The Ten Best Books I Read in 2023

Most years, I have posted on this blog a list of "the best books" or "my favorite books" that I have read during those years. Today I list the ten best books, in my opinion, that I read during the calendar year 2023. Most, but not all, of the books were also published in that year. I list the books in the order that I posted on them here, with the date of each post in parentheses. 1. "Signal Fires," by Dani Shapiro (2022) (novel) (see my post of 2/2/23). 2. "Hello Beautiful," by Ann Napolitano (2023) (novel) (5/13/23). 3. "You Could Make This Place Beautiful," by Maggie Smith (not THAT Maggie Smith) (2022) (memoir) (6/12/23). 4. "Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages," by Carmela Ciuraru (2023) (biography) (7/4/23). 5. "Tom Lake," by Ann Patchett (2023) (novel) (8/13/23). 6. "A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Novelists Begin Again," by Joanna Biggs (2023) (biography) (8/30/23). 7. "Somebody's Fool," by Richard Russo (2023) (novel) (9/24/23). 8. "All Things Consoled," by Elizabeth Hay (2018) (memoir) (10/14/23). 9. "A Living Remedy," by Nicole Chung (2023) (memoir) (11/7/23). 10. "Day," by Michael Cunningham" (2023) (novel) (12/12/23). Although novels will always remain my first love in reading, I notice that this year my list tilts more heavily to memoir and biography than usual. I also note that as usual I have read more books by women authors than by men. (I do not claim that books by women are "better," only that they very often appeal to me more, and often I can relate to them more.)

The Best Books I Read in 2022

Here I list the dozen best books I read in 2022, with the dates of my blogposts on those books. As always, most of them are novels, along with one short-story collection, one memoir, and two essayistic volumes. Eleven of the twelve are by women authors; one is by a man. What can I say? Regular readers of this blog know I mostly -- but definitely not only! -- read books by women. Most but not all of these twelve books were published in 2022. For convenience of reference to my blog for details, I list the books in chronological order of when I posted on them. 1. “Oh William!” by Elizabeth Strout (1/26/22). 2. “What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction,” by Alice McDermott (1/31/22). 3. “These Precious Days” [Essays], by Ann Patchett (3/31/22). 4. “The Swimmers,” by Julie Otsuka (4/9/22). 5. “Seeking Fortune Elsewhere: Stories,” by Sindya Bhanoo (5/15/22). 6. “Brown Girls,” by Daphne Palasi Andreades ((5/28/22). 7. “Love Marriage,” by Monica Ali (7/2/22). 8. “The Latecomer,” by Jean Hanff Korelitz (7/20/22). 9. “Lessons in Chemistry,” by Bonnie Garmus (7/24/22). 10. “Frances and Bernard,” by Carlene Bauer (10/12/22. 11. “Fellowship Point,” by Alice Elliott Dark (11/16/22). 12. “Stay True” [Memoir], by Hua Hsu (12/1/22).

What I Read on my Canada Trip

On a very recent trip in Canada, partly for an academic conference and partly extended after the conference as a vacation, I carried out my usual practice before trips of accumulating several paperback books to take with me. Yes, yes, I could put them on an e-reader, but I prefer the books themselves. As I have alluded to before here, it is a fine art for me to choose just the right books for this kind of travel. I don’t want anything too “heavy” or demanding (not suitable -- at least in my experience -- for reading on airplanes and sitting by an ocean, lake, harbor, or bay), but there has to be, still, at least decently good writing. I won’t discuss each in detail here, but I list them below with minimal annotation, just to give you an idea of my typical “trip reading.” 1. “The Awkward Age,” a novel by Francesca Segal, describes a romance between a widow and her new love, in London, made difficult by each of their children’s actively undermining the new relationship. Complications ensue. Well written and entertaining. 2. “The People We Hate at the Wedding,” by Grant Ginder, is the type of novel often described as a “romp,” full of funny scenes, complications, snide portrayals of the characters, and more. The writing is only OK, but the novel is fun to read. 3. The novel “A Sister in My House,” by the Swedish-born New Zealand resident Linda Olsson, is the most “serious” of the books I read on this trip, a poignant, sad, yet life-affirming story of two middle-aged sisters who spend a few days together after a long semi-estrangement, and finally face some of the difficult facts of their childhood. Beautifully written. (The author translated her own book from Swedish to English.) 4. “Young Jane Young,” by Gabrielle Zevin, describes a Monica Lewinsky-type situation, perhaps especially pertinent during this MeToo era; the novel is very sympathetic to the main female character, and offers a low-key feminist portrayal of the situation. 5. Having “only” brought five novels, and finding one of these not very interesting and therefore abandoning it, I visited a bookstore for reinforcements, and bought two more paperback novels. The first was a British “cozy” mystery, a genre that I occasionally return to over the years; this one is by an author I didn’t know before, Rebecca Tope. The book is part of a series set in the Cotswolds, so an enticement already. (Just the name “The Cotswolds” makes me feel warm and fuzzy…). Titled “Peril in the Cotswolds,” it was comfortable, familiar, and enjoyable to read, and although I wouldn’t put it high on any list of favorite mysteries, it hit the spot on this occasion. 6. Finally, the other book I picked up at the Canadian bookstore near my hotel was “Barrelling Forward,” a collection of short stories by the young Canadian author Eva Crocker. The stories are edgy, raw, and original, and I was glad to discover a “new” (to me) author whom I would probably never have known about if it were not for browsing in this Canadian bookstore. It reminded me of the great pleasure of exploring bookstores while traveling in other countries than my own! So – that’s my list of reading material (supplemented along the way by newspapers and magazines as well) during my very recent, very enjoyable trip.

My Favorite Books of 2017

There were some wonderful books published in 2017. Here is my list of the best ones I have read, in my opinion, in the order in which I read them. After each one, I put the date of my blogpost on that book, in case you want to read more about it. 1. “Difficult Women: Stories,” by Roxane Gay (1/24/17). 2. “The Mothers,” by Brit Bennett (1/30/17) (I cheated a little in including this book, which was published in 2016 but which I read in 2017). 3. “Another Brooklyn,” by Jacqueline Woodson (2/5/17) (Like #2, this one was published in 2016 but I read it in 2017). 4. “Anything is Possible: Stories,” by Elizabeth Strout (5/28/17). 5. “Trajectory: Stories,” by Richard Russo (6/3/17). 6. “Bad Dreams: Stories,” by Tessa Hadley (6/5/17). 7. “The Leavers,” by Lisa Ko (12/3/17). 8. “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” by Jesmyn Ward (12/15/17). 9. “The Ninth Hour,” by Alice McDermott (12/19/17). A few notes: 1. Readers of this blog know that I mainly read fiction, and will not be surprised that all of the books I list here are either novels (five books) or short story collections (four books). 2. Eight of these nine books are by authors whose other books I have read and enjoyed and written about on this blog (all but Ko). 3. Eight of the nine books are written by women (all but Russo). (Sorry, male authors, but remember how I studied and read your books almost exclusively for the first 20+ years of my reading life?) (But note that I have always, and will always, read everything and anything written by -- in addition to Russo -- male authors Julian Barnes, Kent Haruf, Alan Hollinghurst, William Maxwell, Stewart O’Nan, V. S. Pritchett, Tom Rachman, Colm Toibin, and William Trevor, among others.) 4. Most of the main characters in these books are also women. 5. The authors, and the main characters, are racially diverse, with (to the best of my knowledge) four African American authors (Gay, Bennett, Woodson, Ward), one Asian American author (Ko), three white American authors (Strout, Russo, McDermott), and one white British author (Hadley). 6. Most of the books focus on family, friends, and relationships -- my favorite topics. 7. Several of the books grapple with issues of gender, race, and social class.

My Favorite Books of 2016

It is time for another list of books I have most admired and enjoyed recently. My last such list was on 12/29/15, when I wrote about “The Best Books I Have Read This Year” (2015). I neglected to make such a list for 2016, so although we are now almost halfway through 2017, I am going back to make a 2016 list. Following are the nine books (all novels or short story collections, mostly published in 2016), in the order that I read them. After each one, I put the date of my blogpost on that book. 1. “A Manual for Cleaning Women: Stories,” by Lucia Berlin (2/20/16). 2. “The Past,” by Tessa Hadley (2/27/16). 3. “My Name is Lucy Barton,” by Elizabeth Strout (3/12/16). 4. “Station Eleven,” by Emily St. John Mandel (3/15/16). 5. “Everybody’s Fool,” by Richard Russo (5/4/16). 6. “The Excellent Lombards,” by Jane Hamilton (9/24/16). 7. “Commonwealth,” by Ann Patchett (11/6/16). 8. “Swing Time,” by Zadie Smith (12/1/16). 9. “The Jungle Around Us: Stories,” by Anne Raeff (12/8/16). If you missed some of these in 2016, I highly recommend taking a look at them. I will save my favorite books so far in 2017 for a new list at the end of this year. (Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed that three of these 2016 authors -- Hadley, Russo, Strout -- also had new books that I posted about in 2017, in fact within the past month.)

The 2016 Man Booker Shortlist

The six-book shortlist for the 2016 Man Booker Prize has just been published (9/13/16) (http://themanbookerprize.com/fiction), and I am embarrassed to say that not only have I not read any of these novels, but I have not even read reviews of, or had any other prior knowledge of, them, that I can remember. Deborah Levy? Graeme Macrae Burnet? David Szalay? Madeleine Thien? Paul Beatty? I do know the name of one author, Ottessa Moshfegh, but I don’t think I have actually read anything by her (perhaps a New Yorker story?). One excuse I have is that only two of the novels were (originally at least) published in the U.S.; two others are from the U.K., one from Canada, and one from “Canada-UK.” Books published in the U.K. and Canada are usually not published until later in the U.S., if at all. Also, to be fair to myself, I have usually recognized and sometimes read a couple of titles on the shortlist in past years. Still, this ignorance of these titles and authors this year makes me ponder how it is that I can read as much as I do (over 100 books a year, as well as many magazines and newspapers that include many book reviews), and what I read is mostly literary fiction, and still there can be a list of what are supposed to be the six best books written in English this year, and they are all completely unfamiliar to me. Perhaps I really have limited my reading (of contemporary fiction) too much to a certain type of (mainly) literary fiction by a certain type of author and novel: mostly American, mostly women, mostly “domestic” fiction, mostly character- and relationship-driven. There are many exceptions in my reading to every one of those descriptors, but still, it is overall an accurate summary of my reading preferences. I can’t decide whether I should simply accept this as normal -- everyone has reading preferences, naturally -- or limited and provincial. I do read many book reviews in many venues, and I do try to stretch my reading boundaries (including to many books from different countries and originally written in different languages). Probably I need to try harder. (Addendum: I just saw a brief review of Deborah Levy's book, "Hot Milk," in the New Yorker, 9/26/16. It sounds great, and I am putting it on my "to read" list.)

The Best Books I Have Read in 2015

It’s that time of year: time for a “best books" list! But I don’t claim to have covered the territory well enough to call my list “best books”; instead these are “the best books that I read this year,” otherwise known as my thirteen favorite, most enjoyed, most admired, and most valued books of 2015. I list them in order of when I read and posted about them. After each title, I note the date I posted about the book here on this blog, in case you want to read more about why I chose these particular books as the "best." Here is the list: “Last Hundred Year Trilogy” ("Some Luck," "Early Warning," and "Golden Age"), by Jane Smiley (11/4/14, 5/23/15, and 12/17/15); “Lila,” by Marilynne Robinson (2/23/15); “Family Life,” by Akhil Sharma (3/1/15); “Honeydew: Stories,” by Edith Pearlman (5/2/15); “The Children’s Crusade,” by Ann Packer (5/8/15); “A God in Ruins,” by Kate Atkinson (6/8/15); “Our Souls at Night,” by Kent Haruf (6/21/15); “The Green Road,” by Anne Enright (7/3/15); “A Spool of Blue Thread,” by Anne Tyler (7/13/15); “The Illuminations,” by Andrew O’Hagan (7/17/15); “After the Parade,” by Lori Ostlund (10/19/15); “Between the World and Me,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates (10/24/15); “Mothers, Tell Your Daughters: Stories,” by Bonnie Jo Campbell (12/19/15). Some quick observations on the list: 12 are fiction, 1 nonfiction (“Between the World and Me”); 10 of the 12 fiction books are novels, 2 are short story collections; 9 books are by female authors, 4 by males. On another note, please keep on shopping in independent bookstores!

Favorite Living Fiction Writers Recently Read

Today I list some of my favorite living writers of fiction. To keep the list from being too long, I include only authors whose books I have read at least one of during the past three years. These conditions of course do not allow me to list “classic” writers, or those whose works I have enjoyed in the past but haven’t read lately. So, given those conditions, here is my list of the authors, in alphabetical order. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Rabih Alameddine, Kate Atkinson, Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, Robin Black, Peter Cameron, Kate Christensen, Anne Enright, Joan Frank, Jane Gardam, Gail Godwin, Mary Gordon, Tessa Hadley, Joshua Henkin, Hester Kaplan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Penelope Lively, Alice McDermott, Ian McEwan, Claire Messud, Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, Antonya Nelson, Stewart O’Nan, Ann Packer, Ann Patchett, Edith Pearlman, Richard Russo, Lore Segal, Jane Smiley, Zadie Smith, Colm Toibin, Anne Tyler, Kate Walbert, Meg Wolitzer. The parameters of this list made me leave out some favorites, such as Kent Haruf, who died very recently, and Lori Ostlund, whose wonderful first book I read more than three years ago, but whose second book ("After the Parade") will appear next month and is much anticipated. Note that of the 36 writers, 28 are women; those who read this blog regularly will not be surprised at this. In any case, like any list, this list is in no way definitive of anything, but it provides a summary of some of my most-treasured current novelists and short story writers. Note that I have posted here on many of these authors’ books during the past three years.

Books I Gave Family Members for Christmas

As I have mentioned more than once here, I do most of my holiday gift shopping in bookstores. Here is a look at what I gave some of my family members for Christmas this year. To my mother, to whom I love to give books, as she now has more time to read, and I know her taste, I gave “Someone,” by Alice McDermott; “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage,” by Ann Patchett; “Longbourn,” by Jo Baker; and “The Lowland,” by Jhumpa Lahiri. (Regular readers of this blog will note that I have posted on all four of these books within the past two months.) To one brother I gave Khaled Hosseini’s “And the Mountains Echoed,” and a vegan cookbook (he is vegan). To another brother, whose wife is Chinese and who has visited China, I gave Amy Tan’s newest novel, “The Valley of Amazement,” and -- because, like me, he loves San Francisco so much -- photographer/journalist Gary Kamiya’s “Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco.” I loved this latter book so much that I also gave it to my daughter, who also dearly loves San Francisco and now lives in "The City" again. (I will very likely buy myself a copy as well). In addition, in a nod to her two years living in and thoroughly enjoying New York City, I gave my daughter “Humans of New York,” by photographer Brandon Stanton. I gave my daughter’s fiancé, who is a lawyer for a tech company, Dave Eggers’ novel “The Circle” (about a Facebook-type company) and Mark Binelli’s “The Afterlife of an American Metropolis,” about the city of Detroit (he spent part of his childhood and adolescence in a suburb of Detroit). This is a sampling of what I gave my family; I hope I chose well, and I hope my family members will enjoy these books. My mom tells me she has already started reading "Someone," and likes it very much.

The Fourteen Best Books I Read in 2013

As we near the end of 2013, I offer a list of fourteen books that I especially admired, loved, and enjoyed over the past year. They are all beautifully written. Eleven are novels and three are short story collections. Two were written by the same gifted author: Hester Kaplan. Two have the same title (“Life after Life”) but are very different novels by very different writers. Most but not all of them were published in 2013. They are listed in the order that I read and posted about them on this blog. After each title, I list the date that I posted on the book. Perhaps you will find ideas for last minute holiday gifts here! 1. “I Knew You’d Be Lovely: Stories,” by Alethea Black (1/18/13). 2. “The Edge of Marriage: Stories,” by Hester Kaplan (2/5/13). 3. “The Priory,” by Dorothy Whipple (2/22/13). 4. “Songs for the Missing,” by Stewart O’Nan (3/14/13). 5. “Life after Life,” by Jill McCorkle (4/20/13). 6. “Last Friends,” by Jane Gardam (6/22/13). 7. “The Tell,” by Hester Kaplan (6/29/13). 8. “The Gardens of Kyoto,” by Kate Walbert (7/13/13). 9. “Shakespeare’s Kitchen,” by Lore Segal (7/22/13). 10. “Life after Life,” by Kate Atkinson (8/6/13). 11. “The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox,” by Maggie O’Farrell (8/24/13). 12. “The Home Jar: Stories,” by Nancy Zafris (9/8/13). 13. “The Lowland,” by Jhumpa Lahiri (10/26/13). 14. “Someone,” by Alice McDermott (11/27/13).

Holiday Gift Suggestions: Some Favorite Books of 2012

This is the season of making “best books of the year” lists, which are both interesting and useful for those buying books for holiday gifts. Below I offer a list of some of my favorite books published in 2012. So this is not a general “best of…” list as much as a very individual, personal “some of the books I have most enjoyed” list. As I said last year at about this time, I urge readers to give books for gifts, and to buy those books from independent bookstores when at all possible. The dates I posted here about the books are in parentheses. FICTION: -The Beginner’s Goodbye, by Anne Tyler (4/15/12); -Carry the One, by Carol Anshaw (4/8/12); -Coral Glynn, by Peter Cameron (5/1/12); -Dear Life, by Alice Munro (12/6/12); -How It All Began, by Penelope Lively (1/21/12); -Married Love, and Other Stories, by Tessa Hadley (not yet posted about); -NW, by Zadie Smith (10/2/12); -The Odds, by Stewart O’Nan (1/26/12); -Shout Her Lovely Name, by Natalie Serber ((8/27/12); -The Theory of Small Earthquakes, by Meredith Maran (7/6/12); -The World Without You, by Joshua Henkin (8/19/12); NONFICTION: -Are You My Mother?, by Alison Bechdel (6/23/12); -Letters to a Friend, by Diana Athill (6/9/12); -The Secret Life of Objects, by Dawn Raffel (9/11/12); -Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (8/4/12): -Yes, Chef, by Marcus Samuelsson (7/21/12).

My Current Favorite Contemporary Authors

I have in the past posted a couple of “favorite authors” lists on this blog; I now post my current favorite contemporary authors of fiction (either living, or having died recently). By favorite I mean not only that I very much like reading their novels and stories, but also that I consider them among the best writers writing. This list is not inclusive, and I will probably think of others soon after I post this list. And I do recognize that perhaps there “should” be more writers from outside the U.S. and Great Britain, more ethnic and racial minority writers, and more male writers; if the list were to include all writers I have ever read from the past as well as current writers, the totals would be more “balanced”; for example, overall I may have read almost as many male as female writers, and I have at times read many novels from India, Africa, South America, Europe, and elsewhere, as well as much fiction by Asian American, Hispanic American, and African American authors. So, without further ado, here are my favorite contemporary authors as of right now, in alphabetical order: Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, Carolyn Cooke, Anita Desai, Emma Donoghue, Margaret Drabble, Anne Enright, Jane Gardam, Barbara Gowdy, Tessa Hadley, Alan Hollinghurst, Helen Humphreys, Tania James, Gish Jen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Penelope Lively, Ian McEwan, Lorrie Moore, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Antonya Nelson, Stewart O’Nan, Lori Ostlund, Julie Otsuka, Ann Patchett, Edith Pearlman, Tom Rachman, Anne Raeff, Richard Russo, Carol Shields, Mona Simpson, Zadie Smith, Jean Thompson, Colm Toibin, William Trevor, Valerie Trueblood, and Anne Tyler.

Books Featuring Various Illegal Drugs

As a companion piece to my recent (10/30/11) list of books featuring alcohol and alcoholism, I list here books (mostly novels) that prominently feature (mostly) illegal drugs as part of their stories. Some would criticize the authors for romanticizing drugs or making them seem glamorous, and this does happen to some extent. But just as often, the books show the negative sides of drugs and, especially, drug addiction.

Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerney
A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
Confessions of an English Opium Eater, by Thomas de Quincy
The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson
Junkie, by William Burroughs
Less Than Zero, by Brett Easton Ellis
The Man with the Golden Arm, by Nelson Algren
Naked Lunch, by William Burroughs
On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
Requiem for a Dream, by Hubert Selby, Jr.
Trainspotting, by Irvine Welsh

…and much of the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud.

I note, as a point of interest, that all of the books on this list are by male authors. We know that both men and women take drugs, but perhaps only men can take them as part of a macho, "guy" persona, and/or a bohemian, artistic, "living on the wild side" persona? Do women who take a lot of drugs simply seem pitiful? Is "living on the wild side" good for men's images but bad for women's?

Books Featuring Alcohol and Alcoholism

Alcohol is found in so much literature, but there are some novels and plays that portray alcohol consumption and alcoholism particularly prominently. Some of them focus on alcoholism, while others show it more peripherally, but all show the ravages of alcoholism on characters’ – and their families’ – lives. Below is a sampling of those books. On 10/23/11, I wrote here about writers who were alcoholic; readers will note that some of the writers on that list were the authors of the books on the list below.

After This, by Alice McDermott
Bastard out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison
The Beautiful and the Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
Ellen Foster, by Kaye Gibbons
The Gathering, by Anne Enright
The Ginger Man, by J. P. Donleavy
Good Morning, Midnight, by Jean Rhys
The Great Santini, by Pat Conroy
Home, by Marilynne Robinson
John Barleycorn, by Jack London
Lie Down in Darkness, by William Styron
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, by Brian Moore
Long Day’s Journey Into Night, by Eugene O’Neill
The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy
Monkeys, by Susan Minot
The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene
Rosie, by Anne Lamott
The Subterraneans, by Jack Kerouac
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
Tortilla Flat, by John Steinbeck
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry
We Were the Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, by Edward Albee
The Woman Who Walked into Doors, by Roddy Doyle

Famous Writers Who Committed Suicide

Unfortunately many great and well known writers have committed suicide. In many cases, they had long struggled with depression and/or alcoholism and/or other psychological problems and addictions. (Regular readers may notice that some of the names on this list also appeared on my 10/23/11 list of famous writers who were alcoholic.) Below is a list of some such writers. I post this to mourn the sadness of their not being able to endure life any longer, and to mourn the loss of the work they might have done if they had lived longer.

Ryunosuke Akutagawa
John Berryman
Richard Brautigan
Hart Crane
Michael Dorris
Romain Gary
Ernest Hemingway
William Inge
Randall Jarrell
Arthur Koestler
Vachel Lindsay
Malcolm Lowry
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Yukio Mishima
Cesare Pavese
Sylvia Plath
Anne Sexton
Sara Teasdale
David Foster Wallace
Virginia Woolf
Stefan Zweig

Famous Writers Who Were Alcoholics

Sadly, many, many famous writers were alcoholics. A few were also addicted to various drugs. Many of them died early of cirrhosis and other alcohol-related diseases. This reminds us that alcohol not only caused much misery for the authors themselves and their families and friends, but also deprived us all of the literature they would likely have written if they had not been battling alcoholism, and if they had not died earlier than they likely would have otherwise. There have been various studies done, and much speculation, about why such a large proportion of writers have been alcoholic; there do not seem to be any clear answers to the question. The theory that alcohol and/or drugs sometimes actually fueled the writing has been pretty much discredited, Coleridge aside. Below is a partial list of famous writers who were known to be alcoholic. It is an astonishing roll call of some of the greatest writers of the past century or so.

James Agee
Kingsley Amis
Sherwood Anderson
James Baldwin
John Berryman
Richard Brautigan
Charles Bukowski
Truman Capote
Raymond Carver
Raymond Chandler
John Cheever
Stephen Crane
William Faulkner
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dashiell Hammett
Ernest Hemingway
O. Henry
James Joyce
Jack Kerouac
Arthur Koestler
Ring Lardner
Sinclair Lewis
Jack London
Robert Lowell
Malcolm Lowry
Norman Mailer
Eugene O’Neill
Dorothy Parker
Edgar Allen Poe
Theodore Roethke
Francois Sagan
Delmore Schwartz
Anne Sexton
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Jean Stafford
William Styron
Dylan Thomas
Paul Verlaine
Tennessee Williams
Edmund Wilson
Elinor Wylie

The Top 100 Feminist Nonfiction Books

The Ms. Magazine blog has just published a list of the top 100 feminist nonfiction books, in order, as determined by a poll of readers. What a wonderful, varied, rich list it is, drawing on books mostly written over the past 50 years or so. Reading the titles and seeing the covers of the books brings back so many memories to a seasoned (mature? child of the 60s and 70s?) feminist such as I am. I have read so many of these books over the many years, and have read reviews of and commentaries on others as well. The author with the most books on the list is bell hooks, with seven books. Some of the other authors included, and I list them here in no particular order, are Virginia Woolf, Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Faludi, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua, Kate Millett, Gloria Steinem, Barbara Ehrenreich, Betty Friedan, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Angela Y. Davis, Adrienne Rich, Katha Pollitt, Shulamith Firestone, Susan Brownmiller, Merlin Stone, Carol Gilligan, The Guerilla Girls, Lillian Faderman, Eve Ensler, Gerda Lerner, Merlin Stone, and Judith Butler. But do check out the Ms. list for yourself at the following web address:

http://www.msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/10/10/ms-readers-100-best-non-fiction-books-of-all-time-the-top-10-and-the-complete-list/

It's Banned Books Week!

This week (Sept. 24-Oct. 1, 2011) is Banned Books Week, an annual event “celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment,” and stressing “the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them” (American Library Association/ALA website). The ALA and others use this week to remind people of how many books are “challenged” every year by people who are trying to rid classrooms, school libraries, public libraries, and even college libraries of the books in question. The challenges are based on the books’ being, according to the challengers, too sexually explicit, or containing offensive language, or addressing homosexuality, or not being family-friendly, or expressing religious viewpoints the challengers (often parents) do not like. We need to thank the brave teachers and librarians who stand up against these types of attempted, and sometimes successful, censorship. These teachers and librarians sometimes risk their own jobs, reputations, and peace of mind. Just a few of the books that have been challenged in the past ten years, according to the ALA website, are the following:
-I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
-Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
-Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
-The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
-Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
-To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
-Beloved, by Toni Morrison
-Harry Potter, by J. K. Rowling
-Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger
-Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
-The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

Memorable Sports Novels

I am not a big sports fan, but I can understand the pleasures of getting involved with sports, whether playing them or watching and following them. When I was in high school (I went to two), I enthusiastically cheered my schools’ teams, and whether they won or not seemed life-or-death important. When I was in my mid-to-late teens living in Michigan, my family followed the Detroit Tigers baseball team avidly, attending games, watching games on TV, and listening to games on the radio when we were traveling. I even remember when I pulled back from that enthusiastic support for the team, because it was too devastating when they lost. It is hard for me now to remember such strong feelings about sports! I do, in a general sort of way, support our local (San Francisco) teams: the 49ers and the Giants in particular. My husband is a big sports fan; he plays tennis himself, and watches tennis, baseball, football, basketball, soccer, and occasionally other sports as well, occasionally live but mostly on TV. I sometimes sit down for a few minutes to watch too. But I prefer -- big surprise! -- to read fiction about sports, when it is well written and about something larger than the sports themselves. Below is a list of some of the best sports novels, many by some of our best American writers. I can’t claim to have read them all, but I know at least a bit about each of them, and they are all highly regarded critically. Note that the most predominant sport represented is baseball, which apparently truly is “the great American pastime.”

Bang the Drum Slowly, by Mark Harris (baseball)
The Great American Novel, by Philip Roth (baseball)
The Harder They Fall, by Budd Schulberg (boxing)
The Legend of Bagger Vance, by Steven Pressfield (golf)
The Natural, by Bernard Malamud (baseball)
North Dallas Forty, by Peter Gent (football)
A River Runs Through It, by Norman Maclean (fishing)
Shoeless Joe, by W. P. Kinsella (baseball)
The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford
The Sweetheart Season, by Karen Ann Fowler (women’s baseball)
You Know Me Al, by Ring Lardner (baseball)

Memorable American Pioneer Novels

Novels about American pioneers may not be high on my list to look for and read, but I have read and and been fascinated by a few such stories over the years. One that particularly gripped me and stays in my mind still, although I read it well over 30 years ago, is "Giants in the Earth," by Rolvaag. What I most remember is how vividly it portrayed the bleakness and extreme flatness of the prairies, and how one of the main characters, a woman, became extremely depressed by that bleakness. As I remember the story, she ended by hiding in a trunk that had carried her treasures from back East. For some reason, I can still see that striking image: the flat, flat prairie land and the despairing woman taking refuge in the trunk that was a reminder of home. I was also particularly impressed by Willa Cather's pioneer novels; as I have written here before, I admire Cather's work very much. I list these and other memorable pioneer novels below:

Cimarron, by Edna Ferber
Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather
Giants in the Earth, by Ole Edwart Rolvaag
The Leatherstocking Tales (series), by James Fennimore Cooper
Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger
Little House on the Prairie (series), by Laura Ingalls Wilder
My Antonia, by Willa Cather
O Pioneers, by Willa Cather
The Tie That Binds, by Kent Haruf
The Virginian, by Owen Wister