The scheme of substituting lists for substantive information and thoughtful opining has held sway in what stands for journalism for the past few decades especially under the guise of what’s called service journalism. I have my problems with lists— tack on a superlative (‘best’)and collect titles of movies or recordings or films or paintings and you have the recipe for viral. controversy. Feh!
So it is obviously a cynical and hypocritical posture for me to adopt, devising a list and claiming that I am lampooning the whole sordid world of ” The N Best This”, The X Most Important that”, the Hottest Y thingamajigs”
I’m betting your socially formed and derived appetite for short lists will keep you reading. You are, as it were, under my control
Just as any number of literati not so long ago reported the essential lists of summer and/or beach reading and are now reporting the fall lineup of books to be published (as if we have made our way through even a small percentage of the books we want to read)I thought I would get a jump on my comrades-in-tomes and offer my unerring enumeration of the year to date.*
Country of the Bad Wolfes by James Carlos Blake
Country of Bad Wolves by James Carlos Blake (Cinco Puntos Press)
Jack Holmes & His Friend by Edmund White
Jack Holmes & His Friend by Edmund White (Bloomsbury)
The Starboard Sea by Amber Dement
The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermant (St Martin’s Press)
The Street Sweeper by Eliot Perlman
The Street Sweeper by Eliot Perlman (Riverhead)
Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison
Enchantments by Kathyrn Harrison (Random House)
Live by Night Dennis Lehane
Live by Night: A Novel by Dennis Lehane (Wiliam Morrow)
Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru
Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru (Knopf)
The Might Have Been by Joseph Schuster
The Might Have Been by Joseph Schuster (Ballantine)
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (Harper)
Pure by Andrew Miller
Pure by Andrew Miller (Europa Editions)
The Cove by Ron Rash
The Cove by Ron Rash (Ecco)
OK then.
Currently reading The Naked Singularity by Sergio De Pava (University of Chicago Press)
* I cheated a little (see if you can figure out how) but since this whole enterprise is not to be taken seriously, I am not donning a hair shirt anytime soon.
