2019 Year in Books
Notes on a year of reading
“We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.” --Roberto Bolaño
My annual Year in Books is not a best of list. It’s simply a list of books I read this year broken into categories you may or may not find useful. Taste is subjective and all the usual caveats apply.
If I reviewed the book, interviewed its author, or wrote a profile, I have provided a link. Unfortunately, the links to my reviews in The Floating Library in San Diego CityBeat don’t appear to be working. I hope they aren’t gone forever because, well, let’s not think about that right now.
I did not write a Year in Books for 2018. It was not a good year for reading. In 2018, I worked on the Bad Religion book, conducting (and transcribing) interviews in the first half of the year and composing the book in the second half. I fell well short of my reading goals, did a poor job of keeping track of the books I did read, and simply ran out of time at the end of the year. Maybe someday I’ll go back to it, but I doubt it.
This list is intended to shine a light on the books that moved me the most, but it has a way of highlighting my shortcomings as a reader. Every year I’m appalled that I didn’t read more history, poetry, etc. The categories change every year. Some years I read a lot of literature in translation. Some years I don’t. For example, I’m passionate about Native American literature. How many Native writers did I read in 2019? Aside from rereading some of Tommy Orange’s There There for a profile of the author, none. Another example: I love horror, but this year I read very little of it. Why? I don’t know. I’m a purpose-driven reader. When I read something it’s often for a reason. Sometimes that steers me away from books I want to read, books by friends, the latest installment in a series, etc. It’s maddening.
I read 50 books in 2019, but not enough were by women. Men penned many of the books I was assigned to cover for review or were recommended to me for research. Yet women wrote most of my favorite books this year
Books That Made Me Question the Worthiness of the Human Project
Juliet the Maniac by Juliet Escoria
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
Mina by Kim Sagwa and translated by Bruce Fulton
Julie the Maniac is a book I tore through in a few sittings, appalled by the way the protagonist is treated by her peers, parents, and supervisors at various rehab facilities. But it’s a book I’ve thought about a lot and have really come to respect and admire. We live in an age where every uncomfortable situation is elevated to a scandal and then the participants make hay out of the noise. I’m fascinated by Escoria’s impulse to turn harrowing autobiographical experiences into fiction because it runs against the grain of what our culture values in writing and discourse. As someone who is constantly mining my experiences and looking for ways to make those events relatable, the inclination to do the opposite (i.e. fictionalize a “true” experience) feels almost perverse. (I hope it’s clear this is a critique of my own artistic impulses, not Escoria’s.) So I tried it. This summer I wrote a mostly true short story as fiction, and had a blast doing it. Not only is Escoria on to something special in Juliet the Maniac, but it serves as a statement about the way our culture makes and consumes art.
Books That Reaffirmed It
This Is the End of Something But It’s Not the End of You by Adam Gnade
What a Body Remembers by Karen Stefano
Keeping Lucy by T. Greenwood
It’s probably a coincidence that all of these authors have San Diego connections, but I was moved by each of these books. Gnade has a knack for alchemizing dark experiences into something optimistic and energizing. T. Greenwood’s novels also take the reader to some disturbing places but her prose never fails to captivate. You’d be hard pressed to find a better written memoir of trauma than Stefano’s What a Body Remembers.
Books about Music & Musicians
Who Killed Mr. Moonlight? Bauhaus, Black Magick and Benediction by David J. Haskins
The KLF: Chaos Magic Music Money by John Higgs
Black Card by Chris Terry
More Fun in the New World: The Making and Unmaking of L.A. Punk by John Doe
Smash! Green Day, the Offspring, Rancid, NOFX, and the '90s Punk Explosion by Ian Winwood
I read The KLF for a very specific reason. I wanted to learn more about Bill Drummond, the man who runs the residency in Cushendall where I spent three unforgettable weeks in August. Drummond was half of The KLF, the act that brought us “3 A.M. Eternal” and “What Time is Love?” Drummond also infamously burned one million pounds. So a book about Drummond also strives to answer the question why someone would do such a thing. John Higgs is more than up to the task and I was absolutely enthralled by the weird conspiracy-like web he constructs, connecting KLF to Alan Moore, Discordianism, and The Illuminatus! Strangely enough, Alan Moore also features in David J. Haskins memoir. It turns out Moore and the lads from Bauhaus all grew up in Northampton in the East Midlands. One of the more spirited parts of the book involves Haskins’s experiments with Moore involving occult rituals and hallucinogens. I really like the way the English write about magic and music. I do not, however, care for the way English music journalists write about SoCal punk.
Books That Zapped Me into the Past
Ask the Dust by John Fante
The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina by Frank Rich
I don’t know who needs to hear this but Ask the Dust is problematic AF.
Books That Anticipate the Future
Alien III by William Gibson
Red Clocks by Leni Zumas
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
I didn’t read much in the way of speculative fiction this year but I did manage to read one of the best books written in recent memory, Red Clocks, and one of the worst, Machines Like Me.
Books I Read for Research
Weird Belfast by Reggie Chamberlain-King
Antrim Folk Tales by Billy Teare and Kathleen O’Sullivan
Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump by Michael Isikoff and David Corn
How to Catch a Russian Spy: The True Story of an American Civilian Turned Double Agent by Naveed Jamali and Ellis Henican
I did a lot of research about Russia and Russian spycraft for a work-for-hire project that never came to fruition. (It happens.) Along the way I met some really interesting people, and I read some truly horrifying things about what happens to those who cross Putin’s path. While reading about some of Russia’s extra-judicial killings outside of Russia, and there are many, I wondered, What if that happened here in the United States?That question launched a new writing endeavor that I will hopefully be able to share with you next year.
Books That Don’t Rhyme
Our Death by Sean Bonney
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
Fire Season by Patrick Coleman
Peluda by Melissa Lozada-Oliva
I’ll have a lot to say about Sean Bonney, who unexpectedly passed away last month, in next week’s newsletter. Could you do me a favor and read this absolute monster of a poem before then?
Books That Make Me Wanna Commit Some Crimes
Infinite Blacktop by Sara Gran
Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha
Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway by Sara Gran
The Churchgoer by Patrick Coleman
Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran
The Chain by Adrian McKinty
The Big Kahuna by Janet Evanovich and Peter Evanovich
Black Gum by J. David Osborne
A Minor Storm by J. David Osborne
As I mentioned last week, I’m saving the third installment of Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt series for the last book I read in 2019. So I haven’t read it yet, but I will by year’s end, and I’ll probably dedicate a column to the series in early 2020. This year I read more crime novels than any other other category, including several high profile novels like The Border by Don Winslow, Adrian McKinty’s The Chain, and Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay. I interviewed Patrick Coleman for the Los Angeles Review of Books and that will be coming soon. I’m eagerly awaiting J. David Osborne’s next installment of his weird Oklahoma noir series. I did not enjoy the latest installment of the Fox & O’Hare series. Lee Goldberg co-wrote the first five or six novels and they’re a great deal of fun, but The Big Kahuna was not only terrible, but a disservice to the series’ readers.
Books That Go Bump in the Night
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
I’ve been wanting to read Lauren Beukes for years and while I loved the premise of The Shining Girls (time traveling serial killer) the novel didn’t quite come together for me. But I will definitely be back for more of her work. The Hellbound Heart, the novella that launched the Hellraiser franchise, still slaps.
Books Bursting with Sex
Normal People by Sally Rooney
I don’t know what I expected from Normal People, but from what I’d heard about the premise I assumed the book was for college-age readers. This was a miscalculation on my part because Sally Rooney is an extraordinarily gifted writer. Normal People explores the secret love affair between Connell and Marianne told from the point of view of both parties. It’s psychologically astute, uncomfortably erotic, and absolutely devastating. I will read anything Rooney writes going forward.
Books with Pictures in Them
Blight at the End of the Funnel by Edward Colver
Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins
Bram Stoker’s Death Ship by Gary Gerani, Alex Sanchez, and Stuart Sayger
If you like punk rock music, especially music that came out of the L.A. scene, and you don’t know the name Edward Colver, you need to do something about that.
Books That Are Difficult to Classify
The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg
The Book of X by Sarah Rose Etter
The Spirit of Science Fiction by Roberto Bolaño
Hark by Sam Lipsyte
I may be alone in this, but I think Hark is Sam Lipsyte’s best novel. The Spirit of Science Fiction, an early attempt at what would eventually become The Savage Detectives, is probably one of Bolaño’s worst.
Books with Short Stories in Them
Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño
Natural Histories: Stories by Guadalupe Nettel
Little Tales of Misogyny by Patricia Highsmith
When it comes to the art of the short story, Roberto Bolaño has deranged my sensibilities. I read Last Evenings on Earth throughout year. It is the one book I took with me on every trip I made in 2019. I have read these stories in Mexico City, Merida, Guadalajara, and Tijuana. I have taken them to Europe—twice. There are a great many more cities where I did not read Bolaño. In those cities, Last Evenings on Earth sat in my bag like nostalgia, like a bomb. I read the last four stories in the collection this month—one in Tacoma, one in Seattle, and two in San Diego—mostly out of a sense of desperation. Now that I have come to the end of this journey with Bolaño, I have learned some things about the way he puts a story together, but mostly what has transpired is unlearning. With each story I read or reread or re-reread, I left something of my old self behind. Things I used to value in storytelling. Things I believed that others value. Gone. I can’t imagine telling someone that Last Evenings on Earth is a “good” collection of stories. I’m not sure if any of these stories are “good.” What I find extraordinary about these stories is the way they make me feel. Feelings of dread. Feelings of desire. Feelings of violence foretold. These are ugly stories. Stories bereft of glamour. To read Bolaño is to go to a low place and find exactly what you are looking for but at a price far steeper than you thought you were willing to pay.
Books Recommended without Reservation
Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry
My literary highlight of 2019 was my residency at the Curfew Tower in Northern Ireland, and the highlight of that experience was traveling to County Sligo with my friend Tom Ferran to interview Irish novelist Kevin Barry. If we lived in a world that truly cared about literature, a literature in which the ability to write compelling stories, unforgettable characters, and gorgeous fucking sentences mattered, Kevin Barry would be a household name. He’s already one of the most admired writers in Ireland, by readers and writers alike, and the rights to Night Boat to Tangier has been acquired by Michael Fassbender, with Barry adapting the screenplay, so perhaps in a year or two everyone will know Kevin Barry’s name.
Book That Had the Biggest Impact
I’ve been trumpeting The Last by English author Hanna Jameson ever since I read the book during my residency in Northern Ireland. I wrote about it in my Dispatches from the Curfew Tower, which some of you read. I wrote about it in my interview with the author in the Los Angeles Times Review of Books. If you missed all that, here’s my pitch. The Last is one of the most thrilling books published on either side of the Atlantic in 2019. The U.K. missed the boat. The U.S. slept on it, too. When it was released in paperback in the U.K., Waterstones made it their Thriller of the Month, and it spent the entire month of August on the bestseller list in the U.K. But in the U.S.? Nada.
Here’s the story of The Last: after a devastating nuclear incident, approximately 20 survivors hole up in a remote hotel in Switzerland. There’s no Internet. Those who left the hotel never came back. The wilderness begins right outside the front door. After the survivors resign themselves to this horrifying new reality, they discover the body of a young girl who’d been recently killed, making one of their number a murderer. That’s the premise. Either this suspenseful, spooky, dystopian murder mystery with an international cast grabs you or it doesn’t. But I’m going to keep touting this novel until someone tells me, “Jim, I read The Last and it was everything you said it would be.” Or, “Jim, your literary opinions are like onions: they have many layers but if you cut them up and leave them on the counter they stink up the whole house.” Until then, I’m going to keep asking you to read this book.
It’s X-mas so no Lit Pics this week. My recommendations will be back next week after a short sojourn home for the holidays. Thank you for reading Message from the Underworld.
