A Few Items of Bookish Interest

I'm about two sittings away from finishing Stephen King's new novel 11/22/63. You'll get a review next week, but here's a preview: It's approximately 1,398 better than Under the Dome.

In the meantime (the only downside of my penchant for reading long novels, especially during the winter, is the long gap between reviews), here are three literary items of relative importance.

1. The 2012 Tournament of Books list announced — The ToB (as those hip to the lingo call it) is one of the best bookish events of the year. If you're unfamiliar, the tournament consists of a March Madness-like bracket of match-ups pitting two novels against each other — a judge carefully selected from the literary community makes the call (and publishes his/her reasoning) and the winner moves on. I've only read three (The Art of Fielding, The Tiger's Wife, The Marriage Plot) of the 16 on this year's list (and, incidentally, wasn't a huge fan of two of those three), so I've got some work to do before the winner is announced March 7. What's your pick to win? I'm rooting for The Art of Fielding, but I think The Tiger's Wife may take it. 

2. USA Today's Bestselling Books of 2011 — Not surprisingly, The Help is No. 1. A little bit surprisingly, all three Hunger Game novels are in the top 10 and all three Millennium Trilogy novels are still in the top 13. It's not until #47 that a literary fiction novel actually published in 2011 makes the list — The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain.

3. The Joy of Books — Thanks to my friend Jeff for pointing out this nifty little stop-action video of a bookstore organization project.


(Finally, if you're interested, here are links to my two Book Riot posts this week: An op/edit about how print is here to stay, which sparked a great conversation in the comments, and a look at my Top 5 Miscast Literary Roles.)

12 Books I Can't Wait For In 2012

After perusing both The Millions' Most Anticipated list and The Atlantic's 15 Books To Look Forward To list, it's pretty clear there is, indeed, a lot to look forward to in 2012. Here are 12 books from those (and a few other) lists I'm especially geeked about.

12. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, by Nathan Englander (Feb. 7) — I read something recently, which of course I can't find again, in which Colum McCann said Englander is the best short story writer alive. High praise! And since I loved Englander's bizarre little novel The Ministry of Special Cases, this volume of short stories will be a high priority. 

11. Wild Thing, by Josh Bazell (Feb. 8) — Bazell's Beat The Reaper was awesome! Uh, that's awesomely disturbing, actually. Can't wait for this follow up.

10. Gods Without Men, by Hari Kunzru (March 6) — British Indian novelist Kunzru's last book, My Revolutions, was fantastic. So, again, I'm excited about this follow-up.

9. Hot Pink, by Adam Levin (March 13) — This is a collection of short stories by the genius, DFW-esque writer who wrote one of my favorite novels of 2010, The Instructions. 

8. Farther Away: Essays, by Jonathan Franzen (April 12) — This probably won't have quite the same publicity run-up as Freedom did a few years ago, but I'm junkie for anything this guy writes. So this volume of essays is exciting.

7. The Newlyweds, by Nell Freudenberger (May 1) — Since she occupies a spot on the Top 10 Hottest Female Writers list, I should probably check out her new novel...in case, you know, I ever meet her in a bar or something.

6. In One Person, by John Irving (May 8) — I'm a huge Irving fan. This is my most anticipated novel of the year.

5. Home, by Toni Morrison (May 8) — When an American literary institution like Morrison publishes a new novel, you just have to read it.

4. Canada, by Richard Ford (May 22) — Frankly, I was bored to tears by Ford's The Sportswriter and Independence Day, which are supposedly his two seminal works. But this one sounds different enough from those two that I'm willing to give him another shot.

3. Beautiful Ruins, by Jess Walter (June 12) — If this is even a third as good as The Financial Lives of the Poets, Walter may take a few more steps up my "favorite authors" list.

2. Office Girl, by Joe Meno (July 17) — I've never read Chicagoan Meno, but he's always been high on my list, and this novel sounds especially intriguing.

1. Back to Blood, by Tom Wolfe (sometime in the fall) — It's been eight years since Wolfe's last novel, the apparently underwhelming I Am Charlotte Simmons. Hopefully the wait's worth it for this long-rumored story about Miami.

What are you looking forward to in 2012?

The Last Werewolf: A Bit on the Contrived Side

The Last Werewolf, by Glen Duncan, is a bit of a contradiction. On one hand, it rigidly follows its own rules regarding its protagonist: Jacob Marlowe, a 200-year-old werewolf living in modern-day London. That's a good thing, and readers should be more than willing to accept (and be intrigued by) Jake's "supernaturaledness." But then, after some initial stage-setting, the plot spins off wildly and more than a bit convolutedly, making the reader have to suspend disbelief where s/he shouldn't have to. So it's the stuff (Jake is a freakin' werewolf) we couldn't really expect to believe that works, and the stuff we're supposed not to question that doesn't. And that's why I closed this novel thinking, "good attempt, but no." 

We get Jake's "rules" right from the start: Each month, "the Curse" causes him to change to his savage, lycanthrope form, feeding on a human victim. The rest of the month, Jake spends in his human form having deviant sex with prostitutes, chain smoking and drinking expensive scotch.

As the novel opens, we learn that Jake is, officially, the last werewolf. The second-to-last has just been hunted and killed, and since humans seem now to have become immune to "the Curse" — and werewolves aren't able to "change" others to their kind anymore — Jake's carrying the torch by himself. The problem is, he's lost his will to live; he can't find meaning in life anymore. And so he plans, much to the chagrin of his long-time friend Harley, to let the hunters take him down, too.

But, suddenly, fate — or what seem like fate, but is, at best, convenient coincidences, and, at worst, terrible contrivances — intervenes. Jake is knocked out of his misanthropic comfort zone and must re-evaluate what he truly believes. If that sounds too movie-trailerish, then you sort of get the idea. In fact, Jake is constantly comparing what's happening to how it would play in a movie — if this were a movie, I could simply invent a deus ex machina to solve such-and-such problem, for example. But the problem with the novel is that just about every plot hinge actually does feel like a deus ex machina, including the denouement, which feels like it's right out of a crappy Michael Bay-directed movie.

I will say this: Duncan writes with a real flair for the dramatic (though often bordering on overly sensational or hyperbolic). And he's often witty and profound. As well, the "action" sequences here are riveting. But they're too few and far between. In the space between are all sorts of reflections on making meaning out of life and whether it's worth going on. Dull.

This is certainly an inventive story — fitting nicely into the up-and-coming genre of "literary monster novels." But, it all feels too convenient; a hard trick for a supernatural werewolf novel. Three stars. 

The New Dork Review of Literary 2011

From Leo Tolstoy (twice) to Vince Flynn and from Stieg Larsson to Margaret Mitchell, an eclectic year in reading, it was. So much so that I'm writing like Yoda now, apparently. Anyway, in total, I read 43 novels comprising about 19,000 pages. Out of that, here are some high (and low) lights:

Novels That Had Me Near Tears...of Funny
Domestic Violets, by Matthew Norman, and Fathermucker, by Greg Olear -- Of all the novels I read this year, I probably had the most pure fun reading these two.

Best (But Most Depressing) Novel About Catholicism
Faith, by Jennifer Haigh -- Haunting. A gut-punch to your guilt-basket. But very, very good.

Longest, Most Scaled-the-Summit-Feeling-When-Finished Novel
War and Peace, of course. As one commenter suggested, I can now where the "I Read War and Peace" Tshirt. You know, if something like that existed. It doesn't, right? Right?

Uber-Hyped Trilogy That Kept Getting Worse As The Books Got Longer
I liked The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. But The Girl Who Played With Fire was mostly dull and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest made me glad there are no more novels.

First Time With a Famous Novelist...Success
Haruki Murakami -- I loved both Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore. I'm hoping to take on The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and 1Q84 in 2012.

First Time With a Famous Novelist...Failure
T.C. Boyle -- When The Killing's Done just didn't do it for me. But it was just intriguing enough to give Boyle another try...at some point.

Most Sobering Reading Moment of 2011
Finishing The Pale King, by David Foster Wallace. Made me incredibly, incredibly sad.

Most Overrated Book of the Year
The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obreht -- The writerly chops are clear, but why this novel won so many awards isn't.

Biggest Surprise of the Year
I really, really enjoyed Gone With The Wind. I had assumed it would be an ooey-gooey slog. Not so at all. Ta'dow, Rhett!

Favorite Non-Fiction
In The Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson -- Just a fascinating, intricately researched look behind the curtain of Berlin in the 1930s.

(and finally...)

Favorite Fiction of the Year
3. The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach
2. Domestic Violets, by Matthew Norman
1. The History of History, by Ida Hattemer-Higgins

Cheers to a great Literary 2012!

Fathermucker: Parenting is Rewarding?

Joshua Lansky, the SAHD (that's "stay at home dad") protagonist of Greg Olear's fantastically comic meditation on parenthood and marriage, hates a lot of things -- Josh Duhamel, The Devil Went Down To Georgia, the Kardashians, 99 percent of Facebook status updates. But he does love his children, even though they drive him practically batty. And, thus we have a novel. The conflict between Josh's striving to be a good parent and his sarcastic cynicism (he still hasn't quite given up the ghost on being "cool") are what make Fathermucker such an awesome read.

This novel takes place over the course of one particularly hectic day. While Josh's wife is away for what is ostensibly a week-long business trip, Josh has to hold down the fort with his two high-maintenance little whipper-snappers, three-year-old Maude and four-year-old Roland. An early-morning playdate yields a potentially life-changing secret: Another mother tells Josh she suspects his wife is cheating on him.

The rest of the novel chronicles Josh's day. Josh is quite the contemplative chap, but hilariously so. And so we get his meditations on everything from oral sex to rock and roll to why the hell he can't seem to write another screenplay -- he'd sold the option for one five years ago, but has been basically blocked ever since. We watch as Josh takes Roland on a fieldtrip, deals with his idiotic babysitter and even more idiotic pest control guy, tries to score an interview for a freelance article with the frontman for a popular 90s punk band whose kid happens to be in Roland's class, and all the while wonders if his wife of 10 years is, indeed, having an affair. 

I'm not a parent, but I loved this novel. It's a quick, easy read (I read it in two days) that'll have you alternating between giggles, *snorts* and gut-wrenchingedness -- Josh's wife isn't really cheating on him, is she? IS SHE? Sometimes Josh is sure she is, sometimes he's positive she's not. But most of the time, he literally doesn't have time to think about it as he's trying desperately to shepherd the kids to the next thing. At any rate, this book is high quality. Definitely check it out!