2013: Yearly Book Round Up

I realize many more people than me are able to somehow read an ungodly amount of books throughout the year (I have some friends who claim the number to be in the 3 or 4 hundreds), but I’ve always been a notoriously and deliberately slow reader, particularly with books I enjoy. I dole them out to myself as if they were slices of thick cheesecake; not too much at one time.

For example, I’m still in the process of re-reading Anna Karenina, now going on 14 months. Add in a full time job with terrible deadlines for half the year, a family, being in the process of writing a novel,  a monthly non-fiction column for The Prague Revue, the stray short story solicited from a lit journal every now and again, as well as the sporadic book review for the likes of The Lit Pub, and reading hundreds upon hundreds of novels per year just ain’t gonna happen for me.

That being said, I was still able to somehow enlighten myself with 25 books in 2013. Here they are in some sort of order (I think most recently finished to first of the year). I’ve rated them and mostly given reviews on Goodreads, if you’re interested.

2013

    

    

    

    

    

 

1. Before I Die… – Candy Chang
2. The Savage Detectives – Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer (in progress)
3. Breaking Into the Backcountry – Steve Edwards (Steve is on Twitter)
4. Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
5. The Merrill Diaries – Susan Tepper (Susan is on Twitter)
6. The Boys on the Bus – Timothy Crouse
7. Fat Man in a Middle Seat – Jack Germond
8. Hinterland – Caroline Brothers (Caroline is on Twitter)
9. The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts – Erin O’Brien (Erin is on Twitter)
10. The Insufferable Gaucho – Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews
11. Tenth of December – George Saunders
12. Thank You For Your Sperm – Marcus Speh (Marcus is on Twitter)
13. The Santa Fe Literary Review – compilation edited by Meg Tuite (Meg is on Twitter)
14. Dreams of My Russian Summers – Andreï Makine, translated by Geoffrey Strachan
15. Once Upon the River Love – Andreï Makine, translated by Geoffrey Strachan
16. Ash Cinema – Edward Rathke (Eddy is on Twitter)
17. Shenanigans – Joseph Owens (Joe is on Twitter)
18. Bones Buried in the Dirt – David Atkinson
19. The Design of Everyday Things – Donald Norman
20. Flash Fiction Fridays – edited by Robert Vaughan (Robert is on Twitter)
21. Microtones – Robert Vaughan
22. Nostalgia – Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Julian Semilian (in progress)
23. Saint Genet – Jean-Paul Sartre, translated by Bernard Frechtman
24. The Hunger Angel – Herta Müller, translated by Philip Boehm
25. Cataclysm Baby – Matt Bell (Matt is on Twitter)
26. About two dozen short/flash pieces on Fictionaut from solid writers such as Steven Gowin, Matt Robinson, Sam Rasnake, Chris Okum, James Claffey, and many others.

“Short Lean Cuts”

Hey all, my novella “Short Lean Cuts” is now available as an e-book from Amazon here and also from Barnes and Noble here.

If you don’t own a Kindle or a Nook, you can get free software from either Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble for your iPod/iPad/iPhone, Verizon or any “smart phone” as well as for your PC or Mac computers. Free Kindle software here. Free Nook software here.

Obit Edit (12 Months Later)

Stand still…
If you stand still the wind won’t cut through you. It’s strange, isn’t it. It goes against what we’ve learned.
Stand still.
Feel it? Do you feel it? You don’t. That’s the point. It’s strange. Short sleeves, too. The stiller you stand the more unlikely you are to feel the December wind.
(For calcium eat cabbage)
Wear a wide-brimmed hat in the rain. Water proof coat. Light an old cigar, have a few puffs. Then extinguish it and slide it back in its plastic tube.
Garcia y Vega.
(It’s not pronounced Garsha)
Stand still for a while and smell the air: dead maple leaves, wet, mixed with railroad. You know that smell…railroad. Carbon, I think. Stand quiet for a while because nothing will stand quiet for you.
No one will stop. Lose the melancholy. There are bills to pay. People will take an hour’s respite, write some nice words on a balloon about how much they miss you, then spin with everything that spins.
Who’s gonna feed the dog? Who’s gonna take care of Sadie?
Stand still. Just one more second. Listen.
Now let her have it.
I’ll see you some other time. They’ll tie balloons to the seat you used to claim in the courtyard, as a memorial.
I’ll snap a photo.
And then delete it to make room for others.
Of other living things.