2011 Books Read

Here is my annual roundup of all of the books I read this year. Not quite up to the pace I normally am (although 2009 was an all-time low), but movies and writing have become nearly full-time pursuits for me this year in a way they haven’t been before and I haven’t had as much time to read. But I look at this list and do think: “Boy. That is some eclectic shit, Sheila.” It is also apparent when I dropped everything else (in terms of my books) to follow the Elvis path.

1. The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays, by Tennessee Williams. A new collection from New Directions, who have been so wonderful recently bringing out new versions of Williams’ plays with brand-new forewords (like Camino Real and Sweet Bird of Youth, among others), and this collection is a real gem with some never-before-published one-acts from Tennessee Williams’s earliest days as a writer, when he seemed to be trying to be Clifford Odets. Socially conscious and political plays about corrupt armaments tycoons (Tennessee? Really?), but it’s so heartening to see where he started, and how far he came in such a short time. We all start by imitating those whom we love and admire. We need to find our own voices. This is also a superb collection because it contains early one-acts which are, in essence, sketches of Glass Menagerie and others. FASCINATING. Highly recommended.

2. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. This was clearly a re-read. It’s one of my favorite novels. I re-read it in preparation for the movie (my review here, which was so good it made my Top 10 List). I never get sick of this book and I am never over being surprised by it. I come to it again and again and at some point during every reading I think, “My God. This book is so WEIRD.” No other novel like it.

3. National Velvet, by Enid Bagnold. A childhood favorite of mine, I re-read it in anticipation of the IM conversation I had with Slate critic Dana Stevens about the movie. I had forgotten much of it. I was swept away not only by the excitement of the book but the superb writing and awesome character development. It is a classic.

4. The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, by Deborah Blum. What a wonderful book about the development of forensic science and medicine, due to all of these crazy poison cases in the past. Criminals kept ahead of the police by testing out new poisons which could not be traceable, and so forensic science developed. It is also about the police department in New York, and the coroner’s office, and Prohibition (and what a disaster it was), and how a couple of intelligent cops and doctors started to develop a cohesive way to analyze crime scenes. Written in an accessible and fun style. Loved this book.

5. Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan, by Quentin Wilbur. Gripping story, a minute by minute account of the day that Ronald Reagan was shot. The Secret Service detail is interviewed extensively as are hospital technicians, doctors, and the detectives who very quickly put together the story that this was not a political assassination, that this was done to impress … Jodie Foster. Great anecdotes from Paul Schraeder as well as Jodie Foster. Terrifying. Could not put the book down, read it in a day.

6. A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Stone, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman, by Robert Kolker. This was also a re-read for me. A classic, it is a detailed and eloquent examinations of six great directors and how they created and reflected the world in which they lived. Nearly impossible to read without whipping out of all of the films discussed: he is a detailed analyst of shot construction and editing, you’ll want to have, say, Barry Lyndon nearby so you can follow along. A must-read.

7. The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith. Had never read it before. Cannot understand why. It is a masterpiece of sociopathic literature told from the inside. One of the scariest books I have ever read.

8. Nineteen Seventy-Four), by David Peace. First of the Red Riding Quartet. Wow. Jesus Mary and Joseph, the comparisons to James Joyce are actually apt. You have to read his writing style to believe it. And it changes from book to book. This quartet is a masterpiece.

9. Nineteen Seventy-Seven, by David Peace. Unbelievable books. (And a great trilogy made of three of them, with three different directors – also must-sees, although the first one is the best.)

10. Nineteen Eighty, by David Peace. As you can see, I was hooked. I couldn’t read these astonishing books fast enough. It is difficult to describe them or to explain their impact. The plot is certainly fascinating, and it has everything I love: social upheaval and poverty, driven journalists, corrupt cops, serial killers, dead prostitutes. But it’s the WRITING.

11. Ripley Under Ground, by Patricia Highsmith. There is something eerie about Highsmith’s writing. It has a flat affectless quality which completely reflects her sociopathic lead. He does not distinguish between the annoyance of having to rake the yard and the annoyance of having to bury the body of someone he has just killed – and so Highsmith’s prose doesn’t distinguish either. Creepy creepy books.

12. Nineteen Eighty-Three, by David Peace. He has a repetitive almost mantra-like style, which is sometimes annoying, but the drive of the writing, his voice, his story, is so strong, so urgent, that you push forward, pushing, pushing, squinting at the lines of text trying to see through to the horrible truth behind it. I am blown away by this quartet.

13. Elegy for April, by Benjamin Black. Another in the Quirke series written under John Banville’s pseudonym. John Banville is very important to me and to my family, and his Benjamin Black books – particularly Christine Falls – are some of the best work he has ever done, and that’s saying something. April was not my favorite. It had a split narrative, which distinguishes it from the other books, and I missed Quirke. But God, I love those characters, I love the writing, I love the evocation of rigid 1950s Dublin. These are great Irish noirs.

14. The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith, by Joan Schenkar. I became so obsessed with Patricia Highsmith, whom I knew nothing about, merely from reading the first two Ripley books that I had to drop them altogether and race to this biography. An unconventional narrative, dripping with passion from the author, I loved it. I talked about the book here.

15. Faithful Place, by Tana French. French’s first two books, which take place in the fictional homicide department of the Dublin police department, were so strong, so captivating, so beautifully written that no lie : I will read anything she writes now. They’re that good. Not as wacky about this one. I didn’t buy the family stuff. I felt like French went into cliche, trying to be Anne Enright or something. Her protagonists in the first two books were nearly family-less: they were driven obsessive cops, workaholics and courageous. I felt she slipped into Irish parody here. However, like I said: I’ll read the next one. Of course I will. Anyone who can write back to back books like In the Woods and The Likeness has my attention for all time.

16. The Lazarus Project, by Aleksandar Hemon. The book got such stunning reviews upon its release that I actually bought it in hardback. But I haven’t read it until now. It lived up to its reputation. Wow. Wonderful novel, and very unique. Unlike anything else I have read.

17. Ripley’s Game, by Patricia Highsmith. After the Highsmith frenzy that came before it, I went into this with high hopes and found my attention lagging. It is not a strong book. Ripley takes a back seat to the character he decides to “play with”, and although Ripley remains a terrifying and amoral spectre, I preferred the other books which were straight from his point of view all the way through. Also the title is the give-away. The stakes are low here for Ripley. He starts a game, just to get even with someone, mess up his life. It is definitely psychotic. But without the urgency of the homoerotic love story in the first book, and the fear of getting caught in the second … Ripley starts to feel lazy. Which perhaps is the point. A person like Ripley couldn’t go for long without some self-created drama. That is part of his horror. That is why you never want to meet such a person. But still: I found this one tough-going and did not go on to read the next Ripley novel, although I probably will eventually.

18. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. I read it in preparation for the review I knew I was going to have to write (review here), and I will say this: It’s a huge book and I read it in 48 hours. I actually felt envious of her ability to just move things along, and provide catharsis, and jump from character to character. I was aware I was being manipulated by an attitude of white-guilt so palpable that it pretty much takes the cake of that particular mindset. But still: it takes skill to warm a cold heart like mine, and I’ll give her that. The book is better than the movie, though. The book is long enough to provide at least some ambiguity, and since there are three narrators – two black women and one white – (although it’s a white woman writing the book – ugh!) In the movie, though, the white girl comes across as the Great White Hope and it’s all rather simplistic not to mention offensive. But I’ll give her the props: girl knows how to write a page-turner.

19. Eclipse , by Stephanie Meyer. I had read the first two books in the series in December of 2008, which was a time of vigil for my family. We all holed up in the house in Rhode Island, clinging to one another, and waiting. It was a quiet and loving time, but also a time racked with white-hot knife-stabbing pain and reaching out my arms into the darkness at night. So the first two books of Stephanie Meyer’s saga were all I could read at the time. I couldn’t focus on anything else. And when I picked up those books, the world vanished for the 20 minutes I was able to read at a time. They’re dumb, but they’re effective. And I will always be grateful to Stephanie Meyer for writing the only books that I could read during that awful bleak month of anticipation, waiting for the worst to happen, which of course it did. Those first two books were a great comfort. Then, once the worst happened, I no longer felt like picking up the last two books of the saga, and indeed, 2009 was a terrible year and one of the byproducts of how awful it was was that I lost the ability to read. I managed to finish a couple of books, but the first 5 or 6 months of that year were a complete wash. I finally was able to really start reading again in January of the following year when I went out to Block Island. So all of this is to say is that Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books were the last books I read before going into the blackout period of most of 2009. I always knew I would get back to the series. I had to finish them, if only to honor what those books had meant to me when I could read nothing else, and sat on the couch all day, waiting. I haven’t picked them up since 2008 and all of the characters came back to me, and the writing is so terrible, but also so enjoyable and I read it in 2 or 3 days.

20. Breaking Dawn, by Stephanie Meyer. Had to complete the circle. So stupid, but again I give the props: can’t put them down once I pick them up. Also, I’m pretty much “for” anything that helps teenage girls to safely relieve and admit their sexual tension and frustration. I’m totally all for that. I will not dismiss it and I will not dismiss the teenage girls who love these books. It is an important outlet for young girls. The prose is so awful it makes my head hurt, but they serve an important purpose, and so I say, go, Stephanie Meyer. And teenage girls: I know you don’t care about those who sneer at you, and good for you: Never care. Love what you love. Let it all out in a safe place and don’t let anyone make you ashamed about it. Time enough to grow up and deal with your sexuality in a grown-up way: for now, lose yourself in the fantasy of these books. But I know you don’t need me to tell you that. You’re already doing it. Good for you. As with Elvis Presley, the sneer-ers don’t like it when girls choose to love something that THEY haven’t endorsed. Ignore the sneer-ers. They are irrelevant.

21. Villette, by Charlotte Bronte. Had never read it although I owned it for years. It’s one of those books that have taunted me from the shelves. Big daunting books that I know will take a commitment from me. Ugh: am I ready to surrender? Villette was a book like no other I have read. I have made my feelings clear for Jane Eyre but Villette is nothing like Jane Eyre. It is an homage to loneliness. This book gets loneliness on such a cellular level that I felt seen and recognized by it. The ending shattered me. Here are some thoughts on it.

22. Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, by Peter Guralnick. A magnificent and visceral story of Elvis Presley’s life from the time he was born until he went into the Army (1958). That right there should tell you Peter Guralnick’s opinion about Elvis Presley’s career. He too sees it as a career with a gap in it, represented by the Army, and what the hell happened to Elvis after he got out of the Army? Well, Peter, not all of us agree with your assessment. However: this first volume is exhaustive and sympathetic (it’s about time Elvis was shown some sympathy. Sheesh.), and Elvis actually emerges as a real guy. You can kind of feel him in the life that he lived. Guralnick doesn’t seem to have an explicit TAKE on Presley – at least not in the first volume. I mean, he does, but not like, say, Albert Goldman does, or Alanna Nash does: where their opinions of Elvis inform every single biographical detail they list out. He lost a twin. THAT’S why he’s so effed up. He was uncircumcised. THAT’S why he was so effed up. And on and on and on. It’s too reductive. People’s lives don’t always work out so neatly. Guralnick doesn’t pull that in this first volume. And he is very very good on the music, on Sam Phillips, and on the different takes in all the different sessions, how that all came about. Whatever else, we owe Guralnick a deep bow of thanks for these books.

23. Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, by Peter Guralnick. The subtitle alone tells you Guralnick’s opinion, and his introduction where he says that this book is about the “disappearance” of Elvis Presley over the years following his release from the Army is just another indicator. Uhm, Elvis didn’t disappear between 1960 and 1977. He may have disappeared to YOU, Mr. Guralnick, but to the millions of his loyal fans he was still there. Yes, they may have been baffled by the movie soundtracks and some of those songs … but he didn’t really go anywhere. AND: he didn’t die in 1967 when he was still doing movies. He died in 1977 after almost a full decade of recordbreaking attendance-shows in Vegas, not to mention sold out shows for 10 years straight around the country. I’m not sure where you think he disappeared to, Peter. He’s still good on the music and the different sessions, it’s just that now you can feel Guralnick’s OPINION about Elvis’ taste in music. As Larry Aydlette said to me on Facebook, “Guralnick is not to be trusted when it comes to 1970s Elvis.” Indeed.

24. Elvis, by Dave Marsh. God, I love this book. Dave Marsh starts off by writing, “This is the craziest book I have ever written.” It really is a crazy book. But Elvis was crazy and the phenomenon of Elvis was crazy and I think Dave Marsh comes the closest to really making sense of it. He writes from a position of love, first of all. He writes from a position of respect. He doesn’t seem “baffled” by some of Elvis’ choices (the gospel, the ballads) – the way Guralnick often does. Dave Marsh gets it. Elvis always loved the crooners. Mario Lanza and Dean Martin were his idols, as were the gospel quartets. What other kind of music did you expect him to make once he became famous? If he kept trying to be a badboy rockabilly, wouldn’t he have just cliched himself into irrelevance? Don’t disrespect the gospel or the ballads. Understand where they came from. They were just as (if not more) personal to Elvis than his nastiest dirtiest blues. Dave Marsh gets the scope of it. Tries to deal with it. Wonderful book and BEAUTIFULLY art-directed.

25. Elvis in the Twilight of Memory, by June Juanico. I’ve read a couple of the tell-all books about Elvis over the years. I read Priscilla’s book when it first came out. June Juanico, Elvis’ important girlfriend in the summer of 1956 (he had dated Dixie Locke pretty seriously too, but June Juanico was more of an adult relationship, his first adult love), was featured in an entire chapter in Peter Guralnick’s book (the chapter called “Elvis and June”), and her memoir was published a couple years ago to, actually, rave reviews. A lot of people sniffed at it because there isn’t any dirt on Elvis, but that says more about THEM than about Elvis. She’s a wonderful writer, and Elvis really comes alive in a way you’d never really seen him before in these pages. He’s 21, his fame is exploding (it’s 1956), and as he was dating June Juanico he seemed to start to realize what it would mean. He hadn’t appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show yet, but he’d been on enough national television by that point that he no longer could go anywhere without being mobbed. He spent two months hiding out with June in Biloxi (he moved his entire family to Biloxi), and it’s a romantic and aching book (with an introduction by Peter Guralnick), and a wonderful addition to Elvis literature. He certainly is shown as having flaws, he’s jealous and insecure and torments June about it, and he broke June’s heart in a way – but she always remembered him with fondness and love. He comes off as hilarious, too. You really get a sense of his playfulness and humor. The book made me sad for a good two days. Made me think about my own first love and what it felt like when it was summer and you were free and young and all you were going to do with someone was make out because you weren’t ready to have sex yet, and it was all okay and beautiful. Love isn’t sex. You can fall in love without the sex part. Elvis was a master at that. He was, after all, a 1950s boy. This is also a wonderful book because you get a real first-person account of what Gladys Presley was like. Gladys loved June, she hoped Elvis would marry her (and Elvis did ask June to marry him, only he asked her if she could wait three years. She said yes.) Of course, by the time Love Me Tender came out, he just got to be too big, too famous, the relationship didn’t last. Movingly, the book is dedicated to Elvis fans everywhere as well as to Gladys Presley.

26. Private Elvis, by Diego Cortez. A notorious book with notorious photos, all which only emerged after Presley’s death, it’s peppered with obnoxious postmodern writing that shows the decline in actual THOUGHT that often comes with strict postmodern analysis. Ugh. Spare me. Academia at its absolute incomprehensible snotty worst. HOWEVER. The story behind these notorious photos is as follows: Elvis was stationed in Germany. Although songs kept being released and there were occasional photos released of him in the army, as well as news items, it really was as though Elvis had vanished. Even though he was the most famous man in the world, he still had a level of privacy that today’s stars just would never have in our instantaneous-information culture. The Germany years are referred to as “the missing years” although we pretty much know what he was doing now. On his trips to Munich he frequented a nightclub where there were strippers and prostitutes. Hundreds of photos were taken of him in this nightclub, by people obviously eager to be seen with Elvis, paw him, whatever. He submits to all of this. Like I said, he had no fear that these horrible photos would turn up on TMZ the next day. The photos could have ruined him. Private Elvis is basically one big picture book (with the most obnoxious introduction ever written, as well as some interviews with some of the girls at that club who remember Elvis). These photos are unlike any photo you’ve ever seen of Elvis. The lighting is stark, almost like a mug shot, or like an interrogation room. Women climb all over him (and he paws them right back). He has a cleancut haircut but he looks decadent as hell. All the girls have horrid teeth, ripped tights, and leering smiles. He had one or two favorites and would sleep with them, and even in that environment the prostitutes and strippers remember him as shy, gentlemanly, and the epitome of what they thought of as American. Almost abashed about the amount of sex he was having, and how these girls were nothing like the good girls in America where you had to beg them to let you put your hand under her sweater. Elvis didn’t drink. Ever. But he looks drunk in these photos. Drunk on available vagina. No wonder he kept going back. I flip through the book and get a queasy feeling, knowing how horrible he would have felt if he had ever seen these photos. But I also find them hot, because he’s so lost in the pursuit of sex, and although they are all weirdly posed – it’s like they propped him up against the wall and had a parade of girls attack him one by one – he’s totally lost in each girl. But they are very very interesting since there really is nothing else like it and Elvis was one of the most photographed men in the world.

Only two examples in a book of many many more like it:

But the introduction shows you how postmodern thinking has pretty much ruined writing. I could barely get through it.

27. Elvis at 21: New York to Memphis, by Alfred Wertheimer. Alfred Wertheimer is the photographer who took the candid photo that is now in my banner, of Elvis trying to steal a kiss from his date in the stairwell. Wertheimer’s photographs are the best and most intimate photos of Elvis ever taken, taken at a time when he was just beginning to be famous (spring, early summer of 1956), but not guarded enough yet to push photographers away. Wertheimer follows him into the bathroom even.

Listening to the playback of “Hound Dog” at the RCA Studio in New York. Wertheimer, not a fan of Elvis’ music, not really knowing much about it, asked if he could tag along to the session, having no idea how important the session would be, and that Elvis would be recording what eventually would be a classic song (but no one could know that). So he got to see Elvis at work.

Elvis on his date with the gal in the banner

Elvis and his mama

Incredible photographs. It makes me wish Wertheimer had followed Elvis around for his whole life.

Elvis casually brushing his teeth, shaving, the kind of access that would vanish in a matter of months. Elvis is so young (his body covered with pimples which you can clearly see in the photos where he doesn’t have his shirt on), and the photos of him cavorting with his cousins in the half-filled pool in the backyard at Audobon Drive, in the brand-new house he bought his parents, are touching, heart-achingly so. Elvis hanging out with Gladys, him bare-chested, totally natural with her, her standing there as he’s getting undressed. Elvis totally free with himself, you can see why Wertheimer (who really had no idea who Elvis was) found him to be a riveting subject. Additionally, Wertheimer’s prose that goes along with the book, as he tells the story of his couple of weeks in Elvis’ presence, is marvelous. Revelatory. A huge coffee-table book with unforgettable photographs showing Elvis on the cusp, right before he disappeared into totally-managed armored-up fame.

28. Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, by Peter Guralnick. Yeah. I read it a second time. As I have said before, when I am obsessed, I mean business.

29. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo , by Stieg Larsson. I finished this yesterday. How odd that the word “Elvis” is in the last sentence of the book. I had already seen the movie (my review here) so I actually found it rough going at points, since I knew “who done it”. I found Salander to be even more compelling on the page than on the screen, but I found Blomkvist to be a prick. Sort of a passive prick, and way too complacent about a lot of things. That was probably the point, but I wasn’t nearly as impressed with him as Larsson seems to be. I felt Larsson “identifying” with Blomkvist a bit too heavily (fierce man of integrity, journalist keeping businessmen on their toes, integrity, successful with women). I bet Stieg Larsson thought very highly of himself as a lover (when Cecilia Vangar sleeps with Blomkvist and then says to him afterwards, “You’re not half bad in bed” I rolled my eyes. Oh PLEASE). Not sure if I will go on to read the rest of the trilogy although I probably will. Lisbeth Salander is not a character I will soon forget and I would love to learn more about her.

2010 books read
2009 books read
2008 books read
2007 books read
2006 books read
2005 books read