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Your Favourite Book This Year (2013)

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Reading Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon has been a joy. Among the others this year (like Infinite Jest, Art of Fielding, Crying of Lot 49, which are all good) its just been great to read a book that has much of the same literary depth but is still energetically adventurous and fun.

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I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon this year and loved it. I'm currently reading Murakami's Norwegian Wood and am thoroughly enjoying that as well.

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I've read rather little on this, the year of Luigi, but my favorite are probably The Witcher books. Don't remember which one I liked most. I also enjoyed Christopher Alexander's "The Timeless Way of Building" and "Notes on the Synthesis of Form". And that's about all I read on this, the year of Luigi, so I can say everything I read was my favorite.

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My favorite book of 2013 is a series of 5 short novels(100 pages) by canadian-japanese author Aki Shimazaki called 'The Weight of Secrets' - at least in French.

It centers around a Japanese family across 3 or 4 generations (from the 1920s to the 1990s) with each book commiting to one character's point of view. However, since the books are transgenerational but not at all chronological, there are a lot of overlaps and a lot of events that are first described second hand but may at one point be described first hand (say, the grandmother vs. the granddaughter guess). Because of that, the series main theme appeared to me as the drastic bias introduced in our understanding of our relative by the accumulation of things left unsaid. And also, the reasons for which they chose to omit these things.

In that sense it is a bit like 'Sense of an Ending', but because of the large cast and the different eras, it is no way as claustrophobic. It also shows more empathy for the characters as well, since most of them are, well... empathetic to others.

The neat aspect is that it also explores several shifts in Japan's societal construct over the last century and provided, at least to me, fresh perspective on WW2 and the Japan of the 80s.

In any case, it's ace.


I'm not sure the series exists as such in English but the books are in order:  Tsubaki, Hamaguri, Tsubame, Wasurenagusa, Hotaru. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to only read one though.

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I've not read that many new releases this year, as I've been playing a lot of catchup, but I would say that this is almost good because I can tell you about the tragically wonderful Sad Robot Stories by Mason Johnson, which is not only beautiful in every sentence, but was surprisingly rich. 

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Okay. I have a book to add to my original list. I just finished it earlier today, and it was only released... last month, I believe?

It's not a terribly fancy, smart book. In fact it's basically a young adult fantasy fiction novel. So... about as far removed from "literature" as you can get.

The book is "Meta" by Tom Reynolds. And I thought it was great. It's a bit cheesy, it's simple, and that's part of what I love. It's a decent storyline along the "what if superheroes existed in real life?" thread, but it also has a bit of young-adult-fiction cheese that reminds me of the books I read when I was much younger. I just wish it was a little longer, but that complaint is tamed for now by the author confirming a sequel coming out next year.

It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I liked it for what it was and am glad I read it.

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I am a huuuuge lover of fantasy and Name of the Wind, my god, the first book I couldn't put down in a long time. Really beautiful writing, very poetic. It's written in first person from the perspective of Kvothe, an exceptional young man who's admittedly a bit too perfect at times with his charisma and skill in magic and music, but it's written really well. On the topic of magic in this book, it's been turned into a sort of science in this world, requiring study like any other discipline to master, and Kvothe finds himself excelling at the university for "sympathy" as the magic is called.

 

It's been a while since I've read the book, but I really can't wait for the third in the series. The covers kinda suck though, hope they don't have another cover out of a romance novel minus the girl on the next book. Look at this thing: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/56/TheNameoftheWind_cover.jpg

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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. 

book is seriously so good tho, dude find sublime in quotidian etc. not the most exciting thing i read this year but definitely that which sticks with me.

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book is seriously so good tho, dude find sublime in quotidian etc. not the most exciting thing i read this year but definitely that which sticks with me.

 

I really liked the first two books, but book three was just too emotionally draining. He's really big over here, but I don't think I've ever talked to anyone who's actually finished all six volumes.

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It's been a while since I've read the book, but I really can't wait for the third in the series. The covers kinda suck though, hope they don't have another cover out of a romance novel minus the girl on the next book. Look at this thing: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/56/TheNameoftheWind_cover.jpg

 

Oh god, that's awful. Where do you live? These are the covers in Canada.

 

186074.jpg

 

The%20Wise%20Man%27s%20Fear.jpg

 

Nothing brilliant, but not hideous. Some of the other covers are quite nice though.

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Those are the same covers as the ones in the US. I read most of Name of the Wind right before Wise Man's Fear came out because one of my friends was super excited about it and then stopped because I didn't want to get 2/3ds of the way through a trilogy and then have to wait five years for the last book.

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Towards the end of the year, Zadie Smith's On Beauty shot to the top of my list, about equal to Skippy Dies. I read it in a few days and loved it. I'm too tired right now to sell it, but I do recommend it.

 

It's written in first person from the perspective of Kvothe, an exceptional young man who's admittedly a bit too perfect at times with his charisma and skill in magic and music, but it's written really well.

Considering that it's a story about stories, it's quite obvious, at least halfway into The Wise Man's Fear, that Kvothe is exaggerating and excusing himself. Still, some of the side characters could use some fleshing-out. I don't think Fela's especially interested in doing anything but looking pretty, being a good student, and blushing. I like the books a lot, though they're not flawless. The Wise Man's Fear just about cracks my top five reads of this year, I think.

 

Spoiler for books 1 + 2:

I totally worked-out that Lady Meluan is Kvothe's aunt by myself, though. In the first book, his dad comes-up with this little jingle:
 

For all her faults I do confess
It's worth my life
To make my wife
Not tally a lot less...
 
The last line is a heteograph on "Natalia Lackless", the name of the noblewoman who escaped with Edema Ruh.

 
I enjoy that sort of detail in storytelling. It's quite inspiring, actually, though I don't know if because it cements that the author knows what they're doing or for some other reason.

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i liked "Name of the Wind" but I hated "wise man's fear", seemed masturbatory in every possible sense. I think i'm pretty much done with "genre" fantasy though, so mileage may vary etc.

Speaking of genre fantasy, I was sad that the last book of Richard Morgan's "Land fit for heroes" didn't come out this year as planned. That series is pretty rad so far. The protagonist is an interesting and fairly believable sorta-maybe-anti-hero, it has interesting sci-fi conceits, and features a fair amount of super-explict gay sex. good times.

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For books that came out last year that I read it has to be the Flamethrowers, which is a book I'm very much of two minds about, but in a good way.

 

However my favorite thing that I read last year was Cesar Aira's the Literary Conference. Because everything he writes is amazing, but this one is particularly brilliant and mind-bending, even with the most absurd of plots. A mad scientist/translator through a clever trick discovers some hidden pirate treasure and becomes incredibly wealthy. He sets his mind to taking over the world by creating clones of Carlos Fuentes (R.I.P.). He attends a literary conference where they are both in attendance to extract his genetic material via some robotic insect that he has created, but along the way gets drunk, falls for a girl, and some things go horribly wrong. What's actually genius about the book though is the way this ridiculous story becomes a commentary for things like the financial crisis, translating literature, and some really weird philosophical ideas.

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I read Of Mice and Men this year and was duly impressed.

 

Of books I read last year that actually came out last year, I enjoyed The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  My mom died less than two years ago, and the mother's death in this novel and the grief struck me as believable*.

 

*No, my mom's death did not send me down an improbable series of events that led to the stealing and return of a famous painting. 

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Some recent favorites:

 

Ben Okri's Stars of the New Curfew: Quasi-magical realist short stories from a seriously under-appreciated Nigerian writer. Worth reading for both their originality and the devastating critique it offers of the international oil economy.

 

Richard Wright's Native Son: I have no idea how I went this long without reading it. In any case, it's one of the most powerful books I've ever read. Visceral, effective, and impossible to forget.

 

George Orwell's Homage to CataloniaAn only somewhat fictionalized account of the writer's time fighting in the Spanish Civil War. A fascinating study of both the fascination/horrors of war, and the complex political situation of early 20th century Spain.

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If I were to pair down the books I read last year to the two ones that stuck with me the most, they'd have to be.

 

Infinite Jest: I don't have much to say about this book that hasn't already been talked about in these forums. I read it for a class I was in last year, and feel like I didn't do the book justice by having to finish it in about a month. I'd like to go back and read it again at my own pace eventually, and give myself more time to digest it.

 

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: I adored this book. Unbelievably gorgeous read, about a time period and setting I didn't have a ton of familiarity of before reading it. Still 6 months after reading it so many of the scenes in the novel feel burned into me...the incredible opening scene of the miraculous birth,

Dr. Marinus and Jacob standing on the lighthouse together

...I can't gush about it enough.

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For books that came out last year that I read it has to be the Flamethrowers, which is a book I'm very much of two minds about, but in a good way.

 

As much as I loved The Flamethrowers, I can admit that the book is flawed in a lot of unfortunate ways. It still has one of the more relatable and realistic depictions of what being a young woman feels like, and that's what I personally found so compelling about the book.

 

(And although I haven't read The Good Lord Bird and I'm sure it's a wonderful book, I am still a little miffed that it beat The Flamethrowers for the 2013 National Book Award.) 

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The Recognitions by William Gaddis was far and away the best book I read last year. It had a lot to say about a lot of things -- authenticity both in art and in relationships chief among them. For a book that was written in the late 40s and early 50s, it still has a lot of very relevant messages for the digital age. Beyond that, its influence on writers like Thomas Pynchon, David Markson, and David Foster Wallace (some of my favorite authors) is obvious once you've read it. Gaddis was far ahead of his time and it's a true shame that he's been largely forgotten. The book does ask a lot of the reader, but I found it worth answering the call. I read it in the middle of last year and I still find myself thinking about it fairly regularly and going back to my copy to revisit passages. JR was incredible as well, but it's so unapproachable that I have a hard time recommending it to anyone. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of his books, but I haven't gotten around to them yet.

 

But it wasn't my favorite book. That's a tie between two other books. One has to be A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava. For a book that dealt with such heavy issues (largely, everything having to do with how out of control America's prison system has gotten), it was surprisingly funny and, at times anyway, light-hearted. It hit a lot of points and navigated some very complex issues adeptly, without ever getting too bogged down in philosophy. I liked the way it played with the way it told its story. Most of the book is told with a typical narrative, but some things are covered using courtroom transcripts, letters, epic poems, or unmarked dialogue. These techniques weren't just used as some post-modern artistic wankery either, but generally to show how a criminal defense lawyer tries to distance himself from a case that he's working on, successfully or not. It was a very rewarding read, but I agree with the politics in it very strongly, so I'm definitely biased in my opinion.

 

The other favorite would be the Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. I struggle with depression, anxiety, and generally feeling alienated, and Pessoa approaches those feelings in a beautiful way. It took me a while to get through it, but that was just because of the way I chose to read it: I kept it by my bed and read a little bit of it before going to bed for about a month. It's just a collection of short thoughts and anecdotes, sometimes connected to each other and sometimes not, so I think reading it in that way added something to it for me. Pessoa as a literary figure had interested me for a while but I'd never read anything by him before this, and I'm glad it was my introduction to him. I've read some of his poetry and other works since, but nothing else is really as good as this was.

 

And just to throw it out there because they feel so literary, the comics of Andrew White were my favorite comics I read last year. I'm absolutely blown away by what he does with the form. We Will Remain was a fascinating collection. Black Pillars is incredible as well, but it's still unfinished -- the second part is coming out some time in February, so I can't remark on it as a complete work yet.

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