Definitely not going to finish The American Language (HL Mencken) or The Metropolis Case (Matthew Gallaway) before midnight, so here, with little comment, and in no particular order, are the books that fed my brain between January and December (favorites bolded):
- Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, Nick Flynn
- Sacred Games, Vikram Chanda
- Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
- Lush Life, Richard Price
- Sunset Park, Paul Auster
- The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman
- Like Life, Lorrie Moore
- Lit, Mary Karr
- Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
- Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes
- Anatomy of an Epidemic, Robert Whitaker
- Rumpus Women, compilation
- C, Tom McCarthy
- The Street of Crocodiles, Bruno Schulz
- My Dog Tulip, JR Ackerley
- Make Believe, Joanna Scott
- The Manikin, Joanna Scott
- The Black Minutes, Martin Solares
- Half Life, Shelley Jackson
- The Places in Between, Rory Stewart
- Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson
- A Short History of Women, Kate Walbert
- Lowboy, John Wray
- You Are Here, Meenakshi Madhavan
- The White Mary, Kira Salak
- Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk
- The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafron
- Out Stealing Horses, Per Petterson
- Fugitives and Refugees, Chuck Palahniuk
- The 42nd Parallel, John Dos Passos
- The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon
- The Help, Kathryn Stockett
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
- The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson
- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson
- Room, Emma Donoghue
- The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, Thomas Mullen
- Possible Side Effects, Augusten Burroughs
- A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
- Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane
- Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann
- The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
- Bad Marie, Marcy Dermansky
- The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender
- Bright-Sided, Barbara Ehrenreich
- Ghosted, Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
- Kapitoil, Teddy Wayne
- The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
- Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins
- Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
- Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Mario Vargas Llosa
- The Coast of Akron, Adrienne Miller
- The Vagrants, Yiyun Li
- Moth Smoke, Mohsin Hamid
- The Territory of Men, Joelle Fraser
- Madness and Civilization, Michel Foucault
- The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
- Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, Geoff Dyer
- The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters
- Await Your Reply, Dan Chaon
- War, Sebastian Junger
- A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore
- The Ask, Sam Lipsyte
- Little Bee, Chris Cleave
Hey, cool -- that's more than a book a week! Maybe next year, I'll make it an even 100. Not sure what to take away from this; apparently, I like women writers, I like fiction more than nonfiction, and I skew toward white American writers?
Anyone want to borrow a book? Lemme know. The lending library is open in Astoria. Also, my beloved book club has more or less disbanded. New year, new group?