2011 Reading Oscars

Dear Salonistas,
Yes, it's that time of year again. With only 10 days left for 2011 it's time to start thinking about the reading year and the prizes for your best books.

And the categories for this year are:

Best Fiction
Best Non-Fiction
Best Poetry Anthology
Best Read by an Author new to you in 2011
Best Reread
Best Drama
Best (Work in) Translation/Foreign Language
Best Trite Nonsense

and the grand prize:

Best Book of 2011

This year we are also introducing a dummy prize:

Worst Book of 2011 (for those still trudging through Laura Warholic....)

Feel free to add/delete your own categories, and to discuss your nominations and those that didn't make it.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

I am going right to the wire on this one as I am reading A Distant Mirror: The calamitous 14th century by Barbara W Tuchman at the moment which might just edge out The Autumn of the Middle ages by Johan Huizinga in the non fiction category. However I think many historians would put both these books in the fiction category.

The only one of those where I think I know the answer right off is the poetry anthology, where I spent some of the year on Walcott's complete and some of the year on Melville's complete, but think I give it to Walcott. Best reread is probably Magic Mountain, which is a contender in other cats as well. Must think.

This is going to be a hard topic for me as I spent the better part of the second half of the year reading trite nonsense.

Best Trite Nonsense?

I don't think there is such a thing as best trite nonsense. Isn't trite nonsense by definition bad? Ergo it can only slide down the slippery slope to worst.

Currently in NZ with limited access to a computer, but I have 2 books still fresh in my mind which may qualify.

Austerlitz by WG Sebald, which is fiction that reads like non fiction, and The Philosopher's Secret Fire by Patrick Harpur, non fiction which many would claim to be complete fiction...

I'll think these over in more detail and report back.

Seasonal greetings from the deep south....

>7 urania1:, of course. I should have said Most Trite or Most Nonsensical

i've spent many a claw on that slope, it's only a little slippery, steeper than a Beckett ditch.

By the way, as the Distant Mirror covers the strange crusade of 1396, I give it my vote.

Distant Mirror was great.

i just ordered the mickey mantle biography. do i have until midnight 31 december?

Woops, tone deaf. Thread started by an English feller and i assume baseball knowledge.

lol. you have until midnight 31st. And let's add the Trite nonsense category I love it, and ditch the bio category. Does anyone read bios anymore? I've also added a drama category.

and how about Best Book You Didn't Finish?, as I seem to start a lot of great books but fail to finish them. That'd be an easy pick for me this year: Porius wins in a landslide.

>15 QuentinTom:

But I've read Like A Fiery Elephant - you should read it too!! And don't pay attention to French geophysicists.

baswood, I've read both of those books. I liked the Huizinga book very much at the time I read it.

I didn't finish Don't Sleep There are Snakes, but that was I didn't think it was a very good book. Fascinating topic, but very badly written. I feel a bit bad about not finishing it because I wanted to reach the part where the guy loses his faith. I already have my opinion on that, but I should have heard him out.

I didn't finish The Faerie Queene which I am deeply ashamed to admit, but I will get back to it next year.

I wish I had my assumed name, and don't anyone tell Mac, but (whispering) I did not finish my second reading of MM.

Best book I didn't finish is definetly Faerie Queene, though I have added that to the list of books I will consider myself to always be reading.

huh Lisa ? ( completely astonished ) you did not ?

I did not finish the decline and fall of the roman empire. The part about Christianity was just getting to be such a slog. Maybe I will pick up where I left off sometime next year. It felt like such a relief when I put it down and grabbed a mystery novel...

Best read by author new to me is Porius. Best novel in translation The Magic Mountain.

Ohh. Forgot Porius. Another great book I didn't finish.

Mac, someday, I'm going on those MM threads and injecting all my craziness and reviving the discussion. I fell way off the pace, but kept sloggin. I still have just a little left, but it will be done before Moby begins.

Hanging head. I know, Mac. Just wandered off . . . . . . .

But it should qualify as Best Unfinished Re-read!

Wohooooooooooooo

I didn't finish the pale king either but i am definitely going to do that next year, i have set myself a deadline of april 15.

29: lqarl

>24 anna_in_pdx:,

You're not supposed to finish D&F. It's one of those bathroom reading materials - like etiquette books. You pick it up when you're feeling constipated. It improves fecal transit time.

FTC

Here it's 10:35 AM

10:38
FTC 00:03

and at my age!

Best Fiction: Something by Dostoevsky
Best Reread: Something by Dostoevsky
Best in Translation: something by Dostoevsky

OK: here are mine:

Best Non-Fiction: hands down, Maria Rosa Menocal, The Arabic Role in Literary History; same author takes second place as well, despite a close run by Bruce Franklin's Wake of the Gods, which came in third; and if I get to Shards of Love next year, I'm expecting a near shoe-in. I cannot think of a year when I've read as much good literary history and criticism as this year.

Best New Read: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade; this was a tough one, there were several contenders, but Melville wins it for ongoing residual effect; one of those books I should have read ages ago that changes my outlook

Best Unfinished; Best Audiobook: Faerie Queene; I'm also giving the (ack! abridged!) version of this best audiobook, not so much for the production as the material. Thoroughly enjoyed it, even if it's going to take me years of picking away to finish the thing. On the audiobook front, beats a couple Faulkners, which says alot.

Best In Translation; Best Re-Read: Magic Mountain; I still have much of Mac's genius to finish parsing through, but this is another book with enormous "residual" power, that will stay with me.

Best Poetry Anthology: Dereck Walcott's Collected Poems, 1948 - 1984; I think this one may have won last year as well, but its readings crossed years.

Best Read Aloud: The Mahabharata: Book 6, the Book of Bhishma by the Clay Sanskrit Library; this was actually a tough catgeory, as we completed Three Kingdoms this year and I did a number of shorter reads, but this particular book, which includes the Gita, eeks it out

Best Art Book: The Song of Krishna: an illustrated version of the Gita by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; some serious competition here from some older versions of Leila and Majnun I picked up this year.

Best Play: Sakuntala, a re-read, even better when read again; reflected my emerging fascination with the Sanskrit as well

Best Overall: Stay tuned, still considering this one.

This pretty much shows how much richer the Salon has made my life. A bit of a dearth of contemporary works breaking into the top spots this year.

Best read of an author new to me Venus and the Voters by Gwyn Thomas. A short book, but graced with brilliiant use of language, great characters and interesting story.

Best unfinished reread Magic Mountain ;-)

Best Nonsense Queen Lucia by E.F. Benson. Laugh out loud funny.

Best Fiction Bleak House--so far my favorite of Dickens.

Best Work in Translation Really the only one this year, but I am including it since I am definitely going to get through Les Rougons-Macquart this year. Well probably definitely. The Fortune of the Rougons by Zola.

Best Non fiction
A close tie with The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy and Bakhtin's Dostoevsky book, but I"m gonna go with Empire of Signs. Ostensibly non fiction, but put together like a work of art, Barthes constantly blurrs the boundaries between art, philosophy, theory and criticism. A book I keep returning to for delicious little snippets.

Best Anthology
I read some great poetry this year, including lots of Baudelaire and Ezra Pound, but I'm gonna go for Chinese poetry: an anthology especially for Wei Lim Yip's introduction, which has opened up a whole new world. The translations are not always effective, but they are certainly thought provoking and shed light on the whole process of translation of poetry.

Best work by an author new to you
This has to be Peintures by Victor Segalen, the major 'discovery' of the year for me. An outstanding work by an outstanding writer and thinker.

Best (work in) Translation
John Woods's translation of The Magic Mountain is superb, and so was mac's gloss. a really satisfying read. Mann is a writer I have neglected after a terrible experience with Buddenbrooks, but JW's translations open up the possibility of more Mann for me.

Best Reread
I only reread two books this year: The Good Soldier Svejk and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Mishima. Both superb works, that I first read over 20 years ago. I'm going for the Mishima for this Oscar. I got more out of it this time as I know more about Buddhism than I did 20 years ago. Mishima creates the mind of a Buddhist psychopath. If Dostoevsky had been Japanese, he would have written this book. A masterpiece, disturbing and exquisite.

Best Fiction
I read some superb fiction this year, but the two books that stand out above all others are Porius and Rene' Leys which just blew me away. I think it's the combination of setting in place and time -Beijing 1911- , Segalen's miraculous prose and the combination of Eastern and Western aesthetics which really excited me. It's rare to finish a book and then start it again immediately, in fact it's the first time I've done that, so that speaks for itself.

Best Book of 2011
Porius, in a close tie with Renee' Leys. What a book. What a read, brilliantly lead by our very own Porius, (until the spirit of strife intervened, but we gloss over that). Porius wins for sheer originality of vision and execution. JCP always in a class of his own, untouchable, unique.

Best Novel
Our Ecstatic Days by Steve Erickson

Best Novel I Didn't Finish
Porius by John Cowper Powys

Best Novella
The Voice in the Closet by Raymond Federman
my review: http://www.librarything.com/work/1020552/reviews/71833768

Best Essay Collections (tie)
Slouching Toward Bethlehem
The White Album both by Joan Didion

Best Read by an Author new to you in 2011 (tie)
Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish
First Love and Other Sorrows by Harold Brodkey

Best Short Story
"The Last of the Valerii" by Henry James

Best Weird Fiction
The Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus

Best Sci-Fi
Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny

Best Poetry
The Orangery by Gilbert Sorrentino

Best Criticism
Malcolm Lowry's Volcano: Myth, Symbol, Meaning by David Markson

Best Outdoors Narrative
Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite by Michael P. Ghiglieri

Best Trite Nonsense
Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less

Honorable Mentions Worthy of Pimpage

Singing into the Piano by Ted Mooney
Double Fiction (unpublished) by Alex Austin
The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
Angels by Denis Johnson
The Year of Magical Thinking (a re-read) by Joan Didion

Worst Book of the Year
The Lucifer Gospel by Paul Christopher

Best book: Arjun and the Good Snake
Most Self Serving Author: Rick Harsch

and down with TC for putting Bakhtin and Powys second, especially, damn cats, insulting JCP by putting him second in fiction but first in book--very condescending

crafty eh?

catty more like it, sir

Best Non fiction

Top three: “Rimbaud” by Edmund White, “Pushkin’s button” by Serena Vitale and Grabiel Josipovici’s “What happened to Modernism?”

Winner: Grabiel Josipovici’s “What happened to Modernism?” because it made me re-think what I had been reading till now.

Best work by an author new to you and best fiction taken together

The year started with me finishing the “Brothers Karamazov” by Dostoyevsky. But Karamazov belongs to the readings of 2010 otherwise it would be the winner without any other book even close. I had quite a few other good reads this year: “A passage to India” by Forster, “Point Omega” by Don Dellilo, Robin Knox-Johnston’s “Force of Nature” , “Queen of Spades” by Pushkin, “The skin” by Curzio Malaparte, “L’ Amante Anglaise” by Marguerite Duras, “Les Gommes” by Alain Robbe – Grillet, “La peur” de Chevallier and “The war of the Newts” by Karel Capek, “Herzog” by Saul Bellow

Herzog needs to be reread, I have a feeling I have not grasped everything.

Top three: “The war of the Newts” by Karel Capek, “Les Gommes” by Alain Robbe – Grillet and “The skin” by Curzio Malaparte.

Winner: “The skin” by Curzio Malaparte

Best Reread

Bruce Chatwin’s “In Patagonia”; “Magic Mountain” by Thomas Mann; Jack London’s “Sea Wolf”

“Magic Mountain” by Thomas Mann, I truly enjoyed the group read

Best Book of 2011

Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov… I mean “The skin” by Curzio Malaparte

lol perhaps you should read it every year, Mackie!

>37 LisaCurcio: Lisa, I just finished La Curee and am also itching to read the whole RM series. Are you reading them on Kindle? I know some of them are hard to get in English.

Best novel
A Room With a View E M Forster just edged out The Vagabond by Colette

Best Tome
Two contenders here Vanity Fair by W M Thackeray and Porius by John Cowper Powys; although I think that Vanity Fair is wonderful I will go with Porius as my choice here, because it was such an original read.

Best contemporary novel
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson. A worthy winner of the Booker prize and plenty of lols. This just got the nod over The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell, which didn't make me laugh quite so much

Best re-read
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. Thank you again Mac for guiding us through this magical book.

Best Medieval Book
The Romance of the Rose Jean de Meung and Guillaume de Lorris. If you only read one book from the middle ages I would suggest this one.
Honorable mention for Arthurian Romances by Chretien de Troyes and The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

Best Non Fiction
The Autumn of the Middle Ages by Johan Huizinga; this just edged out The allegory of Love by C S Lewis

Best Play
Translation, Brian Friel

Best Sci-fi
2001 a space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke. This was a re-read and a major breakthrough because I understood the ending for the first time.

Best Photographic Book
La France by Raymond Depardon

Best Cookery Book
The Cooking of India (Time Life Series) by Santha Rama Rau

Best novel by D H Lawrence that I didn't re-read this year
The Plumed Serpent

Worst Book of the Year
Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandana. This caused me to lead a break away group from the book club I belonged to. I just could not face another girly book after having to read Room by Emma Donoghue and The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

>44 QuentinTom: Murr, No, I refuse to buy a Kindle or any other electronic reader. I insist on paper. Books piled all around make me happy.

I think all of the R-M are available in paper in English translation, but have not actually looked. For sure I can get La Curée. I have Ladies Paradise, Germinal and La Bête Humaine, and have read Nana and Belly of Paris, but decided I want to read them in order. I would love to try to read them in French, but I want to finish them in this lifetime.

Well, the kindle I got for Christmas has already been taken over by my eldest daughter. Those things are hopeless - no matter how many you buy, they're requisitioned by your superiors.

People, please note, I haven't named my best book yet! I'm trying to build suspense. What will it be? Who will win my top oscar pick!

Drumroll!

yeah, I want to do that too, along with a study of Hausmann's Paris. A super project. La Curee was fantastic. I've read Germinal, and Therese Requin, years and years ago, and I'm slowly collecting the whole series as I run into them. I'll be following your progress with great interest.

>46 baswood: Best novel by D H Lawrence that I didn't re-read this year
lquarl

Sam, I am agog. Magog.

I'm thinking of making DH my re-read of an author I've only hated til now next year. Is there such a thing as rehabilitation?

Best Non-Fiction : Memoirs: Just Kids by Patti Smith, Life by Keef Richards, Periodic Table by Primo Levi. Biography: Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. A great year for non fiction I think.

Best Poetry Anthology : Philip Larkin Collected Poems. Easily.

Best Read by an Author new to you in 2011 : Cloud Atlas was a mixed bag but David Mitchell can write.

Best Work in Translation/ Best Fiction/ Best Book of 2011 : The Death of Ivan Illych Best Reread too because I read it twice.

#51 I am thinking of making DH my re-read of an author........ Welcome home A_Musing.

#52 mejix, I have got the Phillip Larkin Collected Poems permanently on my reading desk. A wonderful treasure trove. I agree that David Mitchell can write, but I preferred The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet because in a way it was a less ambitious tighter novel. I am hoping to get to Just Kids next year its on my tbr pile.

#47 lisa I would love to try to read them in French, but I want to finish them in this lifetime. lquarl. I have the same issue.

Thérèse Raquin I did read in French--when I was in college and studying for the minor.

I just read The Fortune of the Rougons, and followed it with Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner. Interesting juxtaposition in the sense that both are set at times of revolution and certain aspects of revolution in France live up to plus ça change . . ..

I have Alistair Horne's Seven Ages of Paris and have skimmed it. Also an interesting adjunct to the R-M books.

Best Fiction
Le Club des incorrigibles optimistes by Jean-Michel Guenassia

Best Short Novel
Les Naufragés by Hernàn Neira --> http://www.librarything.com/work/12081618/book/81210760

Best Short Stories Collection
Stories of your Life: and Others by Ted Chiang

Best Weird Fiction
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolano

Best History Book
A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present by Howard Zinn

Best non-fiction other than history
Raw Spirit by Iain Banks

Best Science Fiction
Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks

Best Chess Book (excluding those that actually try to improve your game)
Correspondence Chess in Britain and Ireland 1824-1987 by Tim Harding

Best Read by an Author new to you in 2011
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Best Biography/Autobiography
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

Finalists, honourary mentions etc. in my soon to start 2012 thread

Best Read I Kind-a Sort-a Did After the Fact because the Discussion Here Got Too interesting to Not Read It: Aspects of the Novel

I hope I'm maintaining the suspense on my choice-of-choices!

Best Novel in English: The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obrecht
Best Historical Novel: A Dead Man in Deptford by Anthony Burgess
Best Florida Novel: Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
Best Unfinished Novel: The Brothers Karamazov -- I will finish it in 2012!
Best Lit Crit: Crossing the Creek: The Literary Friendship of Zora Neale Hurston and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings by Anna Lillios
Best Memoirs: Klee Wyck by Emily Carr and Fair Play by Tove Jansson
Best Narrative Poem: The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje
Best Read by an Author new to you in 2011: Hanna's Daughters by Marianne Fredriksson
Best ReRead: Sun City by Tove Jansson
Best Play: Las Meninas by Lynn Nottage
Best (Work in) Translation/Foreign Language: In Red by Magdalena Tulli
Worst Book: The Circus of the Earth and Air by Brooke Stevens

Best Book of 2011: I think I have to go with In Red though I really loved The Tiger's Wife and A Dead Man in Deptford

come on sam, drop the other shoe...

i keep wondering what A_M is going to nominate

>53 baswood: Baswood, I've heard good things about that book and about Black Swan Green. Hope to read them soon.

Two of my favorite sentences of the year. From Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter:

"At their New Year's Eve party one year she {Mitchell} drank vast amounts of of highly potent punch, as did Dennis Adrian, critic for the Chicago Daily News and acid wit of the art community. Artist and critic got into a huge argument, and to everyone's horrified fascination, Joan 'took Adrian out...absolutely took him out.' "

Well, finally seems like I'm building some suspense.

I'm a little more than halfway finished with the salon's own, Solla Carrock's unpublished novel, Things that Always Were and had I finished it this year, would have been compelled to add it to my list of bests. It will be on 2012s for sure. I'm a couple years late to the party, reading it, but better late than never, and am glad I finally got around to it.

In thinking of further short stories I could've listed, that were memorable and evocative, I must mention "Mister Squishy" from DFWs last published story collection, Oblivion. Just brutal satire. That entire collection is just plain brutal (and sad).

In looking back through my blog for the year, reminding myself of what wowed me, I'd be remiss not to mention Peter Weissman's "An Editorial Life," a story that intertwines its themes of syntax and suicide quite brilliantly. Many of you have probably already read it, but here it is again, being there's still one day left in 2011 to add your favorites for the year:

http://enriquefreequesreads.blogspot.com/2011/09/editorial-life-by-peter-weissma...

My full 2011 Reading Oscars --> http://www.librarything.com/topic/129550#3123948

Nice list.

I started looking at my read list but there are too many--I only wish to mention--again and again--Ivy Compton-Burnett and James Purdy as dear discoveries of the year.

Well, the drum roller appears to have dropped of exhaustion and Martini has him at the hospital now - thanks, Martin.

So, without further ado, best read of 2011:

A three way tie!

I've really just been delaying because I couldn't make up my mind, and I'm still not going to do it. Three books this year have been beyond mind-blowing and life-altering and generally worthy of a score in excess of a 9 on my scale: (1) The Arabic Role in Literary History; this woman is extraordinary, brilliant, incredible, and the nobel inheritor and surpasser of Edward Said; she changes the way I read; (2) The Mahabharata, and, specially, The Book of Bhishma; reading this with my son is something that marks us; the fact that Bhishma translates as "Awesome" and that I now regularly call my Ben Bhishma is but a sign of this; (3) The Confidence-Man - it is a harder book in many ways than Moby Dick, and a quieter one, but, I think, just about as good.

A great year in reading! There are a number of other close contenders - I had trouble not adding Magic Mountain to the list, but while the book is as good and the read was as good, the impact on me is probably just below these three. But another 9+, certainly.

Best Nonfiction - a tie
The Seashell on the Mountaintop and, The View from Lazy Point

Best Memoir
West with the Night

Best Short Stories (ie, best Chick Lit written by a good ol' boy)
Fidelity: Five Stories

Best novel simply based on the fact that I comprehended about 10.2% of it
Austerlitz

Best unfinished novel
The Magic Mountain (!)

Best communist manifesto
The Communist Manifesto

67> I too loved the Menocal and The Confidence Man when I read them some years ago. Both are pretty mind-blowing. I envy your Mhabharata time with your son.

#67 I went back to read your review of The Arabic Role in Literary History which I had missed earlier. It sounds brilliant and a book I must read, because in my medieval reading I keep coming upon Arabic influences and I want to understand more about them. This book looks like it might help and your enthusiastic review has convinced me to give it a go.

It's one of those books that led me to go out and buy everything I could find by her - enjoy! There are not many books I can recommend with less hesitation, and since the book is now more than 25 years old, there is a bunch of scholarship following it, too. But I'll warn you - you'll want to go out and read a ton of medieval work that is either not available in translation, available only in archaic translation, or available only at extreme expense.

Thanks, Jane - it is some of my most precious time.

EDIT: There, fixed. Let's never fight again.
__________
I been putting this off, because I wanted to do a whole deal with nominees and blurbage and all the rest, but looking back, 2011 was actually a fairly uninspired reading year for me (shoulda taken part in more Salon reads?) and looking forward, 2012 seems like it's already turning out to be INCREDIBLY PACKED FULL OF THINGS, so maybe I better just blurt out some imaginary awards and shoulder my pack.

Best Novel: The Recognition of Sakuntala, by Kalidasa
Runner-up: Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe

Best Non-Fiction: An Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, by Etienne Bonnot de Condillac
Runner-up: None! This is worse than I thought!

Best Poetry: One Hundred Frogs: From Matsuo Basho to Allen Ginsberg
Runner-up: Al Suzyu, of course

Best Read by an Author new to you in 2011: The Recognition of Sakuntala
Runner-up: Per above, Things Fall Apart

Best Reread: The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare
Runner-up: The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde

Best Drama: The Recognition of Sakuntala
Runners-up: Lysistrata, by Aristophanes

Best (Work in) Translation/Foreign Language: The Recognition of Sakuntala
Runner-up: Condillac actually stays in this category, being that Things Fall Apart was written in English, Martin, you fucking racist

Best Trite Nonsense: Samsung Means to Come, by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
Runner-up: The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon

Best Communist Manifesto: The Communist Hypothesis, by Alain Badiou

Best Brodown with the Author of a Book I Read This Year: The brodown with Rick Harsch, author of The Driftless Zone. There were SNAYKES
Runner-up: The brodown with Peter Weissman, the author of I Think, Therefore Who Am ?, which should not be taken as casting any aspersions on the quality of brodowns available at Piero's, but just a reflection of the fact that we only had a few sweet hours together, before they took off for hols and I holed up to work on my thesis (still not done!) and feed the cat. (Best literary catdown, handsdown.)

and the grand prize:

Best Book of 2011: Abhijñānaśākuntalam by the Sanskrit Shakespeare, the Mythmaking Marvel, Southern Dandy, Kālidāsa, who can't be here tonight to accept his award because he was murdered by a courtesan in Sri Lanka.

Oh, and

Worst Book of 2011: I haven't finished Laura Warholic yet, so it goes to Cities of Italy: Rome and the Vatican, by Cinzia Valigi and Loretta Santini, the book that promised me a map right in the title and then totally fucked me, after I was already lost and drunk.

Al Suzyu would be delighted, as this is the highest award or honor he ever received, unknown as he was during his time, mystifying his contemporaries, offending the classicists whom he over-emulated perhaps.

Rain drops on Fuji
Nothing is wrong with vision
This ditch is my home

Al Suzyu

Good old Al.

Achebe? really? I mean, TFA was good, but not that good, surely?

TC--consider the fucking source, I mean, did Martin even READ Powys?

Martin, READ POWYS!!!!!!!

Yeah, if you want to be 'one of us' (in the sense conveyed best in Freaks)

Martin, Sakuntala doesn't eke in at the end in some category? You seemed to be enjoying it.

AHAHAHAHAHA NOOOOOOOO!! So dumb. I missed Sakuntala because I haven't written a review or rated it yet. The last book of 2011 was the best drama, the best work in trans, and yes, the best book of 2011. I've had fighting demons with Indra sheepishly in my head for days whenever I leave before dawn with dishes still in the sink.

The best book of 2012, clearly, is Porius.

I refuse to commit yet.

Best Tomes (excluding re-reads): Mann's The Magic Mountain and Bolano's 2666.

Best non-Tomes: Burgess' Enderby (Inside and Outside); Weissman's Digging Deeper; Roubaud's Our Beautiful Heroine and LaValle's Big Machine.

Best non-Fiction: Werner Herzog's Conquest of the Useless, Denis Johnson's Seek and Eksteins' Rites of Spring were each excellent in their own way. Herzog's the most idiosyncratic and absurd. Johnson's the best read word for word. Eksteins' the most substantive.

Best Read by an Author new to you: Victor LaValle's Big Machine. Runner-up: Paco Ignacio Taibo II's The Shadow of the Shadow.

Best Reread: Vollmann's You Bright and Risen Angels.

Biggest disappointments: Theroux's Laura Warholic. Ferdydurke was also a bit of a disappointment.

I hope you've seen the "Werner Herzog reads" series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T8y5EPv6Y8

82: Great! So many good lines:

"an alien object of unimaginable cultural significance"

"a veritable school of fish issued forth from his lungs, as if even the fishes longed for something smaller, more manageable, than the oceans"

"the telephone, meant to bridge great distances; yet what has it done but make us feel more lonesome"

"in short order, a monkey has bested seven adult men. This should give you a dim view of human potential"

Can't wait to check out "Werner's" Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel and Madeline...

I really couldn't wait. They were terrific.

It's not actually Werner but a very good imitator of him. They're just really well done.

I particularly like the monkey besting seven adult men line. Just wonderful.

great list slick. I want that Herzog book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PAsYkrEwjM

Herzog on the South American jungle: "It's a land that God, if he exists, he has created in anger...Taking a close look at what is around us, there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder. And we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle; we in comparison to that enormous articulation, we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban novel, a cheap novel...even the stars appear in the sky like a mess...but when I say this I say it all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it; I love it. I love it very much. But, I love it against my better judgment."

excellent.

Fitzcaraldooooooooooooooooo

Aguirreeeeeeeeeeeeee

If there is something like reincarnation, I want to come back as Werner Herzog

can I come back as Klaus Kinski, then?

I'll promise I will not use my rifle, if you promise not to leave the set !

then don't provoke me!

I am not provoking you, you are provoking yourself ! And you are scaring the Indians away with all your shouting and your crazy eye - rolling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOwiZZlgc9o&feature=related

But there's that cute moment with the butterfly (just before he eats it off camera)

I saw him in France at the airport but I left him alone. I guess this belongs on a different thread.

who, the butterfly, Kinski or WH?

klaus the mad one. he was actually wearing a white suit