Thanks for anyone who commented on or liked one of my reviews this year.
I’ve switched to writing reviews for my own sake. Maybe I should’ve done that from the beginning. Instead of coming up with cute wordplay and talking about how the book made me feel, in many of my reviews, I tried to deconstruct what I’d read. Hopefully, doing so will result in a more memorable reading journey. I don’t like the feeling of books blending together or turning to vapor in my mind.
My favorite books of the year were the most memorable. Unsurprisingly, many of the literary works I read have faded to silhouettes, like all the dreams I don’t transcribe in my journal anymore.
For next year, I hope to read fewer works of literary fiction and contemporary fiction. Those are chiefly the ones that failed to make impressions on me. More classics and nonfiction works are warranted.
I found I enjoyed reading about literature sometimes more than re-reading the literature myself. I regard a work of criticism as valuable only if it manages to deconstruct what the fiction is doing. Someone else’s opinion shouldn’t enter into it. If they offer a valid interpretation of the text, I’m willing to take it seriously, but more often than not, literary criticism is mere contextual filler.
James Wood is a new name in my constellation of literary critics. More of his books are on my list. His book, The Fun Stuff was an admirable effort at injecting far-flung works with shades of relevance.
Richard Wright’s Black Boy was a powerful work of nonfiction I read this year. A moving account I wrote about on here with much enthusiasm.
I also read his The Man Who Lived Underground with considerably less interest, though it retains a spot in my memory bank for its evocative atmosphere.
Manga and comics took a back seat this year. I failed to find new series that truly engaged me. The additional volumes of Fist of the North Star are mindless entertainment that I intend to finish in the coming months.
Growing weary of Joyce Carol Oates again. Read several more. They felt samey. Other purveyors of pulp similarly dissolved in the burbling vat of my reading list. People like Jesse Ball. The experiments of contemporary novelists began to seem inane.
Gary Shteyngart managed to impress me with his Super Sad True Love Story. His other works less so.
Seeking out weirdness, I’ve furthered my reading of Stepan Chapman with the wonderful book The Troika and his passable story collection. Similarly, Cathrynne Valente continues to reward adventurous readers with her lyrical descents into fairy realms.
I read more of Joan Didion but what I remember is a blur. When writers talk about themselves I tend to lose interest. Are they telling a story to inform other people of life’s truths or simply relating what happened in their daily lives? Where does autofiction cross over into journaling? I think autofiction has always been equivalent to polished journaling. But when an author’s life is supposedly interesting, this journaling suddenly morphs into journalism, I guess. Add to the list Patti Smith and Eve Babitz. These people, somehow, seem like the same person. I realize their voices and lives are different, but when I step back and think hard about what I’ve read, I can only shrug and admit their escapades barely registered with me.
This did not stop me from reading 7000 pages of Knausgaard. Admittedly, I would not read so much of an author unless I valued their contribution to world literature. His works are infuriating at times, but when he slides into essayistic writing, I devour his ideas. When he recounts going to the grocery story or digs into his self-reflection on the worth of his artistic endeavors, I am bored. Yet, he strikes a balance in the longer works. Usually, he hovers between 3 and 4 stars in my estimation. But his main characters, whether they are stand-ins for the author or not, all think and speak the same way, behave the same way, and endure the same humiliations. This trend culminates in a colossal testament to mankind’s vanity. It’s interesting enough if you can put up with the lists of bands and albums, the droll conversations. Without audiobooks I never would’ve finished one of his books. But they are well-suited to that medium.
I read less occult fiction than expected, leaning more toward nonfiction. The Snuggly books I picked up still get some love, but French Decadence in particular is still an area I’ve hardly examined. The problem with occult writings is they often deal in abstracts. Seeking to occlude the action of the story with symbols and arcane rituals can only take a story so far. Same can be said with mere literalism. If there is no subtext, then you’re simply reading a grocery list of actions and gesticulations, kind of like Haruki Murakami’s empty novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls. What is uncertain about that novel is why it had to be 400 pages long. What is uncertain is whether Murakami has run out of ideas. Obscurity is not something he understands. He presents symbols in a Lynchian way. His earlier work is far more digestible for the fact that you can extrapolate certain subtexts from some of the situations. When he reverts to all-surface writing, or when his patterns and adornments are too personal in nature to apply to larger contexts than himself, I lose steam.
Unexpectedly, I was bowled over by Butcher, by Joyce Carol Oates. It marks a high point in her career. One of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read. It invites comparison with American Psycho, which I also read. Yet I would recommend Butcher to other people over Ellis’ masterpiece.
Both of them remain 2 of the most memorable books I will likely ever read.
I Who Have Never Known Men also made it only my all time favorites list. I love the perspective and the atmosphere of that small novel. I dislike the title. Call it I’ve Never Known Men instead. Seriously. Her other Englished book called Orlanda failed to satisfy me on several fronts. Still an author to eagerly await the translations for.
Night Film by Pessrl was the only Noir I read. It was effective for what it set out to accomplish. I doubt this is my genre. The Rex Stout I read, the first in his Nero Wolf series, was a different genre. Detective purity. All these genre labels are tiring of course. They serve only the industry big-wigs, rarely the authors’ or readers’ interests. Both books grabbed me quickly and didn’t let up all the way through.
Flowers for Algernon ticked all the boxes. It was also a great discussion book for the friends I hung out with who actually read. Why can’t I find more books like this?
I enjoyed Michel Faber’s books more than I’d planned to. I have yet to tackle his longest historical work. Perhaps in the new year.
My attempts at getting into Walser fell short. Jakob von Gunten did the trick, but the others left something wanting. Too random possibly. Unfocused. Not Hilbigian enough.
The Stephen King books were a mixed bag. Why do I bother with this guy? The short story collections were of greater interest than the novels simply for the variety. However, I have to rate them highish on the memorability scale.
Zorba the Greek was wonderful. I’ve since picked up several more by Kazantzakis. None of them seem as good as that first novel except the immense Odyssey sequel. I’ll probably be reading that for years. I also read Homer this year. It was not a very close reading, but it cemented my appreciation for the power and significance of the enduring classics. Also added Paradise Lost to my faves. Stunned by Milton’s evocation of grandeurs sacred and elegiac.
Underwhelmed by the Dryden translation of the Aeneid. It is not that Dryden is a bad poet, it was just that I felt like I was reading Dryden and not Virgil. When it comes to my reading of The Faerie Queene, I firmly decided that rhyming is quite obnoxious in long form poems. It is ruinous if you ask me. Please stop rhyming things.
Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve makes it onto the list. It ignited my deep concern for lost manuscripts. I also love the early book-making process and the monasterial sojourns.
Maggie Nelson, Catherine Lacey, Katie Kitamura, Jon Fosse, and Han Kang got crossed off the canon. These contemporary accounts, to me, are the epitome of the unmemorable.
Carlton Mellick has been writing one book per year instead of the usual four. The newest one Scorpion Ranch, did not break new ground, but it did speak of relevant topics using a bizarro veneer. I’d call it readable. The next one, slotted for March looks to be more of the same.
Discovered Mark Valentine and added him to the pile next to Reggie Oliver, Mark Samuels, Quentin S. Crisp, Justin Isis, Damian Murphy, Brendan Connell. Still a lot of ground to cover with these authors. Thomas Ligotti, unfortunately, did not join their ranks. I failed to connect with his work.
Henry James was still Henry James. Reading another one of his books or another ten won’t change my opinion of him, which I have ranted about elsewhere on Goodreads.
The new Osamu Dazai was well-received by me. Looking forward to the next translation. The new Can Xue is still unfinished by me. I predicted incorrectly that she would win the Nobel Prize. Instead they gave it to the other obvious contender, though his work still bothers me. Or grieves me actually.
K-Ming Chang is one of the few contemporary people I will read for the foreseeable future. Elif Batuman, on the other hand, is doing things I dislike with her so-called ‘novels.’
I went through a Francis Bacon phase. Still worthwhile.
Sky Daddy really scratched the itch Ballard’s Crash had vacated. I’m glad someone finally investigated the topic worthily.
Black Holes, Dark Matter, Multiverses, and AI infiltrated my reading. The topic does not seem exhausted though it is difficult to find books that state facts and list discoveries in a compelling manner which is at the same time fresh or different from the countless other coverages of the agendas.
The book Y2K was excellent. I couldn’t get enough of it. Maybe I’m a sucker for nostalgia. It allowed me to contextualize what I had foolishly considered my childhood. A cool delivery of relevant journalistic aplomb. Highly impressed.
Montaigne, followed by Plutarch, fulfilled my aching need for classics. Good stuff.
Some Cormac McCarthy and Kafka to round things out.
The Man without Qualities was the beefiest audiobook I tackled. One of my acquaintances told me that audiobooks don’t count as reading. My reply: Would you tell that to a blind person?
Truly, there is not enough time to read everything I want to read by hand. Sure, I would’ve benefited from a slow, thorough, note-heavy reading of this colossus, but listening to the resonating prose, getting hit hard with the quips, tunneling into Germanic things, did me a lot of good. I prefer this to The Tunnel. Vasily Grossman is more direct with his approach to historical dabbling, but Musil is gorgeous. Least now I can reread, knowing fully what I adore.
Helen DeWitt’s Last Samurai was absorbing. But is this the only good thing she’s done? Lightning Rods was fascinating at first, but finished up mid. Jaunts into her other productions have all ended miserably.
I read too much Dave Eggers. The Monk of Mokha got me, though. During a year when I switched to decaf, I had a burning need to learn about the origins of coffee production in Yemen.
The Circle had its moments. So on-the-nose though. Blunt force trauma seems to be the preferred method of delivering a message in contemporary fiction. Take Tender is the Flesh as another example.
Bird by Bird was probably my favorite book on writing read this year. I got burnt out on Self-Help, but a refreshing texture took over my experience of Lamott’s quirky style.
Life of Johnson also proved that I could easily swallow a 1500-page audiobook repeatedly. I could’ve taken more of it to be honest. I love Johnson, (not so much Boswell), and getting to know him over the course of a couple weeks was enchanting.
A Woman Destroyed was a slick novel by a sly author. Put it up there with Camus.
Milk Fed and Death Valley were enough of Melissa Broder. But typically, I went on to read the rest of her stuff. I am sorry, but using fiction as a means of self-actualization becomes cliche rather quickly. How to straddle the line between making the main character a clone of the author and smearing the reality that we all just want to tell our own stories, because perhaps we feel small in an overcrowded world? But if we sustain ourselves on validation we will starve.
Bret Easton Ellis brings the beef in magisterial fashion with his nonfiction addition called White. I dug my canines into this one and went on to excavate additional books by him from the abyssal depths of my home library.
Bill Bryson’s The World as Stage renewed my sympathy for the bard. I need more classics in my diet.
Uncle Vanya, Oscar Wilde’s plays and The Seven Who Were Hanged fulfilled a taste for the dramatic. Ultimately though, Andreyev is inept at many aspects of storytelling. One cannot produce upon heights of emotion alone.
Shadow Ticket was the requisite read of the year. The Al Capone of Cheese, anyone? Pynchon leaves us all wanting more, with the faint hope of an unplumbed oeuvre somewhere in his clandestine, holed-up locale.
A quick dip into Japanese literature didn’t reveal any new jewels. Uketsu is one to watch, just for the heck of it.
A new translation of Akutagawa works by Ryan Choi is coming out in 2026. It’s an automatic buy.
The only living Japanese authors I can seem to get through are Sayaka Murata and Hiromi Kawakami. The others I read this year: Natsuo Kirino, Banana Yoshimoto, Kanae Minato, Rie Qudan, Tsushima, Rin Usami, and several more left me cold. Please translate more older Japanese and Chinese authors. I would love to get more Yoshiyuki, Ryu Murakami, Shuichi Yoshida. Yuten Sawanishi. Although I had fun with Asako Yuzuki. I couldn’t stand Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami. There is an epidemic of overwriting in contemporary Japanese pop fiction from what I can tell. But I’m an outsider. I was weaned on Kobo Abe and Mishima. I still read Pu Songling and Feng Menglong. Why are we concentrating on the last 1% of Asian literature’s 5000-year history?
Vesaas’ Ice Palace left something to be desired. Working on The Birds. It’s vaguely readable. But there is not enough here in terms of subtext to justify a review in my eyes.
I’ve had too much fun with Stephen Donaldson. I’ve barely scratched the surface of my epic fantasy shelves. So much left to devour. Honestly, it’s inexcusable that I’ve waited so long to go hard on my penchant for escapism.
To save you the trouble of browsing my chaotic shelves, I will list the greatest books I read this year, not counting rereads. Controversial picks, but I go by gut-punch reading pleasure, not perceived depths.
Butcher by Joyce Carol Oates
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Flowers for Algernon
The Complete Essays of Michel de Montaigne
A Man Without Qualities
Life of Johnson by Boswell
The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
The Odyssey, by Homer
The Iliad by Homer
Paradise Lost by John Milton
I Who Have Never Known Men
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
L. S. Popovich 
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