{"id":164401,"date":"2020-12-30T11:35:25","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T16:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=164401"},"modified":"2024-12-22T10:28:33","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T15:28:33","slug":"2020-books-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=164401","title":{"rendered":"2020 Books Read"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a year, huh. What a dumpster-fire year. I read a lot, mostly in the mornings, and it helped create rituals for the days, which often seemed endlessly the same, interchangeable. I read a lot of long and challenging books this year. I was drawn to the difficult. (Well, for me, they were difficult). I felt I needed the mental stimulation. Not much fiction this year. I couldn’t really deal with fiction. I also flew by the seat of my pants. There was no plan here, although it’s clear I suddenly started reading a lot of memoirs about living under a totalitarian or fascist government. Hm. Wonder why. Many of these books came on my radar because of Clive James’ Cultural Amnesia<\/i>, one of the best reading experiences I had this year. Most of the links to books below are from McNally Jackson, a bookstore I have been supporting as much as I can through this pandemic. <\/p>\n

1. Swann’s Way<\/a><\/i>, by Marcel Proust<\/strong>
\nI started this in 2019 and finished it up early this year. I’m finally reading this book. My main response is: Why didn’t anyone tell me how FUNNY it is? <\/p>\n

2. Wallflower at the Orgy<\/a><\/i>, by Nora Ephron<\/strong>
\nSquinting back through the fog of 2020, I am fairly certain I picked this up after reading Michelle Dean’s Sharp<\/i>. <\/p>\n

3. Women in Dark Times<\/a><\/i>, by Jacqueline Rose<\/strong>
\nEssential. <\/p>\n

4. Assassination Vacation<\/a><\/i>, by Sarah Vowell<\/strong>
\nA re-read. She’s so much fun. <\/p>\n

5. Best Poems of the English Language<\/a><\/i>, edited by Harold Bloom<\/strong>
\nThis is a gigantic door-stop of a book, with Bloom’s mostly minimal commentary about each poet. I decided to read a lot of poetry this year, even stuff I’m familiar with – and most of these poems I’m familiar with. But whatever, you can’t really read “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” too many times. Like, you’re not DONE with it. <\/p>\n

6. End to Torment: A Memoir of Ezra Pound<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by H.D.<\/strong>
\nThis was part of my capacious preparation for the huge piece I wrote for Film Comment<\/i> about H.D.<\/a> This memoir of her relationship with Ezra Pound dating back to when she was a teenager (he was the first person to kiss her, they were briefly engaged, he christened her “H.D.” and etc.) was written the year he was released from St. Elizabeth’s, where he had been locked up for 15 years, following his return to the United States, in chains, accused of treason. She used the opportunity to write beautifully of their relationship, as well as a current-day diary of how she was working out these feelings through psychoanalysis. Very H.D. <\/p>\n

7. Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by John Oller<\/strong>
\nI’d read this before, but re-read it because I was writing about Jean Arthur for Film Comment<\/i><\/a>. <\/p>\n

8. The Essential Rebecca West: Uncollected Prose<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Rebecca West<\/strong>
\nA collection of her writings, from her letters, to Black Lamb Grey Falcon<\/i>, to Train of Powder<\/i> and Meaning of Treason<\/i>, to her journalism and more. I’ve read all of her stuff, but felt like re-visiting. <\/p>\n

9. HERmione<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by H.D.<\/strong>
\nA lesbian roman a clef<\/i> published after H.D. died. Humorously: this was the first book I read post-shutdown. I had ordered it a month before, for that Film Comment<\/i> piece, and it arrived in the first waves of panic in re: Covid. The book came from England, and was held at customs for almost a week. <\/p>\n

10. Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery<\/a><\/i> by Robert Kolker<\/strong>
\nNothing like a little true crime to open the window and let in some freezing air. This is a very chilling story. <\/p>\n

11. H.D., the Life and Work of an American Poet<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Janice Stevenson Robinson<\/strong>
\nPublished in the 80s, it’s an exhaustive book – and more a work of literary criticism than biography (which can be annoying: an artist isn’t writing biography when they write a poem. Not strictly. However, H.D. was extremely personal. She didn’t invent much.) It’s a really interesting excavation of the powerful relationship between H.D. and D.H. Lawrence – erased from history due to his estate being managed by H.D.’s somewhat jealous ex-husband – you can’t make this shit up – that generation really GOT AROUND. I liked the parallels drawn between H.D.’s and Lawrence’s work, and how they seemed to be talking “to” each other through their poems. Anyway, interesting background. A little out-dated but I needed the firm foundation to even have the confidence to write this damn piece, which for many reasons I struggled with<\/a>. I’m really proud how it came out, considering.<\/p>\n

12. Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts<\/a><\/i>, by Clive James<\/strong>
\nThe reading experience of the year for me. <\/p>\n

13. Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp<\/a><\/i>, by J\u00f3zef Czapski<\/strong>
\nBy this point, I had started Volume 2 of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time<\/i>, so I thought this would be a fun one. Czapski was in a Soviet prison camp, and of course didn’t have any books with him, but the prisoners would “entertain” themselves by giving lectures on subjects they knew a lot about. It could be farming, it could be art, it could be mathematics. Czapski gave a series of lectures on Proust’s In Search of Lost Time<\/i>, and this book is put together from the lecture notes he cobbled together, as well as diagrams showing all the thematic elements Proust was working on. An awe-inspiring work, considering the circumstances in which these lectures were given. <\/p>\n

14. Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell<\/a><\/i><\/strong>
\nThis took me FOREVER to get through. Months on END. I love both of them, they’re both so interesting, and this is a fascinating life-long correspondence, but honestly it was good to finally make it through it. <\/p>\n

15. Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Montesquieu<\/strong>
\nThis was the jumping-off point for Edward Gibbon’s massive The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire<\/i>, which I have also read (his style is a BEAR to get your head around). This is a slim volume (as opposed to Gibbon) and Montesquieu lays out his theses with clarity and dispatch: the very things that made the Roman empire strong were the things that contributed to its collapse. Recommended. <\/p>\n

16. Goodbye Columbus<\/a><\/i>, by Philip Roth<\/strong>
\nRoth’s first novel, published in 1959. I’ve said before that there are “gaps” in my education and mid-century American novelists – men, anyway – are one of those gaps, and I’ve been trying to rectify it. All those big-wigs – Styron and Bellow and Mailer and Roth – I just missed them, for whatever reason. Roth has been so much fun to catch up on. Over the last couple of years I have read five or six, and they’re always fun. It’s wild to read the first novel because now that I am familiar with him, I can perceive that “it’s all there.” He emerged full-blown, and the rest of his career was just developing what was already there. <\/p>\n

17. Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Heda Margolius Kov\u00e1ly<\/strong>
\nThis was one of the books I read because of Cultural Amnesia<\/i>. It is devastating. One of the most painful and harrowing memoirs I have ever read. I can’t recommend it highly enough. <\/p>\n

18. Last Waltz in Vienna: The Destruction of a Family, 1842-1942<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by George Clare<\/strong>
\nAnother devastating memoir about a vanished world. It’s one of those books where the majority of the writer’s family members die in the same year, as shown in the family tree in the beginning. <\/p>\n

19. The Nick Tosches Reader<\/a><\/i>, by Nick Tosches<\/strong>
\nI miss him. So I re-read this, a little bit at a time .<\/p>\n

20. To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface<\/a><\/i>, by Olivia Laing<\/strong>
\nI got on the Laing train with Trip to Echo Springs<\/i>. Instant fan. I read Lonely City<\/i> next and then looped back to read her first To the River<\/i>. I just love what she’s about and what she’s doing. Haven’t read her novel, or her latest. <\/p>\n

21. Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster<\/a><\/i>, by Adam Higginbotham<\/strong>
\nGood read. <\/p>\n

22. Emma<\/a><\/i>, by Jane Austen<\/strong>
\nA re-read inspired by the new film adaptation which I reviewed for Ebert<\/a>. <\/p>\n

23. Travels with Herodotus<\/a><\/i>, by Ryszard Kapu\u015bci\u0144ski<\/strong>
\nA re-read. He’s one of my favorite authors. <\/p>\n

24. Hitler: The F\u00fchrer and the People<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by J.P. Stern<\/strong>
\nSuch a good book, name-checked in Clive James’ Cultural Amnesia<\/i>. Published in the 70s, it is still a hugely relevant book, due to its focus on propaganda and the mystifying hold Hitler had over the German people. Wrote about it here.<\/a><\/p>\n

25. The Museum of Unconditional Surrender<\/a><\/i>, by Dubravka Ugre\u0161i\u0107<\/strong>
\nAnother book name-checked in Cultural Amnesia<\/i>. Written by the Yugoslav dissident, forced to live in exile due to her comments on the 1991 war that broke out in the Balkans. Labeled a “public enemy”, she no longer felt safe. This novel – with one of the best titles of a novel ever – is about the disorientation of living in exile. Fantastic. <\/p>\n

26. Theatre Street;: The Reminiscences of Tamara Karsavina<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Tamara Karsavina<\/strong>
\nKarsavina intersected with everyone: the Russian royalty, many of whom were patrons of the ballet, and on to Diaghilev and Nijinsky – whom she danced with – the Russian Imperial ballet and then the Ballets Russes – the terror of the early years of the Bolshevik reign. She had to flee. An amazing snapshot of an incredibly tumultuous world-shaking time. <\/p>\n

27. The Trial<\/a><\/i>, by Franz Kafka<\/strong>
\nOf course I’ve read this before. My ongoing quest to read about propaganda and totalitarian regimes and faceless bureaucracies standing in for The State. This book is terrifying. <\/p>\n

28. The Captive Mind<\/a><\/i>, by Czes\u0142aw Mi\u0142osz<\/strong>
\nMust-read. You can’t “get” or “grok” the 20th century without it. <\/p>\n

29. The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate<\/a><\/i>, by Robert Kaplan<\/strong>
\nI’ve been reading this man for 20 years now. Sometimes I’m like, “Okay, enough already, WE GET IT” but he’s always thought-provoking. And when he’s wrong, he says so. So I admire that.<\/p>\n

30. Within a Budding Grove<\/a><\/i>, by Marcel Proust<\/strong>
\nVolume 2 COMPLETE. 2021 will be the year for Volume 3. No one told me how funny these books were, first of all, and no one also told me how “easy” they are. Once you let go of the need for plot, they’re really quite simple. It’s hard to let go of the need for plot. And doing so is quite a meditative experience, making this one of the most pleasant reading experiences of the year. Volume 2 takes place during a summer vacation at a seaside resort and every single moment – every breakfast, every walk on the promenade, every person met – however briefly – is laid out in excruciating sensory detail. NOTHING HAPPENS<\/i> except EVERYTHING<\/i> happens. He’s dominated by his mother and grandmother. He gets a crush on a girl. There’s one very funny sequence where he and a bunch of girls play a game on the beach and he’s so eager to come off well but then he blunders the ball and gets discombobulated and feels humiliation. That’s about 30 pages. It’s FUNNY. You can just SEE it happening and anyone who’s ever been an adolescent, suffering through gym class, and wanting to look cool to your crush, and FAILING – will recognize instantly all of those feelings. The literary critics have not done a very good job translating this book’s charm and humor! ALSO: because there is no plot, it is very easy to put it down for a couple of days and pick it back up again. The book is a FLOW. Since nothing really happens, you just ease back into the flow and join up with the slow movements of that summer resort. <\/p>\n

31. Angry Blonde<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Eminem<\/strong>
\nShould be obvious why I picked up this old chestnut again. I read it in 20 minutes. <\/p>\n

32. The Group<\/a><\/i>, by Mary McCarthy<\/strong>
\nOn the first page “copious menstruation” is mentioned as a character trait.<\/p>\n

33. Men in Dark Times<\/a><\/i>, by Hannah Arendt<\/strong>
\nI had never read this. Inspired by Jacqueline Rose’s extraordinary book read earlier this year. I took so many notes it was practically like I was transcribing the whole book. <\/p>\n

34. Surviving Autocracy<\/a><\/i>, by Masha Gessen<\/strong>
\nYou know. Had to do it. <\/p>\n

35. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland<\/a><\/i>, by Patrick Radden Keefe<\/strong>
\nI am personally connected with three of the people in this story. The second half of the book is dominated by two good friends of mine, whom I stayed with when I was in Belfast (while the oral history project was being carried out in secret). They’re the main character in the second half, quoted extensively, central to the aftermath of this terrible and haunting story. And another character is ALSO connected to my life, via my father: my father donated his book collection to the Irish literature collection at Boston College, curated by this man – who was at my dad’s funeral. So, yeah. That was all very strange. <\/p>\n

36. Journey Into the Whirlwind<\/a><\/i>, by Eugenia Ginzburg<\/strong>
\nGinzberg was arrested during the waves of the Great Terror and spent 18 years in the gulag. She was a True Believer of the Bolshevik Socialist Ideal, and really did not see it coming. A terrifying memoir. Lots of terrifying memoirs this year. <\/p>\n

37. A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America<\/a><\/i>, by Philip Rucker, Carol D. Leonnig<\/strong>
\nHad to do it. <\/p>\n

38. Good Riddance<\/a><\/i>, by Elinor Lipman<\/strong>
\nOne of my favorite contemporary novelists. I can’t keep up! Still have a couple to read. In this one, an aimless young woman discovers her mother’s high school yearbook and in the process discovers her mother was not at all whom she thought she was. Hijinx ensue. <\/p>\n

39. Kaputt<\/a><\/i>, by Curzio Malaparte<\/strong>
\nTHIS BOOK MY GOD. <\/p>\n

40. The Hangsaman<\/a><\/i>, by Shirley Jackson<\/strong>
\nTHIS BOOK MY GOD. With all my love of Shirley Jackson, I had never read this one. Was inspired to do so by the film Shirley<\/i>, which I reviewed for Ebert<\/a>, where Jackson obsesses on the real-life case, and keeps seeing the girl in the red coat everywhere, and works on the novel. This is a very VERY strange book and I can’t say enough good things about it. She NAILS that 18-year-old going-away-to-college thing. Also the PTSD following rape. <\/p>\n

41. American Poetry : The Twentieth Century, Volume 1 : Henry Adams to Dorothy Parker<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, edited by Library of America<\/strong>
\nA gigantic Library of America volume, given to me by my dad. Normally I just go in there and cherry-pick quotes I need for my writing – but this time I decided to go cover to cover. It took me forever. But so worth it and it introduced me to a lot of lesser-known names hidden behind the luminaries. Will do Volume 2 in 2021. <\/p>\n

42. Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock ‘n’ Roll<\/a><\/i>, by Nick Tosches<\/strong>
\nGlorious. <\/p>\n

43. Biographia Literaria<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge<\/strong>
\nI can’t believe I read the whole thing. This, too, took me forever, because of Coleridge’s dense curlicue style, and also those four chapters on the history of philosophy were … HARD, MAN. But in general, this is a book I’ve been meaning to read, since it’s referenced so often. I finally just picked it up one day. There’s at least one GEM on every single page. It helps if you know your Wordsworth, because there are many chapters dissecting his BFF’s work as well as his BFF’s theories on poetry. <\/p>\n

44. Halfway Decent Sinners<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Michael Cleary<\/strong>
\nI can’t remember when I bought this little volume or how Michael Cleary came on my radar. I’m thinking it was probably from Garrison Keillor’s old site (which I still mourn), where he’d post a poem a day, and a couple of little “On This Day” facts. He’s good! Of my parents’ generation, Vatican II Catholics, so all of that was very familiar to me. <\/p>\n

45. Excellent Women<\/a><\/i>, by Barbara Pym<\/strong>
\nPretty sure my friend Charlie turned me onto her. I had never read her stuff before. I loved this! Loved the characters. <\/p>\n

46. Dismantling Utopia: How Information Ended the Soviet Union<\/a><\/i>, by Scott Shane<\/strong>
\nFantastic. One of my pet topics, but I had never read this one before. Shane was bureau chief in Moscow during the downfall of the Soviet Union, so he had a front-row seat. <\/p>\n

47. Samuel Taylor Coleridge – The Major Works<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge<\/strong>
\nThis includes: letters, notebooks, marginalia, “Table Talk” (transcriptions of his off-the-cuff pontifications), political essays, lectures on Shakespeare, religious essays. Even with his lifelong drug addiction, he got so much done. I need to track down a copy of all of his lectures on Shakespeare. Only the lectures on Romeo and Juliet<\/i> and Hamlet<\/i> are included here. I went on Amazon and the prices for this book are outrageous so I may have to do some more digging. <\/p>\n

48. Miss Lonelyhearts<\/a><\/i>, by Nathanael West<\/strong>
\nI read this in one day. It’s the bleakest shit you can possibly imagine. <\/p>\n

49. Unsung Heroes Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Birth Of Rock In The Wild Years Before Elvis <\/a><\/i>, by Nick Tosches<\/strong>
\nAbsolutely glorious, and it feels as necessary to me as air. <\/p>\n

50. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love<\/a><\/em>, by Raymond Carver<\/strong>
\nHe was another one of those “big mid-20th-century male authors” guys I’d never read, or … I’d read a couple of these stories – the title story, and the terrifying one about the two guys who leave their wives at home and track down these two teenage girls in the woods – those were familiar to me. My sister Jean: “One of the problems with Short Cuts<\/i> is that …” Me: “There was hope in it?” Jean: “Yes.” lol <\/p>\n

51. Practical Gods<\/a>\"\"<\/em>, by Carl Dennis<\/strong>
\nI love Carl Dennis so much. Had never read this whole collection before. “The Lace Maker” surprised me – I literally burst into tears halfway through and then wept for about 20 minutes. Now THAT’S a poem. <\/p>\n

2020 tally
\n21 books by women (I count co-authors, and I count Words on Air<\/i>)
\n31 books by men
\n13 fiction books
\n34 non-fiction
\n4 poetry<\/p>\n

Previously<\/big><\/p>\n

2019 books read<\/a>
\n2018 books read<\/a>
\n2017 books read<\/a>
\n2016 books read<\/a>
\n2015 books read<\/a>
\n2014 books read<\/a>
\n2013 books read<\/a>
\n2012 books read<\/a>
\n2011 books read<\/a>
\n2010 books read<\/a>
\n2009 books read<\/a>
\n2008 books read<\/a>
\n2007 books read<\/a>
\n2006 books read<\/a>
\n2005 books read<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a year, huh. What a dumpster-fire year. I read a lot, mostly in the mornings, and it helped create rituals for the days, which often seemed endlessly the same, interchangeable. I read a lot of long and challenging books … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[2402,1507,1520,589,2094,641,2423,153,1554,2197,2703,94,162,1555,2118,696,75,695,1935,1848,35,259,306,1898,757,76,2626,160,2205,174,143,156,2418,150,155,1642,214,2601,200,2425,141,1102,2424],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=164401"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196045,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164401\/revisions\/196045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=164401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=164401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}