Books Read: 2002
January 5th, 2005I use “collection” to refer to both anthologies and single-author short story collections.
January-March
The Pastel City, by M. John Harrison
Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake
Time-Gifts, by Zoran Zivkovic
Balkan Ghosts (non-fiction), by Robert D. Kaplan
The Universal Baseball Association, by Robert Coover
Impossible Encounters, by Zoran Zivkovic
Sinai Tapestry, by Edward Whittemore
Mind the Doors, by Zinovy Zinik
Troika, by Stepan Chapman
Northern Gothic, by Nick Mamatas
The Blue Guide to Indiana, by Michael Martone
Stranger Things Happen (collection), by Kelly Link
April
Past Time (non-fiction), by Jules Tygiel
Sick Puppy, by Carl Hiaasen
The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman, by Angela Carter
Circus Nights, by Angela Carter
May
Jerusalem Poker, by Edward Whittemore
Joy in Mudville, by Gordon McAlpine
The Bloody Chamber (collection), by Angela Carter
Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella
The Future of the Past (non-fiction), by Alexander Stille
June
The Hour of the Star, by Clarice Lispector
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, by James Weldon Johnson
Lanark, by Alasdair Gray
Only Yesterday (non-fiction), by Frederick Lewis Allen
Since Yesterday (non-fiction), by Frederick Lewis Allen
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
July
Theodore Roosevelt (non-fiction), by Louis Auchincloss
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
Tortilla Flat, by John Steinbeck
The Circus of Dr. Lao, by Charles G. Finney
The Unholy City, by Charles G. Finney
America, My Wilderness, by Frederic Prokosch
August
The Dream and the Deal (non-fiction), by Jerre Mangione
The 42nd Parallel, by John Dos Passos
All That’s Solid Melts Into Air (non-fiction), by Marshall Berman
Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer
September
Big Money, by John dos Passos
Married to the Mouse (non-fiction), by Richard Foglesong
The Physiognomy, by Jeffrey Ford
The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, by Jeffrey Ford
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
The Grand Complication, by Allen Kurzweil
Foundation, by Isaac Asimov
October
Observatory Mansions, by Edward Carey
Elvis in Jerusalem (non-fiction), by Tom Segev
Blue Latitudes (non-fiction), by Tony Horwitz
Somebody’s Gotta Tell It (non-fiction), by Jack Newfield
November
The Other Nineteenth Century, by Avram Davidson
The Gatekeepers (non-fiction), by Jacques Steinberg
Portrait of a Burger as a Young Calf (non-fiction), by Peter Lovenheim
Stations of the Tide, by Michael Swanwick
The Magician Out of Manchuria, by Charles G. Finney
Poor Things, by Alasdair Gray
The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant (collection), by Jeffrey Ford
December
Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett
The Land of Laughs, by Jonathan Carroll
The Mount, by Carol Emshwiller
Conjunctions 39 (collection), edited by Peter Straub
Notions: Umlimited (collection), by Robert Sheckley
(Total: 60)
January 5th, 2005 at 3:22 pm
I’m a big reader as well - I commute by train to my office, so I have two solid hours a day (more if my wife is reading when I get home) to partake. I went through more than a few on your list… don’t you wish the library would let you get a print-out of everything you’ve checked out? They won’t, and I’m annoyed.
January 5th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
That’s why I started keeping track. Can’t trust anyone but myself to care. :)
January 5th, 2005 at 4:22 pm
More comparison for comparison’s sake…
Gatsby, of course. It’s one of my favorite of the classics, actually.
Everything Is Illuminated. Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque and Ford’s collection (we’ve talked about this too). Fahrenheit 451, another favorite. And Conjunctions. Wow, small overlap again though you read a lot that year that’s on my big list. How was Observatory Mansions? And I feel ashamed that I haven’t read Swanwick’s Stations of the Tide yet.
January 5th, 2005 at 4:39 pm
What’s funny is that I only reread Gatsby because I moved to Queens and wanted to check out the ash dump references again. :)
Observatory Mansions is excellent and I highly recommend it. A strange little book with memorable characters. Stations of the Tide is OK. I think I like Swanwick’s short fiction better than his novels.
I expect we’ll have a lot more overlap in my 2003 and 2004 lists.