My taste in books this past year has been notably inclusive, geographically and culturally speaking. Afghani authors, in particular, are represented prominently, and this makes some sense, given the present reality that regrettably entwines their nation with the US. Political climate notwithstanding, however, there is a universality to human nature that draws me in and fascinates, which is magnified by the otherness of the settings in such books. To learn who we are, we must cast our sights upon others. In them we may see ourselves reflected.
A neighbor in an adjacent cell to mine asked, several months ago, why it was I read so many books about people from different cultures. It wasn't a critical question; he was legitimately curious. I had no ready answer for him except to say that people were sometimes a mystery to me and I endeavored to understand them. Upon reflection, though, I realized: the whole point of reading is to be lifted from our comfort zone and shown a place wholly different from what we know — all without leaving our comfy chair. To always read without this goal misses the point. I am not ashamed to confess the joy I get from escapist hours lost to flipping pages, mind you, but there is so much more to it than entertainment — that crass and artless saccharine for the brain. So much more.
Regular readers of this blog (especially those of you whose queries about this year's reading list started coming in three weeks ago) may note that I have once again failed to meet my annual fifty-title goal. In 2009, I read just forty-one books. Unlike last year, I won't explain it away with specifics. It should suffice to tell you I don't have enough hours in my days. If anyone's got some unused ones lying around, I'm taking up a collection.
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Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Adam Davies, Goodbye Lemon
Toby Young, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Lyle Estill, Small Is Beautiful: Life in a Local Economy
Nathan Englander, The Ministry of Special Cases
Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach
Michael John Carley, Asperger's from the Inside Out: A Supportive and Practical Guide for Anyone with Asperger's Syndrome
Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things
Jesse Ball, Samedi the Deafness
John Elder Robison, Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's
David Mitchell, Black Swan Green
Andrew Miller, Oxygen
Deborah Harkness, The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution
Marilyn Yalom, The American Resting Place: Four Hundred Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds
Barry Lopez, Resistance
Yasmina Khadra, The Attack
Banana Yoshimoto, Goodbye Tsugumi
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Unknown Errors of Our Lives
Chuck Klosterman, Downtown Owl
Charles Wright and David Lehman (editors), The Best American Poetry 2008
Will Self, The Butt
Nelson George and Daphne Carr (editors), Best Music Writing 2008
William Conescu, Being Written
Davy Rothbart (editor), Requiem for a Paper Bag
Trey Hamburger, Ghosts/Aliens
David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames
William Gibson, Burning Chrome
Dobby Gibson, Skirmish
Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Mahvish Rukhsana Khan, My Guantánamo Diary
Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns
Berhard Schlink, The Reader
Patricia T. O'Connor and Stewart Kellerman, Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language
Ken Kalfus, A Disorder Peculiar to the Country
Paul Auster, Man in the Dark
Clive Barker, The Hellbound Heart
Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life Oscar Wao
Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
James Frey, A Million Little Pieces
Michael Chabon and Katrina Kenison (editors), The Best American Short Stories 2005
