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Your Favourite Book This Year (2013)

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Not your favourite read published in 2013, but your favourite read of 2013.

 

Mine is Paul Murray's Skippy Dies, a great novel about Ireland in the wake of financial rise and collapse. It chooses to focus on a group of teenagers who are at the edge of this societal change, using their school as a microcosm to explore bigger issues that are, I imagine, universal. It's simultaneously funny and heartbreaking. The dialogue is crackers, the prose is beautiful, and it is full of things to reflect on and think over. You will recognize these people and their struggles.


The book touches on the poetry of Robert Frost, ancient Irish mythology, drug dealing, string theory, self-harm and suicidal feelings, first love, the First World War, and a lot more - all of which are used for artistic reason.

 

On the recommendation scale: so high Willie Nelson tells it to take it easy.

 

Random read from this year that warrants a recommendation: my six year old cousin delighted in the children's books of Philip Pullman. The Firework Maker's Daughter, Clockwork, and I Was a Rat! were all books she happily listened to again and again.

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I'm a Murakami fiend, he seems to be all I read. I've been chain reading him for a year now, on and off alongside other books. I just polished off his short story collection "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" and I really enjoyed it. It's a great way to enjoy Murakami, and before a lot of his books you can find his introduction where the first line is "I find writing novels a challenge, writing short stories a joy". some of the stories are either short versions of stories he later went on to write complete novels on, or short stories that have cruxes that you can find in some of his full length novels. stuff he's written like "Dance, Dance, Dance" (favourite Murakami) definitely read as though they're several short stories rolled into one book, too

 

It's usually not the stories that he writes that I love so much as just his writing style and the little philosophical musings he'll slip into dialog or internal monologue. nothing mindblowing, just bizarre little observations or salient remarks that tend to stay with me for some time. he also seems to write so honestly and concisely, I guess like Hemingway where he uses fairly simple language to great effect, and I find it more believable. not sure why, maybe just because I can imagine it being said aloud in earnest. and his protagonists are usually fairly passive, as if he's making it easier for the reader to empathise with the voice he's reading by not really giving a great deal away, and focussing more attention on the fictional world he's built. i'm waffling, but i'm just trying to say I love Murakami. everyone please recommend me authors similar to him

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Yeah, I don't think I read any book that came out this year, but so far I've read 18 books this year (I keep a nerdy, nerdy list).

 

It's tricky. I was very touched by Oscar Wilde's De Profundis (which he wrote in prison), and I loved Isaac Asimov's Foundation. But currently I'm a third into Timur Vermes' Er Ist Wieder Da, about Hitler returned to modern day Berlin, and it's just hysterically good so far. I think that may be the one, but I'll have to read on to know for sure.

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If you'd ask me this question a week ago, I probably would have said The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (which came out in 2013), but now my answer is everything by Alice Munro.

 

I had only read a smattering of her short stories before, but when she won the Nobel, I felt obligated to give her a second try. I don't know if it's because I'm older, or if it's just where I am in my life right now, but I have never felt so connected with a writer. Munro has such a direct, bare-bones way of telling her stories, and I've never seen an author so painstakingly describe what it is like to be a young woman. Her stuff is amazing and I would strongly recommend it to anyone. So far I've read the Open Secrets, Dear Life, and Too Much Happiness collections and have loved them all. I can't pull myself away from her writing and I honestly don't really want to.

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My absolute favorites this year are David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, which is also my reading achievement of the year, and Kurt Vonnegut's Bluebeard, which (I was delighted to find out) is one of his best novels. David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was excellent too, and a lot more "harmonious" than Cloud Atlas.

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If you'd ask me this question a week ago, I probably would have said The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (which came out in 2013), but now my answer is everything by Alice Munro.

 

I had only read a smattering of her short stories before, but when she won the Nobel, I felt obligated to give her a second try. I don't know if it's because I'm older, or if it's just where I am in my life right now, but I have never felt so connected with a writer. Munro has such a direct, bare-bones way of telling her stories, and I've never seen an author so painstakingly describe what it is like to be a young woman. Her stuff is amazing and I would strongly recommend it to anyone. So far I've read the Open Secrets, Dear Life, and Too Much Happiness collections and have loved them all. I can't pull myself away from her writing and I honestly don't really want to.

 

Read Lives of Girls and Women. Which, come to think of it, is one of the best books I read this year.

 

The best fiction I read this year was definitely Cloud Atlas. I burned through that book in about a week and liked it so much that I'm tempted to read it again soon. The best non-fiction I read this year was Death So Noble by Jonathan Vance, which is about Canada's memory of War War I in the 1920s and 1930s and is just about the best piece of scholarly history I've ever read.

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I feel like I've gushed waaaay too much about my real favorite—My Struggle: Book One by Knausgaard—so I don't want to be annoying. My other favorite books recently, Warlock and Building Stories, were both finished in the last week of 2012. :[

So I'll recommend one of the most surprising books I read this year: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. It's a story that carefully, perfectly captures the alienation one can feel in a small town, where everyone knows you and you're locked into your identity. I know it's a common trope, but I changed up who I was considerably while I was at college for a while, simply because I had the ability to start anew—and then again after I dropped out as I slotted into various new social situations.

The thing is, though, that the story gets very... different... after the first half, in ways I don't want to begin to spoil. Suffice to say, it turned into an astonishing read that I wouldn't have expected from the first half, yet was handled so well by Jane Smiley that it she sold the emotional arcs throughout. If you'd told me ahead of time, I'd have said it sounded like two books pasted together—but she pulls it off tremendously well.

Again, this is a book you want to go into knowing as LITTLE as possible for the maximally-enjoyable experience. If you don't know anything more than what I've said so far, you're in for a real treat—a book so good, I'm kinda surprised I hadn't heard of it before my wife's recommendation.

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I should really read some Alice Munro - I remember enjoying her short story "Axis" on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast; it's a subtle and complex story that's stuck in my head since I listened to it.

 

Like many of you, I read a heap of good fiction this year thanks to the Idle Book Club, but I think my favourite was also Infinite Jest. I can't think of a book that I've read this year (or for a long time, for that matter) that has changed my world-view more than IJ.

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The stars my destination by Alfred Bester would be my favorite read of the year - that book has a dark insane intensity built into it to it that I have never come across before. Runners up include Moby Dick, the Handmaid's tale, Octivia Bulter, Ursula Le Guin and Iris Murdoch.

 

Non- fiction - a two volume history of the fall of the western roman empire and the attempts by Charles the great and others to forge a new one by Peter Heathers and Red Sun - Travels in Naxalite country all which is the history of the Naxalite movement in India.

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The stars my destination by Alfred Bester would be my favorite read of the year

 

Ahh, that's a real cracker. I read it last year or the year before, perhaps, but it's one of my favourite SF novels. I noticed you mentioned Ursula Le Guin too - which did you read? I've only read Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness. The former was good, but not great, and the latter is one of the best books I've ever read bar none.

 

Anyway, the best book I've read this year is I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson. Not sure why it has taken me so long to get around to it, but it was stunning. 

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If you like Tiger! Tiger! I think The Forever War might also be right up your alley.

Also maybe check out the Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe for just amazing writing.

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Ahh, that's a real cracker. I read it last year or the year before, perhaps, but it's one of my favourite SF novels. I noticed you mentioned Ursula Le Guin too - which did you read? I've only read Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness. The former was good, but not great, and the latter is one of the best books I've ever read bar none.

 

Anyway, the best book I've read this year is I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson. Not sure why it has taken me so long to get around to it, but it was stunning. 

 

I read the Left hand, the dispossed (which i liked even more than Left hand) and an amazing short story collection called the birthday of the world. 

 

If you like Tiger! Tiger! I think The Forever War might also be right up your alley.

Also maybe check out the Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe for just amazing writing.

 

 

 Book of the New Sun series would be my best read of 2012. I plan I re-reading it next year cause I'd say there is a whole of lot stuff I missed the first time round. That along with The Stars My Destination are one of those books that really make you feel like different/ you are reading something unique and slightly off key to the actual world in a way most SFF doesn't. I read his Wizard Knight book this year but wasn't a fan.

 

I have read the Forever war. Liked it, very interesting allegory of what it was like being a Vietnam Vet but could of done without the homophobia.

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The wizard/knight books were huge disappointments to me, coming off Wolfe's amazing short fiction and the New Sun books.

The only other book that came close to being as interesting in the s/f/antasy realm is Vance's Dying Earth stuff, which also tickles my brain in that same pre-apocalyptical nodule.

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Been reading plenty of Latino/Hispanic books and the one that had most impact (and the best book I've read this year overall) has to be Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I believe is one of the most operatic and beautiful things I've ever read in my life. It bleeds grandeur and scope at every page. I just can't get over how amazing that book is.

 

I read it in Spanish first and then later again in it's translated English version, and reading it in Spanish makes the work become more than just a masterpiece, but an engraved testament of fantastic writing.Seriously, read this goddamn, motherfucking book. And if you know Spanish very well, read it IN SPANISH FIRST! Trust me trust me trust me, you won't be disappointed.

 

Honorable mentions: The Devil's Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea. It's about the real life story of twenty six immigrants who tried to cross the Mexican-American border into the Arizona desert in 2001. The story is beautifully told and intricately researched by Urrea, who transforms the story into not just a rallying cry for justice, but a humanistic window to the lives of both those who sacrifice their lives to have a better life and those who detain them in the name of a questionable law.

 

Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon was also pretty good. I also read the entirety of Don Quixote. A difficult and often heavy ready, but nonetheless whimsical and interesting. There are a dozen more books I read that I've liked, but I think that's enough gushing for now.

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Don Quixote is difficult, but it's so much fun. I really like the stories within stories thing that it does.

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I should really read some Alice Munro - I remember enjoying her short story "Axis" on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast; it's a subtle and complex story that's stuck in my head since I listened to it.

 

Like many of you, I read a heap of good fiction this year thanks to the Idle Book Club, but I think my favourite was also Infinite Jest. I can't think of a book that I've read this year (or for a long time, for that matter) that has changed my world-view more than IJ.

 

Yes you should! Everyone says to start with Dear LIfe -- her most recent collection -- but honestly, you can't go wrong with any of them. Open Secrets is a standout favorite of mine (maybe because I read that one first).

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To Say Nothing of the Dog is a really nifty, mixed up science fiction/british comedy romp. The sci-fi is smarter than usual, or at least the delving into history and the nature of chaos theory. And the energetic and silly story reminds one of British Comedy doing Back to the Future, which is just plain fun.

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This year I read quite a few books I had meant to read earlier but hadn't gotten around to. Things like 1984, or some of the Discworld novels, for example, had been on my list for a while but I only finally read them this year.

But by far my favorite read this year has been "Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut. Mainly because, while I had heard that his work was good, this was the first time I had read anything by Vonnegut. Even better, I had picked it up at the library purely by chance while looking for something interesting to read. I've read others by him this year ("Slaughterhouse Five" and "Galapagos") but I'm picking "Breakfast of Champions" because it was my introduction to a fantastic author that I had been missing out on for far too long.

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Been reading plenty of Latino/Hispanic books and the one that had most impact (and the best book I've read this year overall) has to be Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I believe is one of the most operatic and beautiful things I've ever read in my life. It bleeds grandeur and scope at every page. I just can't get over how amazing that book is.

What about this book is so impressive? I've never understood it. I just finished it confused and vaguely annoyed. Maybe you need some specific life background or something to get it?

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What about this book is so impressive? I've never understood it. I just finished it confused and vaguely annoyed. Maybe you need some specific life background or something to get it?

 

Well, I think this one is very heavy on the metaphors and symbolism, so perhaps it's hard to dissect? And like I said, I feel this story's, I dunno', "prose" (lack of a better word) can't be translated well into English, no matter what. The effect it had on me when I read its translated version versus the effect I had when I read it in Spanish was greatly different. You might be right on the background thing, maybe? I'm Latino and the story certainly felt tailored specially to me, but I still feel it's a fairly universal story. Probably read it again? You gotta give Garcia another chance.

 

Also:

 

 

But by far my favorite read this year has been "Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut. Mainly because, while I had heard that his work was good, this was the first time I had read anything by Vonnegut. Even better, I had picked it up at the library purely by chance while looking for something interesting to read. I've read others by him this year ("Slaughterhouse Five" and "Galapagos") but I'm picking "Breakfast of Champions" because it was my introduction to a fantastic author that I had been missing out on for far too long.

 
Quite funny to think Vonnegut gave that particular novel a C in one of the Palm Sunday chapters. My personal favorite of his has got to be Slaughterhouse Five though. I wonder if Guillermo del Toro is still working on that adaptation...

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Quite funny to think Vonnegut gave that particular novel a C in one of the Palm Sunday chapters. My personal favorite of his has got to be Slaughterhouse Five though. I wonder if Guillermo del Toro is still working on that adaptation...

 

...with Charlie Kaufman as the screenwriter. I really hope they will go through with that.

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Well, I think this one is very heavy on the metaphors and symbolism, so perhaps it's hard to dissect? And like I said, I feel this story's, I dunno', "prose" (lack of a better word) can't be translated well into English, no matter what. The effect it had on me when I read its translated version versus the effect I had when I read it in Spanish was greatly different. You might be right on the background thing, maybe? I'm Latino and the story certainly felt tailored specially to me, but I still feel it's a fairly universal story. Probably read it again? You gotta give Garcia another chance.

Maybe it's my rather superficial knowledge of Latin-American history that's to blame. Apparently the story becomes good if you can detect all the historical parallels? Without that knowledge, it's a very sad and confusing history of people doing random stuff that doesn't tend to work out. I mean, that's life but I already knew that.

Don Quixote though, man that's great. Made me want to learn Spanish. Also Borges <3

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