Topic 5: Books of the Year

Michael: The toughest question of them all. I've read too little (though I'd probably say that even if I had read a thousand books over the past year . . . ) - and much of what I did read isn't particularly new. Limiting myself to books first published in the US in 2003 (more or less) I find that not a single one stands out as superlative, and so I offer a (preliminary?) list of the books that most impressed and/or were important, with brief explanations.

- A Whistling Woman, A.S. Byatt - the final volume in her quartet, a major piece of contemporary British fiction, certainly among the best novels I read in 2003

- The Man of Feeling, Javier Marías - an impressive small fiction, showing what one can still do with fiction

- Siegfried, Harry Mulisch - impressive display, again showing what one can do with fiction

- Radio Dialogs II, Arno Schmidt - fascinating literary appreciations, smartly done

- Living to Tell the Tale, Gabriel García Márquez - fascinating life, neatly recounted

To this I also add a list of honorable mentions:

- Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi - because it made such an impression and did get people talking, and even if it isn't all that it could have been it's a worthwhile book

- Geist and Zeitgeist, Hermann Broch and Style and Faith, Geoffrey Hill - the first English translation of most of Broch's essays, and Hill's serious literary pieces: important stuff and it's nice to see that a commercial publisher (Counterpoint) is still willing to publish such books

- 9/12, Eliot Weinberger - fine and important little pieces in and of themselves, but also nice to see a small press (Prickly Paradigm) putting out such works (the same goes for Schmidt-publisher Green Integer, or UK publisher short books, all of whom seem to be carving out nice niches for themselves)

- A Dictionary of Maqiao, Han Shaogong - difficult work (especially in translation), but quite remarkable

- And a final honorable mention to Imre Kertész: I've read four of his works now (none yet available in English) and I've been very impressed - he was certainly the author-discovery of the year for me.

Robert: Funny thing is a I have list just as long of new books that I wanted to
read and haven't gotten around to which in another important way makes this list
tentative:

Shipwreck- Louis Begley
How to Breathe Underwater - Julie Orringer
The Rabbit Factory - Larry Brown
The 6th Lamentation - William Broderick
Erasure - Percival Everret
Saul and Patsy - Charles Baxter
Train - Pete Dexter
Reunion - Alan Lightman 
What I Loved - Siri Hustved
Fabulous Small Jews - Joseph Epstein
The Clearing - Tim Gautreaux
Hell at the Breach - Tom Franklin
On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction - Karl Iagnemma
Bay of Souls - Robert Stone
I Should Be Pleased to Be in Your Company - Brian Hall
Dancer - Colum McCann
A Memory of War - Fredrick Busch
What We Lost - Dale Peck
Harvard and the Unabomber - Alton Chase 
Genuinely Authentic - Michael Gross
The Devil and the White City - Erik Larsen
Moneyball - Michael Lewis
Bugaloo - Arthur Kempton
Death by Hollywood - Steve Bochco
Under the Skin - James Carlos Bake
Man Eater – Ray Shannon
Shutter Island - Dennis Lehane
Smalltown - Lawrence Block

Putting together this list made me very conscious of the books that are staring at me from my bookshelf and night table that I haven't yet read. A gut feeling says there are some winners there. That alone makes me feel like my list is incomplete or lacking. Anyway, my list is pretty much one of books that I would unqualifiedly recommend to anyone who was looking for something to read. There are no other claims, prescriptions or warranties tied to my suggestions. Okay?

Also, my comrades in tomes have very much influenced me to think about making some countervailing effort to balance my steady diet of contemporary fiction with not so contemporary writing. Thanks for that, folks.

Alex: I guess I only (only! only in this crowd!) read around 50-60 new books a year for review (I split my reading pretty evenly between new publications and older books). I couldn't possibly manage any more. It's part of what makes me wonder about these literary prize juries where they have to read 100 to 400 titles on a longlist. Whatever else you want to say about Kinsey's admission last year that he only glanced at a fraction of the books he was supposed to be considering for the National Book Award, at least he was being honest. It's one of the reasons why the whole idea of jury awards should be reconsidered.

Nothing knocked me out cold in 2003, but I did enjoy a few non-fiction titles quite a bit. Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919 impressed me the most. Mark Abley's Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages was an interesting book on an important subject. Mike Jay went into Simon Winchester territory and outdid either of Winchester's books this year with a wonderful little historical sketch that didn't seem to get a lot of attention: The  Air Loom Gang. I also enjoyed Marquez's autobiography.

I didn't read a whole lot of new fiction this year. Carey's My Life As a Fake and Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time were probably the best. But I obviously only scratched the surface of what was out there.

Maud: I'm too changeable to enjoy composing lists like this, but these are my top ten at the moment. Tomorrow they might be different:

Dan Rhodes
Timoleon Vieta Come Home: A Sentimental Journey

JM Coetzee
Elizabeth Costello

ZZ Packer
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Alain Robbe-Grillet
Repetition

Amanda Davis
Wonder When You'll Miss Me

Tim Gautreaux
The Clearing

Zoe Heller
Notes on a Scandal:  What Was She Thinking?

Alasdair Gray
The Ends of Our Tethers

Siri Hustvedt
What I Loved

Jim Crace
Six

Jessa: I'm only going to write about the best reprints of the year, mainly because that's what I read the most of. I read a lot of 2003 fiction, but not very much of it made me really excited. What I found most satisfying was the following:

1982, Janine by Alasdair Gray
Hell by Kathryn Davis
The Far Cry by Emma Smith
Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier
Konfidenz by Ariel Dorfman