Book List 2008

[myowndojo]

The books I read in 2008 were strictly fiction and almost entirely by male authors. In 2009 I not only want to read at least twenty works, but also add more female authors to the mix. Most of the books listed here are contemporary or modern works, but I would love to get in some canonical classics including Don Quijote and War and Peace (ambitious

Comments

[sugartricks_]

Okay, how is Wallace's Oblivion? I just bought a used copy from Amazon. And how good was Lolita and The Rules of Attraction! Both haunting.

[myowndojo]

I've suggested Oblivion to people before because really, DFW is the master of the short story and tackles it with so many different forms and faces. There is one story in Oblivion that made me cry, the rest are also very good.

I can't believe I had never read (or really even heard of) Lolita before last year, what a piece of poetry and a fucked-up love story. But I thought the Rules of Attraction was the most pretentious thing I've read from Ellis yet. Not a disappointment, but not my favorite.

[sugartricks_]

Yeah, American Psycho is his best work, I think. I tried reading Glamourama but I had to put it down because it was just so obnoxious. I still have to read Lunar Park because I hear it's a form of autobiography, whatever that means with him. And Nabokov is fucking sick-I dig how his novels revolve around the theme of twisted relationships.

[onewithbriteyes]

Did you read Lolita as a love story?

There's a lot of talk in feminist circles about how Lolita is read in the context of a rape culture, and what it means when its read as a love story or a story of abuse.

I haven't read it yet, which is sort of funny, because I've read a lot ABOUT it. It's on my list, though. I read a short story by Nabokov that I really liked though. It's in the New Yorker, and available online.

[onewithbriteyes]

How do you feel about Sci-Fi? My book club is about to start an Ursula K. LeGuin, and Octavia Butler has some really interesting stuff. I've read a couple of her books, I'd suggest starting with Parable of the Sower. It's sort of sci-fi, but not in the traditional, male-dominated sense of the genre. It's not about crazy inventions or whatever, and it's set on earth, just in the future. It's a mix of fantasy, sci-fi, and realism.

Also, for more realistic novels by female authors, I'd suggest anything by Zadie Smith. I particularly loved On Beauty. White Teeth is good, too.

Edit: For an accessible, but interesting, non-fiction, check out When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks it Down by Joan Morgan

[myowndojo]

Science fiction doesn't turn me off, and I have no prejudices that would keep me from reading it, but it's definitely a mysterious genre to me. (I guess I don't know how to distinguish the really good stuff from the really mediocre stuff.) Thanks for the rec's.

And I just checked UCSC's library catalog to see if they've got Chickenheads and they DO! So I will get on that very soon - it sounds good from the title alone.

[enidsletters]

My Uncle Oswald is probably one of my all time favorite book. Roald Dahl is the master of twist ending.