2010 Booklist

Yes, it is late for me on New Year's Eve and have I a booklist for you. I have outdone myself. Last year I read 40 books; this year 59. I know most people won't find this list anything more than self-indulgent, but I LOVE looking at booklists when the people take time to briefly encapsulate their thoughts about each given work, so I believe this will be of interest to somebody somewhere.

1. How to Write Like Chekhov - Anton Chekhov

Compiled from his letters, as he talked often of his own work as well as other people's, this is a far cry from the usual teach-yourself-to-write manual, being what the title says, not necessarily how to "sell." I found it interesting, enlightening and proof of Chekhov's wonderful humaneness.

2. A Swiftly Tilting Planet - Madeleine L'engle

Oh, awful. How this woman won a Newbery only a few years earlier... She preaches unrestrainedly, leaves the protagonists with nothing to do, has black villains and pure heroes and can't manage realistic dialogue anymore. I can't understand what happened to her.

3. Glimpse into Terror - Clarissa Ross

Even worse. A gothic novel that is set in "Country Club Heights" where the citizens play golf, dress in the worst the 70s had to offer and gossip about who's dating who. And it is not a satire. Also, the writing is really, truly horrible.

4. Fluke, or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings - Christopher Moore

Many elements of Monty Python come together in this novel. It starts as an eccentric, slightly science fiction comedy, at times laugh out loud funny. Unfortunately, once it hit full-blown science fiction, it lost steam fast, eventually becoming a chore to read through crassness and idiocy. Oh well. All scenes in our world were really good.

5. Nick Drake: a Biography - Patrick Humphries

Somewhat repetitive in relaying information, and not always staying on the point, but still an achingly sad portrait of a troubled artist who died from a lack of communication. The portrait made me hear his final record in a whole new light.

6. The Journal of John Woolman - John Woolman

Harvard Classics featured this, a pious man far ahead of his time. Before the American Revolution, this Quaker believed slavery to be wrong. His wisdom was profound, his humility almost painful, his prose a dead bore.

7. Testimony - Dmitri Shostakovich

This has stirred controversy as not being a real, unedited work. Who cares? It is still a gut-wrenching vision of the horror of Stalinist Russia, mixed with moments of bleak humor and agonised humanity.

8. Them - Joyce Carol Oates

My mood at the time of reading this was black. I was desperate for distraction and seized on this family saga, a gritty vision of life from the 30s to the 60s in America. Oates' ability to capture the passage of time, and to make her pathetic, noble, flawed, hopeless characters leap off the page are her real talents here. Maybe the timing was just right for me to love this, but I still remember it as a tour de force.

9. Just Kids - Patti Smith

My main drive and inspiration to write comes from this book. Patti Smith was a Bohemian's Bohemian, in the right place at the right time to meet all the right people and be inspired by the Muse. Her poetic memoir, centered in her relationship with Robert Mappelthorpe, remains one of my favorite books of all time.

10. Two Faces of Fear - Julie Wellsley

Cliche gothic, nothing new except gangsters and multiple points of view. One chilling scenario involved the heroine pinned under a beam while rats come investigating, but other than that, very forgettable.

11. Ice - Anna Kavan

Kavan is now forgotten. Ice, once you get past the first few hallucinatory chapters (which don't make much sense), turns into a fascinating vision of coming apocalypse and the attempts of various governments to seize what power and control they can in the meantime, all filtered through the narrator's voice as he tries to locate a young woman he used to know. Good luck finding it. And wish me luck trying to find any more of her work.

12. Fruits of Solitude - William Penn

A wise man, was Mr. Penn. A dry read, but always of interest.

13. Best Tales of the Yukon - Robert W. Service

Service was no poet, but as a storyteller, he excelled. Therefore, the dull poems in this collection are the ones without a character to voice. Sam McGee and Dan McGrew are the famous ones, but there are plenty of other tall tales to satisfy those wishing to look further. Some rather gruesome.

14. More Fruits of Solitude - William Penn

Penn's sequel doesn't work so well. Rather than advice, he mostly sums up ideals, and no man or woman can live up to that.

15. An Afternoon Walk - Dorothy Eden

A real page turner, about a housewife who starts to think herself going insane. Genuinely frightening, thanks to Eden's ability to write.

16. The Tale of Despereaux - Kate DiCamillo

Oy! Where'd the old DiCamillo magic go? My expectations may have been too high, but it actually disturbed me. The rats are ugly, and the perpetrators of evil; most everyone else are foolish in varying degrees. For so much potential, this became a black and white, pedantic mess, and I can't understand how it won a Newbery.

17. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - Victor Hugo

Nobody can write a better simile, in any language, than Victor Hugo. Don't for a moment think this is some kind of beauty and the beast fable. This is a dark tragedy, mixed with the most bitter irony. Except for a boring chapter functioning as a written map of Paris, it excels. My favorite of this year's classic literature.

18. Bowie in Berlin: a New Career in a New Town - Thomas Jerome Seabrooke

Like the Drake biography, it suffers repetition of facts. The Station to Station/Lodger years in Bowie's life are the most interesting to me, and this simply added to my admiration.

19. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

Whimsical nonsense that enchanted me from the beginning. Plotless, but who needs one in a book this delightful? Worthy of its reputation.

20. The Silent Boy - Lois Lowry

One of the saddest books I've ever read. In the early twentieth century, empathetic Katy's childhood is recounted, in all the small details that make it seem like true autobiography, including her carefully built friendship with Jacob, the boy of the title, a mute autistic. At the end of the story (it's a very small book) something truly terrible happens, and when I remember the book, it haunts me still.

21. The Dean's Watch - Elizabeth Goudge

How do you classify a novel too much like a fairy tale to be historical fiction and yet with no magic in it to make it fantasy? This marvelous comfort read came upon me purely by accident, saved from a bookshelf in England and brought back for me to marvel at. An exquisite, restorative tale by another near-forgotten novelist...

22. Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll

Better than Alice in Wonderland, partially because of the emergence of plot. And partially because in this story, six months after the previous events, Alice chooses to go back, knows the rules of nonsense (throwing fewer tantrums and making fewer stupid decisions) and seems to have a genuine affection for the characters she meets.

23. Aspects of the Novel - E.M. Forster

Literary criticism, illuminating and witty, very readable and easy to recommend.

24. The Unsuspected - Charlotte Armstrong

My first Charlotte Armstrong, a woman who wrote straight suspense. This book was popular enough to get made into a film with Claude Rains. Lots of twists make it hard to stop reading and featuring a fabulously unorthodox marriage.

25. Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Liz was a better poet than Robert, that's my opinion. Psychologically profound, with more concerns than just the trials of love (see The Cry of the Children) and an exceptional, clotted vocabulary I can't help but admire.

26. The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster

When you've gone into Carroll withdrawal, this is the book to pick up. More verbal nonsense and delight, though via his decision to give the book a finale, Norton Juster makes a slight error. Alice wakes up in the middle of her showdowns, sparing us any "I've learned my lesson" denouements such as occurs at the end of this book.

27. The Bottle Imp - Robert Louis Stevenson

I shouldn't count this, it's only a solitary short story. A twist on the usual deal with the devil story, set in Hawaii. What more can be said?

28. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Wilde was an Exhibitionist, which is why I love him. He was always playing himself and showing off. And this flawed mixture of drawing room comedy and Victorian Gothic exhibits fine writing and overwriting, the dull, dull Dorian Gray and the fabulous dandy Lord Henry, who gets all the good lines.

29. The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu - Sax Rohmer

Gasp! The infamous work of racist pulp fiction! Oh come on all ready. This was a hoot. Put a Holmes clone and his sidekick racing about England, frantically trying to guess at Fu Manchu's latest dastardly plot, trying to avert it (usually failing) and racing off to do it again elsewhere. Howling stranglers, poisonous insects and gases, a (sadly inanimate) mummy, opium dens, trademark exotic lady...man, this has it all! Forget about the slanderous "Yellow Peril" and enjoy a pulp classic.

30. The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays - Oscar Wilde

More flawed Wilde. Five plays, the hypnotic Salome, painful melodrama A Woman of No Importance, enjoyable Lady Windermere's Fan, too absurd for it's own good title play and best of the lot An Ideal Husband.

31. Wildfire at Midnight - Mary Stewart

Of all the gothic writers after Du Maurier, Stewart has the best reputation. This one is like an early Hitchcock film on paper, unbearably suspenseful, leavened by flickers of humor at the beginning and descriptive scenery on the Isle of Skye. Pointless romance tossed in at the last second, but the suspense was first rate.

32. The True History of the Elephant Man - Michael Howell & Peter Ford

Simply the best work of non-fiction I have ever read. Well written, well researched, showcasing the best and worst aspects of Victorian society and immortalizing the unforgettable, miraculous Joseph Merrick.

33. The Frozen Thames - Helen Humphries

I had a week to use, and picked up this slim post-modern experiment from the library. A vignette is depicted, each time the Thames froze in English history. Helen Humphries is a limited writer (each of the first person narratives sound like the same person - herself) but she does very well within that limitation.

34. A Garden of Earthly Delights - Joyce Carol Oates

Them was part of the thematic Wonderland Quartet. So I read the first book in the set, and it was far more dismal. Oh yes, the family is more diseased American Gothic than anything else, and you plow through Clara Walpole's horrible life and end up at a hopelessly down conclusion. Not as good as Them.

35. Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome

Pre-Wodehouse English humour. Three gentlemen take a boat along the river Thames, seeing the sights, getting into a variety of amusing scrapes and the narrator often going off on suppositions, poetic raptures, and old memories. Everything is delightful in this old book.

36. Bohemian Manifesto - Laren Stover

A candyfied Guidebook to Bohemian living. More joke than practical info, but it does feature some great book and music lists and very nice watercolour illustrations by a Parisian called Izak.

37. Apology, Crito, Phaedo - Plato

Apology is a masterpiece, Crito an interesting continuation. Phaedo is too long by half, but features a perfect argument for the soul's immortality and a description of the worlds beyond that reminded me a lot of C.S. Lewis.

38. The Yearling - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Not for children, this lengthy novel about a boy coming of age (polite way of saying he gets his guts ripped out) is pretty damn intense. Lots of animal hunting, lots of natural descriptions of backwoods Florida and much emotion. I can see why it won the Pulitzer that year.

39. The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran

As poetry, this is pure heaven. As philosophical discourse, it falls back on ideals no human could uphold. As spiritual uplift, it weaves a gorgeous spell. But it is as poetry that I see it, first and foremost.

40. My Last Duchess and Other Poems - Robert Browning

Some masterpieces, especially Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. Amongst his lengthy narratives, most were boring. He wrote too much from the view of egotistical artists, but Fra Lippo Lipi managed very well. I wasn't much impressed overall, sadly.

41. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Well written, depressing novel about a filthy rich, careless couple who bomb out every life they tangle with and sail serenely on from the wreckage. Why should I care?

42. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - Kate DiCamillo

I read this last year, but I had to read it again, and I still think it is DiCamillo's masterpiece.

43. Wise Child - Monica Furlong

A young adult fantasy with an emphasis on the little things in life. A simple, but pleasing story.

44. Women and Fiction - Susan Cahill, editor

An old compilation of women writers. Some brilliant short stories, some with merits of one kind or another and only a few I really didn't like (Stein, Lessing, Paley).

45. We Took to the Woods - Louise Dickinson Rich

A charming memoir from the 40s, written by a lady whose family was living way off the beaten track in rural Maine. A very comfortable read, full of humorous anecdotes.

46. The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole

With the overwrought story of an opera and the super fast pace of a comic book, Horace Walpole's original Gothic novel lampooned the genre before it existed. Five chapters long, a quick read with no literary merit whatsoever, but it was good for entertainment.

47. The Ice Maiden - Jean Vicary

Gothic (70s romantic suspense variety) set in northern Europe, and with a better plot than most. Unfortunately, the conclusion to the romantic plot was actually jaw dropping in its sheer lunacy. Other than THAT, it was really good, maybe amongst the best.

48. Wildlife of North America - Thomas A. Lewis

A large coffee table book that attempts to instill admiration for the unique survival tactics of the wildlife we share the planet with. It certainly worked on me.

49. Juniper - Monica Furlong

An excellent complement to Wise Child, functioning as prequel. They could be read in either order. Juniper is a less idealised story of wise woman apprenticeship, but on the other hand has more "adventure" type fantasy. Equally matched with the first book.

50. Vathek - William Beckford

Strange little curio, full of cardboard characters (none of whom are likable) and really nasty moments of "Humor." Also many an exercise in fine writing. If Oscar Wilde didn't read this novel, he should have. It was so bizarre that I can't say I'm sorry I read it, but I do think it was a complete waste of time. Luckily, it was nearly as short as Otranto.

51. Remembrance - Teresa Breslin

In this young adult book, WWI gets a rare treatment. Five young people in Scotland are transformed by their involvement in the conflict. It captures the horrors of the trenches, the changing society back home and a very beautiful love story all at once.

52. War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon - Siegfried Sassooon

Among the three famous war poets, Sassoon was the satirist, the grim ironist to whom the main villains were not the enemy army, but the higher command that prolonged the war without just cause. The collected war poetry shows his shift from idealism to bitterness and shows that, incidentally, he was a very good poet just on a technical level.

53. Wyndspelle - Aola Vandergriff

Overwrought gothic, like a Vincent Price B-flick. Lots of death and gruesomeness, twists and turns. First of a trilogy that I hope to locate the rest of some day.

54. A Touch of Chill - Joan Aiken

This story collection comes in two renditions with different lineups. I bought the British set, and Joan Aiken excels at an unnerving atmosphere. One of my favorite books of short stories.

55. A Dram of Poison - Charlotte Armstrong

During a midlife crisis, a kindly poetry professor smuggles some poison out a lab to kill himself. Hiding it in an olive oil bottle, he misplaces it on the bus and next thing you know, it's a mad chase to find the bus, find the passengers and find that bottle, and engage in philosophical debate on the meaning of life during the driving scenes. You won't find an odder fish among thrillers, I think, but it's pretty darned good.

56. The Golden Sayings of Epictetus - Epictetus

Stoic philosopher in the Harvard Classics, with some interesting things to say. Sometimes dull, but more often thought provoking (that's why I read this stuff, other than the prestige of it) and occasionally pithy.

57. Creatures in an Alphabet - Djuna Barnes

Modernist writer's last work, based on the idea of old children's bestiaries. Her own sophistication removes these simple poems from the realm of children. I've meditated over them for the elegant vocabulary, obscure references and gentle wit.

58. Strong Poison - Dorothy L. Sayers

First Sayers novel I've read, in which amateur sleuth Peter Wimsey falls in love at first sight with accused murderess Harriet Vane. Very linear mystery, easy to see where it's going. Where Sayers excels is her depiction of all levels of society. This one has interviews with the gentiles, upper and lower working class and Bohemians. It's also witty, but it's not much of a mystery.

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

Final book of 2010, finished today, incidentally. Deservedly celebrated narrative from an autistic 15 year old boy. Easy to read, yet very postmodern, bleakly funny, hopeful and very sad.

If you are still here, I am amazed and I honor you. That is my reading list of 2010. It's past midnight, lord help me. Happy New Year. I'll start it by going to bed.

Christmas

And what did I do?

You see, I'm far too exhausted to consider reviewing a CD this Monday, so I've come to this neglected blog site, instead.

Christmas is first of all, about food. Let's just face facts. Holidays always fell in winter, traditionally, to follow the harvest and use up surplus. Obviously, if you had no surplus, the harvest was bad and the holidays would be consequently thin. If you can afford to celebrate, then you already have just cause, and if you can't afford it, you don't.

Food: I did make cookies. Chocolate, with carob chips (which work far better than you'd think). We had homemade hummus in tortilla wraps for Christmas Eve, and then the rich food came out for the next day. Raisin Pie, with lots of sour cream (I made that) and a Shepherd's Pie with homemade seitan (my mother made that). We also helped ourselves to eggnog, and I have to admit it was store bought.

Do I come across as a food snob?

The family sat down on Christmas Eve to watch Reginald Owen's take on Scrooge. Highly inept, deserves to be forgotten. He made Scrooge so angry I expected him to have a coronary on the spot. A prototype Glinda the Good appeared as the ghost of Christmas Past (which so outraged me I expected to have a coronary). Marley's ghost was somnambulant, the sentiment tipped over into treacle, and there were various scenes of snowball fighting and sliding on ice for some physical comedy.

We put it all to rights the next day with Alastair Sim's masterpiece. Sim played Scrooge as a man who'd ceased to care, and believed Christmas to be simply one more attempt made by people to hoodwink him. Yet he made the man likable simply by giving him a droll sense of humour. Unlike Owen, there's no snap your fingers and he's better. Scrooge in this film fights it all the way. Christmas Past might remind him of things he put away, make him repent and regret his losses, but he persists in the defeatist idea that he's "too old" to change his ways. So when he makes so astonishing a change at the end (one that must be seen to be believed) it is not overdone, partially because Sim can put a damper on the pure joy Scrooge is feeling, and partially because laughter is, as Dickens said in the story, catching.

Two favorite moments: Scrooge tipping back into self-loathing for a moment "I have no right to be this happy," and then the laughter coming out again as he says that he just can't help it... And the scene in his nephew's hallway with the maid who says not a word. That wordless moment cannot be explained as such, it has to be seen.

So, it's not Christmas in this house without that film.

But the miracle of the day was the weather. Warm enough to walk outside without gloves or hat, yet not melting. Snowing gently in big, feathery flakes, with only a mild breeze and coating everything from the tree limbs to the thistle heads. The sun even turned out, behind such layers of clouds that you could look right at it without being blinded, yet not so many as to obscure it. The sun looked like the moon when full, while still giving all the light it had. And not a car on the road, not an interruption to this tranquil scene, because all the neighbours had gone elsewhere for the day. Fresh snow on the ground, yet unploughed, the only company in my faithful dog, the horses and cattle in the pastures yonder....

Since nothing could top that, Christmas was over when I walked back indoors. And after a Boxing Day spent feasting on leftovers, it is now back to business as usual. Literally one day, one day to put off cynicism and conversations about politics and what Obama's done to the country, and how horrid all your relatives are, and did you hear about the Johnson's getting busted for drugs and all the other usual topics. It seems a shame.

Well, that was my Christmas. It was good, yet now it's passed by. I hope everyone reading this felt a similar sense of peaceful joy that day. Or at least had a good day. Believe you me, Christmas can go horribly wrong, and it pays to be thankful for the years when it goes right.

All's well that end's well.