of sublime ratings; the gold has been sitting there and I haven't been digging it up! Now - ever upwards into 2019....

2017

It has been quite a year and looking back over what I’ve managed to read I feel a certain degree of satisfaction. Half of what I read is dictated by the book clubs I run at work and this year it has been a mostly satisfactory group of books. Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda (1988) proved to be both the best book club book and the best book I read all year; it’s a near work of literary genius. Following close behind was The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (2011), which is a brilliant example of genre fiction that transcends perceived boundaries that come from those who feel that fantasy should not be taken seriously.

Ideas: A History From Fire to Freud by Perter Watson (2005) proved to be one of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2015) was the best science fiction book I read during the year, with Rudy Rucker’s Wetware (1988) a close second. Most of the other books I read this year had something going for them, even Kate Grenville’s The Idea of Perfection (1999) had its moments, however not enough of them to avoid being selected as the worst book I read all year. Sorry Kate, who am I to judge really? When have I actually written a novel? Still, I can honestly say that I mostly hated it!

Now, if only I could get around to finishing that John Fowles novel....

Best & Worst Books of 2016

Some of my books, resting quietly.

Looking at the list of books I read last year my first impression is that they are an odd bunch. The combination of books I read of my own volition and those that I read for the book club make strange bedfellows. Among the novels read for the book club Rose Tremain’s The Gustav Sonata (2016), Mario Vargas Llosa’s Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977) were among the best, but the most satisfying novel was undoubtedly Dominic Smith’s The Last Painting of Sara De Vos (2016) (I’m yet to write a review...). My library’s book club voted it their best book of the year and although it was not my personal choice for best book it was certainly close. As for the worst book of the year the book club agreed with me absolutely: Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way of Things (2015) was the most reprehensible novel I’ve read since Howard Jacobson’s dreaded The Finkler Question (2010).

Although Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest and The Three Body Problem and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch were all excellent reads, the prize for best book of 2016 has to go to Patrick Rothfuss’ fantasy novel The Name of the Wind (2007). Of all the books I read across 2016 The Name of the Wind came the closest to being rated as sublime. In hindsight I think that the only reason I did not give it the top rating was because of my unfamiliarity with the fantasy genre. Currently I’m reading its follow-up, The Wise Man’s Fear (2011) and although I’m only a third of the way through it’s looking like it could gain my highest rating in 2017.

Once again I’m looking forward to another year of reading, but as usual I wish that I had more time to get through my ever growing pile of unread books, but of course the one thing that is guaranteed is that I will not stop adding to the pile of books waiting to be read! Just give me more books!

My Back Pages

Looking back on 2015 it was quite a varied year in terms of reading, although I would liked to have read much more, if only time would allow it. However there were plenty of highlights during the year. Late in 2014 I met one of my musical heroes in the form of Steve Kilbey from the Australian band The Church. In January I read his excellent autobiography, Something Quite Peculiar (2014) and then met him again with the rest of the band in July when they toured the west coast (they were brilliant by the way...). When literature and music meet I’m a very happy man indeed.

My book club reads this year yielded both pain and pleasure, with Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992) taking the crown for the best book I’ve read this year. The Secret History was compelling, absorbing, manipulative and most of all just brilliantly written. Other book club related highlights include Ian McEwan’s succinct and stylish The Children Act (2014), Richard Flannagan’s Man Booker Prize winning The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013) and Joan London’s The Golden Age (2014), which managed to both charm and move me in equal measure. Book club pain came in the form of Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook (1962), which was not mediocre by any means, just long winded and intensely and neurotically self-conscious. It was also a fascinating and challenging read, so in the end I’m grateful to have read it and I will certainly remember it for a long time to come.

If The Secret History was the best book of the year (in fact one of the best I’ve ever read...), then the biggest disappointment was Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia (1977). Perhaps Chatwin had great adventures in Patagonia, but he managed to make it totally boring on paper. Luckily there were plenty of other highlights from my own (non book club) reading to make up for the tedium of Chatwin. Miranda July weirded me out in a good way with her debut novel, The First Bad Man (2015) and Michel Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter (1976) was simply a great piece of experimental cult fiction. Other highlights were Axiomatic (1995) by Greg Egan and Seven Eves (2015) by Neal Stephenson, both of which left me wanting to read much more of their work.

As for next year I aim to finish the thousand plus pages of Peter Watson’s Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud (2006). I’m reading it a bit at a time, mostly late at night, so hopefully I’ll get through it! What I really have my eye on though is my first love - science fiction. After reading Egan, Stephenson and then recently Huxley, it’s time to catch up with contemporary science fiction and some of the classics that I’ve never got around to reading. Maybe I’ll even read Philip K. Dick’s crackpot The Exegesis of Philip K Dick (2011) this year - now there’s some holiday reading....

End of Times (Well, this year anyway...)

By the end of the year all the words just pile up, so there’s a need to assess the situation so we can all move on. Looking back I note that my reading this year was reasonably eclectic, but unfortunately not always satisfying. Thankfully there weren’t any books read that were as noxiously offensive as the infamous Finkler Question (I will not even reference it - you just don’t want to know...); but probably the least worthy was Sarah Dunant’s Sacred Hearts. That was a book club read, so I had no choice in the matter - the things I do! Enforced reading has its benefits however, with Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites proving to be one of the best novels I have ever read, and that’s no mean feat. Other highlights include The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis, J.G.Ballard’s The Complete Short Stories, Samuel Delany’s The Einstein Intersection and Annabel Smith’s The Ark, which achieves that rare feat of pushing at the boundaries of the novel.

Do I have any New Year’s resolutions? No - I just want to read.

A Year of Reading

This year I thought that would have read much more considering I had three months off work on long service leave, but that didn’t quite happen. Reading is so tied with work for me that I think I wanted a break from it during my time off. I only read two books during those three months. Mind you one of them was the brilliant Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, which is challenging to say the least. 

Looking back over the year my pick for the best book would have to be Infinite Jest. Its complexity, intensity and uniqueness made for a fulfilling reading experience. An honorable mention has to go Patrick White’s The Tree of Man, which is just superbly written. I would also place The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard in the same exalted company. It was well appreciated amongst my book-club members as well.

As for the worst book of year? Well that would have to go to Alison Moore’s The Light House. It was certainly flawed, although I will not go on about it again, just read my review if you are interested! Richard Ford’s Canada was also very disappointing unfortunately.

I’m looking forward to next year’s reading. I have so many books piled up waiting to be read, but they are patient (can’t be hard, they just lay around), so why can’t I be? I do want to start reading more non-fiction again, so that will be my main aim throughout 2014.

If anyone wants to share their best and worst for the year then please go ahead, otherwise just keep reading!