{"id":31415,"date":"2010-12-28T08:48:05","date_gmt":"2010-12-28T13:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=31415"},"modified":"2024-04-21T14:36:20","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T18:36:20","slug":"2010-books-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=31415","title":{"rendered":"2010 Books Read"},"content":{"rendered":"

Round-up of the books I read this year, in the order in which I read them. I am nearly finished with one last book (a collection of stories by Miranda July, given to me by my sister Siobhan for my birthday), but I’m not done with it yet, so it’s not on the 2010 list.<\/p>\n

1. The Wordy Shipmates<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Sarah Vowell. Words can’t express how much I loved this book. She is such a funny writer, but her passion for her topic comes through. It was nice to read about Roger Williams, the father of my home state (and one of Pat’s ancestors was with Williams’ original merry band who left Massachusetts!) Love Vowell. My favorite quote in the book? “Seriously, Martha, bring that axe.”<\/p>\n

2. Roman Polanski: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers Series)<\/a>\"\"<\/i><\/p>\n

3. The Gonne-Yeats Letters 1893-1938<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. I loved how entire worlds opened up in the footnotes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4. Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Thomas Wright. <\/p>\n

5. Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, edited by Richard Ellmann. This was what I read throughout my stay on Block Island. <\/p>\n

6. Beware of Pity<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Stefan Zweig. Phenomenal terrifying novel. My review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

7. The Block Island Cookbook, 1962<\/i>. Compiled by the First Baptist Church on Block Island. I read it cover to cover. It was awesome. Excerpts here.<\/a><\/p>\n

8. Andrei Tarkovsky: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers Series)<\/a>\"\"<\/i><\/p>\n

9. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by the great Ron Chernow. Incredible. My review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

10. Winter’s Tale<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Mark Helprin. I finally read this magnificent novel. My review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

11. The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Ron Rosenbaum. I am in love with every page of this book. I tore it UP. <\/p>\n

12. A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and Their Remarkable Families<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Michael Holroyd. A book I had been dying to read<\/a>, since I first heard rumors about it. I’ve read Ellen Terry’s autobiography (my review here<\/a>, and of course Henry Irving plays a huge part, but to have a dual-biography about them and their fascinating families … Loved the book. Great information. Here’s one of the posts<\/a> I wrote while reading the book.<\/p>\n

13. Memoirs<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, Tennessee Williams. I have read these before. They’re haunting. One of my posts about it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

14. The Wave Of The Future<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. With all of the Lindbergh books I have read (her diaries, all five volumes, as well as her books about their flights), I had never read this one – the only controversial thing she ever wrote. Basically the message is: The Nazis are inevitable, but something better will come after them, so we need to accept this wave crashing over us right now. She tries to twist it into something that it really isn’t – a more hopeful message – but what it’s really about is appeasement. She clearly wrote it to try to support her husband’s controversial stance during WWII, and it did NOT go well for her. It’s a creepy little book. You can feel her struggling to keep it under control: her theme and its implications are too big for her. Her personal writing (diaries, and in Gift From the Sea<\/i>) is amazing<\/i>. Here, not so much. Also, her motives were not pure. She was trying to protect her husband, explain him. Anyway, I had always wanted to read it – saw a second-hand copy somewhere and picked it up. <\/p>\n

15. The Paris Review Interviews, I<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. Cousin Mike sent me the box set of four volumes of interviews with writers in The Paris Review<\/i>. They go from Dorothy Parker to Stephen King. From Hemingway to Toni Morrison. Awesome. Thanks, cousin Mike!<\/p>\n

16. Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI <\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Robert K. Ressler. Awesome. <\/p>\n

17. A Train of Powder: Six Reports on the Problem of Guilt and Punishment In Our Time<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by the great Rebecca West. I’m a West fan, but I had never read this. It’s incredible. Some of my thoughts here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

18. The New Meaning of Treason<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Rebecca West. Another one of hers I hadn’t read. Her reporting on the many treason trials in England following WWII. She ends with the whole Profumo affair. She’s so awesome.<\/p>\n

19. Memo from David O. Selznick : The Creation of “Gone with the Wind” and Other Motion Picture Classics, as Revealed in the Producer’s Private Letters, Telegrams, Memorandums, and Autobiographical Remarks<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. An amazing on-the-ground look at the relentless producer. <\/p>\n

20. The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by David Thomson. For me, the book never lives up to the greatness of the first chapter, a description of Robert Towne’s obsession with water in Los Angeles, and how he saw it as a great trilogy (Chinatown<\/i> being the first), but alas, it was not meant to be. I like some of it, and I like Thomson’s writing, but it’s really that first chapter that soars.<\/p>\n

21. My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Chelsea Handler. This woman makes me laugh.<\/p>\n

22. The Shark-Infested Custard<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Charles Willeford. A chilling book. My review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

23. Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Stuart Taylor and K.C. Johnson. This book is so infuriating I felt like I was burning up from within as I read it. <\/p>\n

24. Columbine<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Dave Cullen.<\/p>\n

25. Final Cut : Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven’s Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Steven Bach. I had read this before, a couple of times, actually. A riveting book.<\/p>\n

26. The Lottery and Other Stories<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Shirley Jackson. Some of these stories have a way of insinuating themselves into your DNA, and ruining a perfectly nice day. She is a terrifying writer, and this is an amazing collection.<\/p>\n

27. The Jaws Log<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Carl Gottlieb. A classic. <\/p>\n

28. The Letters of Sylvia Beach<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – sent to me by the editor of the collection. I had been dying to read it (some posts here<\/a> and here<\/a>). What a life. It’s great to hear her “voice” in the letters, which was not at all what I expected. She had very little time to devote to correspondence, so the prose is rushed, funny, and self-deprecating. Humble, homey, honest – you can see why people wanted to hang out at Shakespeare & Co. <\/p>\n

29. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by William Goldman. Another classic.<\/p>\n

30. Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Peter Bogdanovich. This is a book I dip into constantly, and reference almost every other day. It’s huge. It took me months to finish it. <\/p>\n

31. The Silver Swan<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Benjamin Black (or John Banville). Sequel to the noir Christine Falls<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, I had been looking forward to it. My review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

32. Notes from Underground<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Brilliant. Scary-modern. My review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

33. The Crack-Up<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A collection of personal essays, one of which being about his “crack-up”, one of the best descriptions of what “cracking up” feels like that I have ever read. I started to read the book last year<\/a>, and had to put it down. It was too close to home. It is an incredible collection, so glad I finally finished it. <\/p>\n

34. Brideshead Revisited<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Evelyn Waugh. It’s too brilliant for me to take in all at once. My review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

35. The Lemur: A Novel<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Benjamin Black – this is NOT a “Quirke” book, like Christine Falls<\/i> and Silver Swan<\/i>. Not wacky about this one. <\/p>\n

36. The Old Man and The Sea<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Ernest Hemingway. Naturally, I have read this before, but it was years and years ago. And this last time I was unable to see it as anything OTHER than a metaphor for writer’s block. <\/p>\n

37. The Newton Letter<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by John Banville. Early Banville. My review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

38. A Handful of Dust<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Evelyn Waugh. More brilliance. My review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

39. Kazan on Directing<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. Must-read.<\/p>\n

40. Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Annie Proulx. Had been dying for this collection to come out. Nobody writes like her. Nobody<\/a>. <\/p>\n

41. The Barracks<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by John McGahern. God, that guy was good. My review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

42. Boyhood of Grace Jones<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Jane Langton. One of my favorite books growing up. I haven’t read it since I was 10 years old, so I decided to re-visit it. It’s terrific<\/i>, even better than I remembered it. I reference it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

43. The Planets<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Dava Sobel. I’ve read all her other stuff. This one is a bit different, but I loved it. <\/p>\n

44. Among the Thugs<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Bill Buford. It took me a couple of days to shake off the effect of this book. My review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

45. The Paris Review Interviews, III<\/a>\"\"<\/i><\/p>\n

46. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Ken Kesey. It was really fun to read this book again. The last time was maybe in college? Or post-college? I remember some sections almost word for word, but there was much I had forgotten. <\/p>\n

47. Tell Me Everything: A Novel<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Sarah Salway. Amazing characters, prickly and odd, and beautiful writing. I love her stuff.<\/p>\n

48. House of Stairs<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by William Sleator. His book Into the Dream<\/i> was one of my favorite books growing up and I still love it. Not too crazy about this one though. It didn’t have the characters<\/i> I could click into. I don’t know, it fell kind of flat for me.<\/p>\n

49. The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten, 1960-1980<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Peter Bogdanovich. Reading this book was like pulling over to look at a car wreck on the highway. I almost felt bad about it. I wonder if he has had second thoughts about publishing this book. <\/p>\n

50. Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Peter Biskind. What a book. <\/p>\n

51. Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw;: A correspondence,<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. An incredible correspondence. I think they only met one or two times. They saved their intimacy for their letters. It was an intellectual love affair, I suppose. She was his favorite actress, and he was obsessed for years with having her do one of his plays. He thought she was wasted at The Lyceum. There are too many gems in these letters (a back and forth about Imogen in Cymbeline<\/i> should be required reading to anyone playing that part). <\/p>\n

52. Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Matthew Kennedy. I went on a Joan Blondell tear this fall (posts here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>). This book was a big part of that.<\/p>\n

53. Child 44<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Tom Rob Smith. Pretty amazing for a first novel. A murder mystery set in Russia in 1953, the year of Stalin’s death? Yeah, sign me up. Could not put this book down. Could not do it.<\/p>\n

54. With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by \u00c5sne Seierstad. I have owned this book for a while, but never read it until now. Many of the people I met in its pages will stay with me. She’s a terrific writer. <\/p>\n

55. This is Orson Welles<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Peter Bogdanovich. I’ve read it before. It’s a go-to book. Full of too much awesomeness to even count. Fantastic. I love the interview format. <\/p>\n

56. About Alice<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Calvin Trillin. His memoir about his wife who passed away.<\/p>\n

57. The Children’s Book<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by A.S. Byatt. A giant book, a giant accomplishment. She’s been coming out with short story collections for a couple of years now, and I had a feeling she was working on something huge. Not only is it huge in a George Eliot sense (one of Byatt’s idols), but it’s long and dense, with about 10 (maybe more) main characters. I struggled, in the first 100 pages, to keep them all straight – but eventually, they sunk in. Each character has his own journey to take, through Victorian England. The word “sweeping” comes to mind, but that would do the book a disservice. It is, true to Byatt form, a specific and deep excavation of a certain time, a certain place. I loved every page, and the last 2 pages brought me to tears. She has done it again.<\/p>\n

58. The Paris Review Interviews, II<\/a>\"\"<\/i><\/p>\n

59. The Likeness: A Novel<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Tana French. Sequel of a sorts to In the Woods<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. I couldn’t put The Likeness<\/i> down. There’s been an unsolved murder south of Dublin. Cassie, the homicide detective and undercover cop we had met in In the Woods<\/i> is back, and she goes undercover to try to solve the case. And she goes so far undercover that you fear she will never come out. Ms. French can WRITE.<\/p>\n

60. Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Richard Brookhiser. Wonderful. I knew some about him (mainly the story about Hamilton daring him to throw his arm around Washington in a familiar manner), but a lot of it was totally new to me. I really LIKE the guy. <\/p>\n

61. Where Angels Fear to Tread<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by E.M. Forster. Hadn’t read this one. The first chapter made me laugh out loud. <\/p>\n

62. The Egotists: Sixteen Surprising Interviews<\/i><\/a>, by Oriana Fallaci. Great stuff. Ingrid Bergman. Sean Connery<\/a>. Hitchcock. Dean Martin. Nguyen Cao Ky. <\/p>\n

63. Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Anthony McIntyre. I am friends with Anthony’s wife Carrie, and she sent me his book a couple of years ago and I am just getting to it now. When Allison and I went to Belfast, we stayed with Carrie and Anthony and their beautiful daughter (directions from Carrie to her home here<\/a>), and they showed us around the area where they lived, a Catholic neighborhood famous in terms of its role in The Troubles. I will always remember their generosity in opening up their home to us. McIntyre is a journalist and writer, and he and Carrie ran the site The Blanket<\/a>, a “journal of protest and dissent”. It is, granted, difficult to keep the politics of Northern Ireland straight at times, but McIntyre’s book, made up of his published essays throughout the years, is a great way to deepen your understanding, AND to hear the voices that have been crushed out of the “peace process”. It was a very sad book. McIntyre has a long history in Northern Ireland and spent 17 years in prison, and was part of the Blanket protest and had friends die on hunger strike, and his dismay at the sidelining of the republican voices during the “peace process” is palpable. He’s a marvelous writer. <\/p>\n

64. Fred Astaire<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Joseph Epstein. Adored it.<\/p>\n

65. The Same Man: George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh in Love and War<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by David Lebedoff. I had been dying to read this, and a very nice blog-reader sent it to me for my 8-year blogging anniversary. Isn’t that so nice? I tore through it. Fascinating stuff. Knew a lot about Orwell, but not so much about Waugh (besides his novels), so that part of it was really interesting. And it seems that they only met once. <\/p>\n

66. The Belle of Amherst: A One-Woman Play<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by William Luce. Re-read as research for my piece on Fandor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

67. Reading in the Dark: A Novel<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Seamus Deane. Deane is a well-known Irish poet (my post about him here<\/a>, and Reading in the Dark<\/i> is his first novel, about the ghost-ridden childhood of the main character, growing up in Derry, Northern Ireland, in the wake of WWII, up to the time of explosions of the late 60s and early 70s. Amazing book. One of the best novels I’ve read all year. <\/p>\n

68. Memoir: My Life and Themes<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Conor Cruise O’Brien. A fascinating life, and boy does he feel the same way too! As my father would say, “what a puff-puff”. As in “hot air”. HOWEVER: the sections on his childhood are fascinating, and his time in Katanga and Ghana and all the rest during the civil wars of the 1960s is fascinating. The book is funny, too. I welcomed his self-deprecation at times, and his admission that he really could use a bit more humility. Indeed. But the childhood\/young man sections are fantastic. What a family he grew up in. Right on the front lines, and along the fault lines, of the Easter Rising and the following civil war in Ireland.<\/p>\n

69. George Washington: The Founding Father<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Paul Johnson. Part of the Eminent Lives series. I’ve read Paul Johnson’s massive A History of the American People<\/i>. This is a slim volume, compared to that one, and I’ve read about 6 full biographies of Washington now, so there is nothing new here, but the elegance of his prose and his point of view is quite welcoming.<\/p>\n

70. The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Susan Casey. She’s quite a talented writer. She spends much of the book following Laird Hamilton around, but there is also research that takes her to Lloyd’s of London, and a top maritime salvaging company in South Africa, and tracking down wave experts wherever she can find them. Terrifying those giants of the ocean. I never want to see a 100 foot wave, thankyouverymuch, but I certainly want to read about those people who have encountered such a monster, and who not only survived to tell the tale, but, in some cases, are dying to see one again. <\/p>\n

2009 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":"

Round-up of the books I read this year, in the order in which I read them. I am nearly finished with one last book (a collection of stories by Miranda July, given to me by my sister Siobhan for my … 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":[81,350,138,87,641,1646,1128,1226,992,116,111,166,264,83,98,424,266,203,231,1103,1908,35,1587,1669,2062,215,247,640,107,197,440,143,1171,635,150,2427,214,638,567,2502,190,1277,218],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31415"}],"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=31415"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134451,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31415\/revisions\/134451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}