What is your book of the year? Convince us of its greatness, and win The Bone Clocks.
What was our favorite book of the year? The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, of course. No, wait, in How To Be Both, Ali Smith did things other writers don’t dare, while zeroing in on the very nature of art. And The Children Act may not be as filling as Atonement, but it is the best Ian McEwan we’ve read since On Chesil Beach. Aargh, was it just a few months ago that we read Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and felt like we’d died and been resurrected many times in the course of the novel? Then we had to read every Atkinson book we could get our hands on, and she writes detective novels that manage to be both grisly and warm-hearted. Not to mention HHhH, My Struggle volume 1, the stories of Mavis Gallant, discovering Penelope Fitzgerald and rediscovering Isak Dinesen. . .
2014 has been one of our best reading years, and there’s still a month to go. While we’re racking our overheated brain, tell us what your favorite book of the year is, and convince us to read it. (The book need not have been published in 2014, you just have to have read it in 2014.) Post your answers in Comments.
The winner will be announced on 5 December, and she or he will get this hardcover first edition of The Bone Clocks (or if they already have The Bone Clocks, Php1,000 in National Bookstore gift certificates).
This contest is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
November 28th, 2014 at 12:00
George Saunders stunned us with Tenth of December, a collection of quirky stories that feature some speculative fiction, such as one about poor immigrant girls strung with wires through their temples so that rich families can hang and display them in their posh front yards. We wanted another collection, and one cannot go wrong with Raymond Carver’s Where I’m Calling From, a collection of collected stories. Sherwood Anderson then called from Winesburg, Ohio and made us part of that town where people feel isolated despite the people’s physical togetherness.
After the shorts, we felt like reading a tome. Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves had us turning our copy all over the table and made us really afraid of the dark, as if darkness was not the absence of light but a tangible thing that expands-contracts at its own will. After getting over our fear, we sampled a skinny Russian, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and realized that this prison novel is a great way to urge others into exploring the Russian heavyweights. We craved for more of these one-day-novels so we read Mrs. Dalloway where some defenestrate themselves while some get high-strung from partying. From England, we moved to the Nigeria of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, where an Americanah realizes her blackness when she goes to America.
We also took note of recommendations. Our friend from the workshop claims that The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford is one of the best NYRB Classics. Its protagonist is a precocious kid named Molly. This girl reminds us of Briony Tallis and she could have been a brilliant writer. A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr, one of our workshop recommended reading list, is another NYRB Classic. We like its happiness-sadness theme, as if the two had always been inseparable. A bookstore acquaintance tried to dissuade us from reading Tinkers and we’re glad to have not listened. Paul Harding could be the male Marilynne Robinson.
And because it’s the Christmas season, we read Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. It’s the perfect read for people who don’t like this time of the year.
November 28th, 2014 at 14:52
Angus: Good for you, but we asked for one book. Singular (whore).
November 28th, 2014 at 15:42
I didn’t have to think twice: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I read this together with a group of friends last August and we’re still raving about it until now. Initially, I thought David Mitchell was a show-off (heh) for trying to pack all genre in one single book. I still do, after reading the book, but by all means, Mister Mitchell, show-off all you want. You have the right to do so.
Cloud Atlas is just really great, other adjectives fail me at the moment. Six interrelated stories spanning borders, time and genre, is something very novel, in my opinion. I watched the movie adaptation too, after I was done reading, and continued to fawn over Adam Ewing.
There’s still a month to go before the year ends but I don’t think the books in my reading list for the rest of this year will ever compare to the greatness and brilliance of Cloud Atlas.
November 28th, 2014 at 23:58
Lynai: You don’t have to sell Mitchell to us, but you don’t say what’s great about Cloud Atlas (“Great” is just an adjective).
November 29th, 2014 at 02:52
Brandon Sanderson does not have the beautiful sentences of Italo Calvino, the subtlety of Milan Kundera, nor does he let you get immersed in the physical world like Hamilton-Patterson. What he does is make you want to yell “Ultra-electro Magnetic Top!” He makes you believe that living with honor is a gift unto itself, even if doing so has others dropping off like flies with their 30 day lives. Suddenly, I have my childhood back and the wonder of continuing the story of Dr. Armstrong and his kids.
I read The Way of Kings and wanted to do a Tommy-tantrum a la Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go when I found out that it is just part one of a ten part series. The second book, Words of Radiance, more than made up for the wait. Just like when I read LOTR, I now want to have a Sanderson tattoo.
November 29th, 2014 at 08:31
i actually have a very short reading list this year because i’ve been addicted to downloading and watching tv series (house of cards, breaking bad, scandal, several koreanovelas). But i have to recommend a book i recently read called I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. Here is an American spy who already retired from the game and has gone on to write a how-to book for spycraft, criminal investigation etc using a pseudonym of course. He is determined to retire in Paris but was recruited by a NYC cop to help with resolving a crime that mirrors the methods he has detailed in his published book. The victim’s identifying features (teeth, fingerprints etc were all dissolved in acid). From there it becomes a breathless race against time to save the world! As a reader you will find yourself in different countries, from Turkey, France, the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia even Vietnam. The protagonist had wealthy adoptive parents and was brought up knowing art and having travelled in Europe as a young man museums and artworks are mentioned extensively. The enemy/enemies (of course there’s a contrabida) has been able to weaponize a long forgotten disease (ugh is it the bubonic plague?) and is determined to use it on the West. From here there are also flashblacks on how 9/11 has changed the world for everyone (airline travel, etc), to unethical torture practice of the CIA, etc. and it all nicely ties up with this bio hazard of a problem that the Pilgrim has to stop from happening. It’s almost 800 pages long in book form but i hardly felt it i just whipped through kindle as the character’s voice was engaging. Hope you enjoy the book!
November 29th, 2014 at 09:25
Cheryl Strayed’s Wild is my favorite book for 2014. The author was a heroin addict, went through an abortion, and slept with too many men. She is someone I would think twice about befriending. But her honesty in being messed up is refreshing that when life (and the hike on the Pacific Crest Trail) threw her punches I was solidly in her corner. She also brought books while on the trail which violates the ‘pack light’ rule of long-distance hiking (and introduced me to the fabulous Adrienne Rich). We might be grieving, hungry, tired, and dirty, but Wild is a testament that we need books even when we hit rock bottom.
November 29th, 2014 at 11:42
I read The Bone Clocks too, thanks to some glitch on Google Play Books that sold it for a mere Php 300.00 (the other version was at Php 900.00). However, while Mitchell’s novel deserves the accolades and all, nothing will comes close to the uplifting experience of reading World War Z. From the terrifying first encounters with the Gs, to the half-baked plans of containment and combat, to humanity finally getting its act together and fighting back against the forces of extinction.
World War Z is an allegory for my life in 2014. From the glitz and glamour of working in a national government agency to the first signs of trouble (classified), to the public fears regarding MERS-COV and Ebola, and, finally, to starting all over again on my own.
I read it in the middle of my return to hospital life and I felt the close parallels, the endless problems and issues that hounded us borne by years of decisions made by various entities that came back to bite us hard, especially now that my former boss has been crucified in the court of public opinion.
It resonated even further when I discovered that the author is the son of the great comedian, Mel Brooks. I don’t know the circumstances of the novel’s conception but I would like to imagine that he wrote it while being motivated to get out of his father’s shadow or, in my case, trying to forge my own name and no longer wielding the influence of somebody else.
(Note: I have not seen the movie)
November 29th, 2014 at 22:34
This year is also one of my best years in reading because: I finally finished Infinite Jest (started in 2012, couldn’t continue in 2013, started again this year), finally read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (I’ve owned this for years and read how you liked it, but finally got around to reading it only this year), was not disappointed in My Struggle 1 (I wanted to be disappointed, haha), discovered (ok,other people wrote about her) Donna Tartt (her best book is The Little Friend, which I find to be more cohesive than her other books), ejoyed Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and On Beauty, and then there’s The Bone Clocks (which I can’t finish because of this new job).
My favorite read this year, though, is Swann’s Way (the Lydia Davis translation). I only bought the book because I wanted to complete the Penguin Drop Caps series (not succeeding so far) and decided to give it a go last October and was I glad that I started reading it.
Swann’s Way contains some of the most beautifully written sentences in fiction. The narrator is naive-smart-funny, and kinilig ako sobra kay M. Swann! Proust is like pinalanding Henry James. Ewan ko kung ako lang ang may ganung impression. I have this habit of writing down favorite sentences from the book I’m reading and the sentences in Swann’s Way were just too many (and long) that I ended up just writing down the page numbers so I could go back to them.
This is one book, though, that I was initially hesitant to recommend to friends and acquaintances because I was afraid that they would label me pretentious. Pero hindi na. Maganda talaga siya! Tama si Alain de Botton; Proust can change your life. Haha.
November 30th, 2014 at 14:27
E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime has to be the best book I’ve read in 2014. I bought a battered copy from a second-hand bookstore this summer and was blown away by its sheer audacity.
Ragtime revolves around three families of vastly different backgrounds (upper middle-class white/Jewish immigrant/unmarried black) in early 20th century America. While this seems like your typical societal melodrama, Ragtime stands out by featuring numerous cameos from prominent celebrities. Its character roster ranges from Harry Houdini to J.P. Morgan to Evelyn Nesbit to Archduke Franz Ferdinand! It’s not just name dropping for historical flavor’s sake either; the characters’ actions affect both society and the plot, whether they realize it or not. While reading, I sometimes got the feeling that their descendents should sue for libel, because the way Doctorow characterizes these fictional depictions feels so private, so viscerally real.
This is not to say everything hinges upon the lives of the famous. The original characters who people the three families are all their own persons. Most are unnamed (Father, Mother, Younger Brother, etc.), but this gives the sense of the Everyday Person and their place in the bigger picture. Seeing as it is the result of interlocking stories, the plot itself is difficult to explain without giving away the climax. Seriously, the blurb basically said it was indescribably good. I have to agree.
While David Mitchell excels at connecting stories through time and space, Doctorow bends the line between reality and fiction. By playing with perception and truth, fame and the gift of anonymity, Ragtime contains as much socio-political analysis as a Rizal novel, reads like a gossip column, and flows like the titular music.
December 1st, 2014 at 01:29
My favorite book of the year is George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London because moving to another country with no clear prospects made me realize how terrifying it is to be unemployed and poor, and this book made me feel good about my erstwhile joblessness and my life.
December 1st, 2014 at 15:21
lestat: Down and Out in Paris and London is the best thing for employment worries. Although it sounds more fun to be penniless in Paris.
Hope you have taken over Bangkok.
December 1st, 2014 at 16:17
How ‘A Visit from the Good Squad’ by Jennifer Egan became my Top 2014 Book:
– It is by the author of Invisible Circus, which I tracked down because Cameron Diaz starred in the movie. (This was around the time Cameron still picked surprising roles like that in Being John Malkovich.)
– I had already noticed that A Visit from the Goon Squad is included in numerous The Best lists. What made it to my own Wanted list: that it’s a novel in the guise of short stories and, more invitingly, it’s about music. A bonus: positive David Mitchell comparisons because of the stories that interweave characters and time periods.
– The flawed, annoying, but surprisingly endearing characters: Sasha, the klepto assistant of a music executive. The aging music producer, his children, his groupies. A fallen PR legend, her starlet client, and a general. A high school rock band. An African safari guide. Various friends, foes, lovers.
– The stories themselves, the settings, the time periods: Among others, Sasha’s college Euro trip and her daughter’s PowerPoint story.
– Again, the characters: They are fragile, infuriating, heartbreaking, frustrating; and yet I wanted things to work out for them all.
– This killer line by a celebrity journalist: “Sure, everything is ending .. but not yet”. I think this has got be the most reassuring quote I’ve ever encountered; reassuring because it’s the most truthful. For me, a most personal and much needed quote.
– In the end, it’s all about love and music.
I’ve read a lot of good books this year (and discovered new fave writers like Oyeyemi and Ozeki). But whenever I see the Goon Squad title, I always have a sudden thought – unbidden but always the same – “At least Sasha’s ok”.
December 2nd, 2014 at 12:04
A favorite this year is Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris. The humor is more mature, sharper and funnier than his earlier books. It’s perfect when you’re feeling a little melancholy and want to lift your mood. Beware if you read it in public and you’re alone because you will find yourself laughing by yourself.
December 3rd, 2014 at 17:02
? “I, Harriet Burden, am a machine of vindictiveness and spite.” – Siri Hustvedt
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt is the most unforgettable book I read this year, even one of the books that has left an impression on my whole reading life. The novel is presented as an anthology of documents compiled by the academic I.V. Hess years after the death of the artist (and main character of the novel) Harriet Burden. The story unfolds through the reviews and articles by art critics, interviews of her family and friends, and excerpts from her journals. The result is a claustrophobic mosaic made up of fragments that doesn’t always seem to fit.
Burden is consumed by rage for the lack of recognition women artists receive. In her own words, “All intellectual and artistic endeavours, even jokes, ironies, and parodies, fare better in the mind of the crowd when the crowd knows that somewhere behind the great work or the great spoof it can locate a cock and a pair of balls.”
When her art dealer husband died, she went on to create her artwork titled Maskings – a series of three phantasmagoric multimedia installation with a different young male artist (her so called masks) to front as its creator. The installations and the hoax are part of the bigger masterpiece she had planned, with her coming out as the true artist the final act. The installations were well-received by patrons and critics alike, but it took a dark turn when her last “mask” refused to acknowledge her as the true artist behind the work. Her third mask seemed to have been wearing more masks than she had. The critics disputed her claim with one jounalist even saying “A 50-ish woman who’s been hanging around the art world all her life can’t really be called a prodigy, can she?” Their relationship soon turned into a psychological pas de deux which was ended with the creation of his last artwork, Houdini Smash, a recording of his death shot for prosperity.
It’s a feminist novel but it’s also a novel about perception, identity, and the kind of manipulation in which art resides. It is a novel about the history of art and the inner workings of the mind. The prose is lyrical and dense. I agree that sometimes the minimalistic approach works for other piece of literature but I admit I love the aesthetic side of writing.Except when it turns purple. The subject of sexism in the art world or just sexism has been written about a lot, but Hustvedt tackles it head on with so much freedom and an all-consuming rage. There is a sustained urgency and intellectual energy thoughout the novel that I thoughy it might combust. Harriet Burden was not embittered. She was furious. And there’s nothing that can fuel a novel this big except fury.
December 4th, 2014 at 23:33
Best book I read this year was Sonali Deraniyagala’s Wave. This nonfiction is her account of the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami that left hundreds of thousands dead – including her parents, her husband, and two children.
She writes of the pain of remembering, how “remembering is more harrowing than constant knowing.” She writes of how she tormented the Dutch family who moved into her parents’ house, how she would blast her husband’s favorite song by The Smiths in front of their house, at 2 in the morning. Her ‘alertness to what will never be’ is painted in acute detail. She talks of certain smells, an eyelash, a pair of shoes. A 100-rupee note. “The last time I saw one of those,” she writes, “I had a world.”
It is an honest, brutal book, and there are no happily ever afters, no false sense of hope, no neat realizations. It is a book on the “outlandish truth” of one person’s grief without once being maudlin or sentimental. That alone makes it the best book on grief that I have read, and quite possibly, will ever read.