Everything is My Favorite: 2013 in Review On the morning following Valentine’s Day this year, I sat scrolling through my Tumblr feed and stumbled upon a reblogged photo of two guys with big smiles holding paperbacks surrounded by walls of displayed books. The caption read “We got small press books. We got beer. We open 2/12/13” and another image announcing “GRAND OPENING- Mellow Pages Public Library & Reading Room.”
I did not sit still very often this year. I changed jobs. I moved twice. In the upheaval, I reread a lot of poetry. I read Ovid’s blunt love poems when I wanted something to make me feel like I was paying attention. Elizabeth Bishop always seemed to help, in her way. But, aside from the work I had to do as a reviewer (funny what deadlines do), I was often too preoccupied to focus on anything that required surrender. That’s why […]
Books! I love them. I live for words and I live for stories that can move me and tell me how to exist in this complicated, fucked-up world that we call home. Here are ten books that challenged me, entertained me, or stayed with me long after I read the final paragraph. The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud Earlier this year, Messud received some attention as the literary world argued about unlikable characters. Nora isn’t an unlikable character. She’s likable […]
There is no way to sugarcoat the stifling rankness — specifically to listeners of color — that was the year in music. Without turning this list into the millionth diatribe on “Accidental Racist,” Miley twerking, “Blurred Lines,” Lily Allen, Kanye, misogyny, etc., let it be said that 2013 served as an overwhelming reminder that, if you are a woman of color, you are so far down the Minority Totem Pole in terms of importance to producers of music you may […]
Periodically, I joke with friends that the amassed media in my office is eventually going to develop consciousness, and seek some sort of bloody revenge on me. That’s just how things go when inanimate objects develop sentience: they come for you. I’ve seen enough horror films and bad science fiction to know how these plots go. This year was the first year I actually got evidence of this, though: two bookcases began to buckle under the weight of the tomes […]
Some of the best non-fiction this year came from the realm of historical documents. Though Justice Scalia always writes a better, more entertaining and engaging opinion (albeit one that betrays a frighteningly archaic set of biases), Justice Kennedy wrote one for the ages because through his sometimes clunky legal opinions he penned one of the most redemptive, straightforward and important statements of this 21st century, denouncing DOMA:
Feel like I skimmed or stopped more books this year than I actually read. I had some noble attempts, stuff like Underworld by Don Delillo (made it halfway through before I learned you’re only supposed to read the 1st chapter), Speedboat by Renata Adler (remember the spring fever pitch to this one?), The Man With a Golden Arm by Nelson Algren (I enjoyed his book on writing more), and Light Years by James Salter (but bro, can he write a […]
The Best Books I Read This Year Speedboat by Renata Adler Remember earlier this year when everyone, their mother, and two of their cousins were reading and tweeting about Speedboat? Reprinted by NYRB Classics, Speedboat blew everyone away as easily in 2013 as it did in 1976. I’m not ashamed to have hopped on the Adler bandwagon. This is a stunning, beautiful, and inventive novel that everyone should read.