Of course, this is an arbitrary number.
Does it mean I read more than in previous years? What about the
average length of books? Consider Saramago and the works of poetry I
read. Do I need to count pages? Number of words? But this isn't about nit-picking. It's about setting a goal and reaching it.
I like this reading goal in
that it forces me to read wildly and without precision. I can read a
wider range of works when I force myself to read 52 books. Having
this goal in mind means I read more short poetry works and more works
of flash fiction and short story collections. I read more non-fiction
this year than I've ever read before. I found that sometimes books
had to resonate with how I was feeling at the time. Like Lewis's
It Can't Happen Here after Trump won the election or finally reading
in the Spring Tender Is the Night, which I had purchased at a book
fair over five years ago. Some books I couldn't wait to start as soon
as I bought them like Known and Strange Things or Speedboat (although
I couldn't get into it at first, it really grew on me).
The White Album, complete with front
cover falling off, I found at the Logan Square Arts Fest, the same
warm day I listened to Ryley Walker and Bill MacKay and found a
reissue of the Beastie Boys first EP on on vinyl. Open Books, where I
volunteer, provided many serendipitous findings as well, including
Road-Side Dog and Written on the Body. Some books I special ordered,
like the poetry collection by Danez Smith after I read a poem of his
on Buzzfeed of all places.
I read thirteen books in translation, books originally written in Arabic and Portuguese, Czech and Japanese. I read American English, English English, and Chicago English (Dybek, Fitzpatrick). I got immersed in the world of Borges. I revisited old standbys like Camus and Kundera and continued my foray into Calvino. I tried as hard as I could to keep the ratio of male and female authors even but I still read almost twice as many books by men. I read books by 33 authors I'd never read before, and eight books that were released in 2016. The oldest book I read was from 1925, Ernest Hemingway's first collection of short stories.
I was devastated and rebuilt by the
works put out by Haymarket, certainly the publisher I read the most,
the works by veterans Angela Davis and William Ayers certainly the
most poignant and prescient. I read politically conscious prose and
satirical yarns, linguistic guidebooks and beat poetry. I probably
discovered new words and I know I read the word 'Fuck' a lot. I read
books that are entirely forgettable, and ones I never expected to be
so good. I found a copy of Studs Terkel's Chicago that was signed and
didn't buy it and that's my biggest regret in reading this year.
I did shots of malort and whiskey with
Jason Diamond at the Whistler at his book release. I discussed Solnit
and Bechdal at the Empty Bottle Book Club. I stumbled into Uncharted
with Gene, day-drunk and bought books I still haven't read. I've been
loaned and gifted books I still haven't read. I started many books I
didn't finish (not included in this list). I helped organize
Asymptote Journal's Fifth Year Anniversary event at the Chopin
Theatre, then I got drunk with my friend Matt and we talked about all
the billions of projects we want to do and don't have time for. I
read way too many tweets. I met Rebecca Solnit in New York City. I
convinced two people to buy Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being
(once at the Chicago Book Expo, once at City Lit). I went to DIY
performative comics readings in Humboldt Park and Bridgeport. I went
to Volumes and the Hideout and Quenchers and the Book Cellar and
Township to see people tell stories.
I submitted my own fiction to over
fifty places. That's not enough. I'm glad I was accepted in three.
First in the Chicago Literati, and two forthcoming which I don't want
to announce just yet. My writing goal for next year is to get 100
rejections, as per this blog post. Which means I need to write more.
Which doesn't necessarily mean reading less. I'm going to shoot for
52 books again. But I make no predictions on what I will read. Basedoff my predictions last year, I failed incredibly: I still have
Adichie, Danticat, Sontag, Algren, and many more patiently sitting on
my shelf. To that, I've added plenty more, and I haven't even looked
at what's going to be released in 2017.
Here's to more writing. Here's to more reading. Here's to 52 in 2017.
01. Milan Kundera - The Joke (1967,
trans. 1982) (novella)
02. Albert Camus - The Plague (1948,
trans. 1941 Reread) (novel)
03. Ernest Hemingway - In Our Time
(1925) (short stories)
04. Alan Lightman - Einstein's Dream
(1992 Reread) (short stories)
05. Patti Smith - M Train (2015)
(memoir)
06. Alison Bechdel - Are You my Mother?
(2012) (memoir)
07. Cheryl Strayed - Wild (2012)
(memoir)
08. Alaa Al Aswany - Chicago (2007,
trans. 2007) (novel)
09. Natalie Moore - The South Side
(2016) (nonfiction)
10. Jose Eduardo Agualusa - The Book of
Cameleons (2008) (novella)
11. Rebecca Solnit - Men Explain Things
To Me (2014) (nonfiction)
12. F Scott Fitzgerald - Tender is the
Night (1934) (novel)
13. Jorge Luis Borges - Collected
Fiction (1999) (short stories)
14. Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities
(1972) (novella)
15. Halle Butler - Jillian (2015)
(novel)
16. Tim Kinsella - Let Go and Go On and
On (2014) (novel)
17. Douglas Adams - The Restaurant at
the End of the Universe (1980) (novel)
18. Albert Camus - The Possessed (1959)
(play)
19. Nikolai Gogol - The Overcoat and
Other Tales of Good and Evil (1965) (short stories)
20. Enrique Vila-Matas - Because She
Never Asked (2015) (novella)
21. Jeannette Winterson - Written on
the Body (1992) (novel)
22. Jean Rhys - Voyage Into The Dark
(1934) (novel)
23. Ruth Ozeki - My Year of Meats
(1998) (novel)
24. Tony Fitzpatrick - The Secret Birds
(2016) (essays/art)
25. Margaret Malone - People Like You
(2015) (short stories)
26. George Saunders - Tenth of December
(2013) (short stories)
27. n+1 - City by City (2015)
(nonfiction)
28. Italo Calvino - The Baron in the
Trees (1957, trans.1959) (novel)
29. Dave Zirin - Brazil's Dance with
the Devil (nonfiction)
30. Heather Bell - A Horse Made of Fire
(2015) (poetry)
31. Danez Smith - [insert] boy (2014)
(poetry)
32. Amber Tamblyn - Free Stallion
(2005) (poetry)
33. Larwrence Ferlinghetti - Pictures
of the gone world (1955) (poetry)
34. Joan Didion - The White Album
(1979) (nonfiction)
35. Keegan Jennings Goodman - The
Tennessee Highway Death Chant (2016) (novel)
36. Michael Hemmingson - Pictures of
Houses with Water Damage (2010) (short stories)
37. Czeslaw Milosz - Road-side Dog
(1997, trans. 1999) (essays/poetry)
38. Angela Y Davis - Freedom is a
Constant Struggle (2016) (interviews/essay/speeches)
39. Teju Cole - Known and Strange
Things (2016)(essays)
40. Julian Barnes - A Hisory of the
World in 10 1/2 Chapters (fiction)
41. Yiyun Li - Gold Boy, Emerald Girl
(short stories)
42. William Ayers - Demand the
Impossible! (2016) (manifesto/non fiction)
43. Renata Adler - Speedboat (fiction)
(1976)
44. Edward McClelland - How to Speak
Midwestern (2016)(non fiction)
45. Yoko Ogawa - Revenge (short
stories) (1998, trans. 2013)
46. Sinclair Lewis - It Can't Happen
Here (fiction)(1935)
47. Jason Diamond - Searching for John
Hughes (memoir) (2016)
48. Erika T Wurth - Crazy Horse's
Girlfriend (fiction) (2014)
49. Stuart Dybek - The Coast of Chicago
(short stories) (1986)
50. Alain de Botton - The Consolations
of Philosophy (philosophy) (2001)
51. Edward Albee - Who's Afraid of
Virgina Woolf? (play) (1962)(reread)
52. Jose Saramago - The Tale of the
Unknown Island (1998, trans. 1999)
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