What I Read: 2023

JANUARY

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2004)

William Gerhardie, Futility (1922)

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) (re-read)

Tom Roston, The Writer’s Crusade (2021)

John McPhee, Draft No. 4 (2017)

Richard J. King, Ahab’s Rolling Sea (2019)

Luisa Valenzuela, Up Among the Eagles (1983, trans. Christopher Leland et al)

FEBRUARY

Chris Bachelder, U.S.! (2006) (re-read)

Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop (1978)

A. S. Byatt, The Biographer’s Tale (2000)

Paul Morand, The Man in a Hurry (1941, trans. Euan Cameron)

Penelope Fitzgerald, The Blue Flower (1995)

Robert Caro, Working (2019)

Scholastique Mukasonga, Igifu (2010, trans. Jordan Stump)

MARCH

Stephen Marche, On Writing and Failure (2023)

John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces (1980)

James Patterson, James Patterson (2022)

Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train (1950)

Kenzaburo Oe, A Personal Matter (1964, trans. John Nathan)

Philip Roth, The Counterlife (1986)

Lorrie Moore, I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home (2023)

Fred Bason, Fred Bason’s Second Diary (1952)

APRIL

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood (1966)

Banana Yoshimoto, Hardboiled & Hard Luck (1999, trans. Michael Emmerich)

Philip Roth, Deception (1990)

Lauren Groff, Matrix (2021)

R. D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez, The Death of WCW (10th Anniversary Edition) (2014)

Nick Hornby, Dickens and Prince (2022)

MAY

Jon Mooallem, Serious Face (2022)

Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, Volume Six (2018, trans. Don Bartlett and Martin Aiken)

Hilton Als, My Pinup (2022)

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)

Martin Amis, Dead Babies (1975)

Dubravka Ugresic, Thank You for Not Reading (2001, trans. Celia Hawkesworth and Damion Searls)

JUNE

Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

Adam Mars-Jones, Lantern Lecture (1981)

David Foster Wallace, The Broom of the System (1987)

Phyllis Rose, The Shelf (2014)

Sarah Manguso, Ongoingness (2015)

José Saramago, The Stone Raft (1986, trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys (1995)

JULY

Frank Belknap Long, Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside (1975)

H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness (1936)

Anne Fadiman, At Large and at Small (2007)

Paul Metcalf and Clare Spark, Enter Isabel (1991)

Charles Olson, Call Me Ishmael (1947)

Sam Shelstad, The Cobra and the Key (2023)

P. G. Wodehouse, A Prefect’s Uncle (1903)

Henry David Thoreau, The Maine Woods (1864)

AUGUST

Lynne Tillman, Bookstore (1999)

David Graeber, Debt (2011)

Ricardo Piglia, Target in the Night (2010, trans. Sergio Waisman)

Trina Moyles, Lookout (2021)

Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (1985)

SEPTEMBER

Michele K. Troy, Strange Bird (2017)

Steven Moore, Dalkey Days (2023)

Harry Crews, The Mulching of America (1995)

Brian Michael Murphy, We the Dead (2022)

Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Reputations (2013, trans. Anne McLean)

J. L. Carr, The Battle of Pollocks Crossing (1985)

Elaine Dewar, The Takeover (2017)

Stephen Marche, Love and the Mess We’re In (2012)

OCTOBER

Stuart Ross, Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer (2005) (re-read)

Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist (2023)

David A. Randall, Dukedom Large Enough (1969)

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929)

Muriel Spark, The Comforters (1957)

Cole Nowicki, Right, Down + Circle (2023)

August Derleth, Thirty Years of Arkham House: 1939–1969 (1970)

Joyce Carol Oates, The Female of the Species (2005)

H. P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror (1929)

John McPhee, Tabula Rasa (2023)

NOVEMBER

Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel, Dayswork (2023)

Emmanuel Carrére, Gothic Romance (1984, trans. Lanie Goodman)

Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone (2015, trans. Susan Bernofsky)

Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (1981)

Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin (2019, trans. Shaun Whiteside)

Fred Bason, Fred Bason’s Third Diary (1955)

DECEMBER

André Schiffrin, The Business of Books (2000)

Alasdair Gray, Poor Things (1992)

Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay, Quantum Criminals (2023)

Paul Caruana Galizia, A Death in Malta (2023)

G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)

P. G. Wodehouse, Something Fresh (1915)

* * * * *

NUMBERS AND PICKS

Fiction: 46/84 (55%)

Non-fiction: 38/84 (45%)

Books in translation: 13/84 (15%)

Pre-2000: 42/84 (50%)

Post-2000: 42/84 (50%)

Most-read author: Chris Bachelder, Fred Bason, Penelope Fitzgerald, H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen Marche, Philip Roth, Kurt Vonnegut, P. G. Wodehouse (2 each)

Favourite fiction: At the Mountains of Madness, The Cobra and the Key, The Counterlife, Lantern Lecture, Lonesome Dove

Favourite non-fiction: Dickens and Prince, Dukedom Large Enough, Lookout, Quantum Criminals, Walden

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2023: 10

2020s: 8

2010s: 17

2000s: 7

1990s: 8

1980s: 10

1970s: 4

1960s: 5

1950s: 4

1940s: 2

1930s: 1

1920s: 3

1910s: 1

1900s: 2

1800s: 2

What I Read: 2022

JANUARY

Karl O. Knausgaard, A Time for Everything (2004, trans. James Anderson)

William T. Vollmann, Whores for Gloria (1991)

Magda Szabo, The Door (1987, trans. Len Rix)

David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon (2017)

Shirley Jackson, Life Among the Savages (1952)

Luis Fernando Verissimo, Borges and the Eternal Orangutans (2000, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

FEBRUARY

A.S. Byatt, Possession (1990)

Helene Hanff, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street (1973)

James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

MARCH

Kevin Birmingham, The Most Dangerous Book (2014)

Sheila Hodges, Gollancz: The Story of a Publishing House (1978)

Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian (1951, trans. Grace Frick)

Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels (1917)

APRIL

J. Robert Lennon, Mailman (2003)

Claire Harman, Murder By the Book (2018)

Daniel Pennac, Better than Life (1992, trans. David Homel)

J. R. Ackerley, My Dog Tulip (1956)

Omar Mouallem, Praying to the West (2021)

MAY

John Baxter, A Pound of Paper (2002)

Margerie Bonner, The Shapes that Creep (1946)

Percival Everett, God’s Country (1994)

Reinaldo Arenas, Singing from the Well (1982, trans. Andrew Hurley)

Isabella Tree, Wilding (2018)

JUNE

Robert Aickman, Painted Devils (1979)

Chris Bachelder, Lessons in Virtual Tour Photography (2004)

Philippe Beaussant, Rendezvous in Venice (2003, trans. Paul Buck and Catherine Petit)

Javier Marias, Venice, an Interior (1988, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Elena Ferrante, The Lying Life of Adults (2019, trans. Ann Goldstein)

Ray Bradbury, Green Shadows, White Whale (1992)

Thomas F. Madden, Venice: A New History (2012)

Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts (2018, trans. Jhumpa Lahiri)

JULY

Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (1889)

Marius Kociejowski, A Factotum in the Book Trade (2022)

Tiziano Scarpa, Venice Is a Fish (2000, trans. Shaun Whiteside)

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883)

Giovanni Guareschi, My Secret Diary (1958, trans. Frances Frenaye)

César Aira, Artforum (2014, trans. Katherine Silver)

P. G. Wodehouse, Louder and Funnier (1932)

Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist (2009) (re-read)

AUGUST

Yoko Tawada, Scattered All Over the Earth (2018, trans. Margaret Mitsutani)

Yoko Ogawa, The Memory Police (1994, trans. Stephen Snyder)

Scholastique Mukasonga, Our Lady of the Nile (2012, trans. Melanie Mauthner)

Philip Roth, The Facts (1988)

Philip Roth, The Ghost Writer (1979)

Charles Portis, Gringos (1991)

Salman Rushdie, Joseph Anton (2012)

Bruce Chatwin, Utz (1988)

Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent (1907)

SEPTEMBER

Philip Roth, Zuckerman Unbound (1981)

Philip Roth, The Anatomy Lesson (1983)

Hershel Parker, Melville Biography: An Inside Narrative (2012)

Victor Pelevin, The Helmet of Horror (2005, trans. Andrew Bromfield)

Kate Beaton, Ducks (2022)

Malcolm Bradbury, Mensonge (1987)

OCTOBER

Joan Didion, Let Me Tell You What I Mean (2021)

Jason Guriel, On Browsing (2022)

Heather Havrilesky, Foreverland (2022)

Ander Monson, Predator (2022)

M. R. James, The Haunted Dolls’ House (2008)

Stephen King, Misery (1987)

NOVEMBER

Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca (1938)

Larry McMurtry, Books (2008)

Helen DeWitt, The English Understand Wool (2022)

César Aira, The Famous Magician (2013, trans. Chris Andrews)

Steven Millhauser, The King in the Tree (2003)

Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995, trans. Jay Rubin)

Naben Ruthnum, Helpmeet (2022)

John Steinbeck, Cannery Row (1945)

DECEMBER

P. G. Wodehouse, Carry On, Jeeves (1925)

Daniel Sada, One Out of Two (2002, trans. Katherine Silver)

David Shields, The Very Last Interview (2022)

Georges Perec, Life a User’s Manual (1978, trans. David Bellos)

Tom Bissell, Magic Hours (2012)

Chuck Klosterman, The Nineties (2022)

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851) (re-read)

Philip Roth, The Prague Orgy (1985)

* * * * *

SOME NUMBERS NOW

Fiction: 47/76 (62%)

Non-fiction: 29/76 (38%)

Books in translation: 21/76 (28%)

Pre-2000: 38/76 (50%)

Post-2000: 38/76 (50%)

Most-read author: Philip Roth (5)

Favourite fiction: Cannery Row, The Ghost Writer, Gringos, Memoirs of Hadrian, A Time for Everything

Favourite non-fiction: Life Among the Savages, The Most Dangerous Book, The Nineties, Predator, Venice: A New History

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2022: 9

2020s: 2

2010s: 14

2000s: 13

1990s: 8

1980s: 10

1970s: 5

1950s: 4

1940s: 2

1930s: 2

1920s: 2

1910s: 1

1900s: 1

1800s: 3

What I Read: 2021

JANUARY

Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007)

Dorian Lynskey, The Ministry of Truth (2019)

Sylvia Townsend Warner, Mr. Fortune’s Maggot (1927)

Horacio Castellanos Moya, Revulsion (1997, trans. Lee Klein)

Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel (2020)

Alberto Manguel, Stevenson Under the Palm Trees (2002)

Brian Burke (with Stephen Brunt), Burke’s Law (2020)

FEBRUARY

Javier Marías, Written Lives (1999, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels (1967)

George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021)

Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho (1991)

George Saunders, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (1996)

George Saunders and Lane Smith, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip (2000)

André Alexis, Fifteen Dogs (2015)

Patricia Lockwood, No One Is Talking About This (2021)

MARCH

Mikhail Bulgakov, Black Snow (1967, trans. Michael Glenny)

Patrik Svensson, The Book of Eels (2019, trans. Agnes Broomé)

Don Carpenter, Hard Rain Falling (1966)

Jess Walter, The Cold Millions (2020)

Michel Houellebecq, Whatever (1994, trans. Paul Hammond)

Neil Gaiman, M Is for Magic (2007)

APRIL

Frederick Exley, A Fan’s Notes (1968)

Tim Krabbé, The Vanishing (1984, trans. Claire Nicolas White)

Ronan Farrow, Catch and Kill (2019)

Marguerite Yourcenar, Oriental Tales (1938, trans. Alberto Manguel)

John Sherwood, A Shot in the Arm (1982)

Harold Billings, M. P. Shiel: A Biography of His Early Years (2005)

MAY

Keith Houston, Shady Characters (2013)

J. Robert Lennon, Let Me Think (2021)

Josh Cook, The Least We Can Do (2021)

Deborah Cadbury, Chocolate Wars (2010)

Robert Lloyd Parry (ed.), Ghosts of the Chit-Chat (2020)

Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2009, trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones)

Mike Michalowicz, Profit First (2017)

Amos Tutuola, The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952)

JUNE

Alberto Manguel, Packing My Library (2018)

Andrey Kurkov, The Gardener from Ochakov (2011, trans. Amanda Love Darragh)

Charles Portis, Norwood (1966)

Sarah Bakewell, How to Live (2010)

Kevin Wilson, The Family Fang (2011)

JULY

Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow, Volume One: Fever and Spear (2002, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow, Volume Two: Dance and Dream (2004, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow, Volume Three: Poison, Shadow and Farewell (2007, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris (1998)

Nicholas Royle, White Spines (2021)

John Williams, Butcher’s Crossing (1960)

Bohumil Hrabal, I Served the King of England (1971, trans. Paul Wilson)

AUGUST

David Mason, The Pope’s Bookbinder (2013)

David Lodge, Changing Places (1975)

David Lodge, Small World (1984)

Piet Schreuders, The Book of Paperbacks (1981, trans. Josh Pachter)

Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch (2013)

SEPTEMBER

Mark Doten, Trump Sky Alpha (2019)

Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump (2013, trans. K.A. Yoshida and David Mitchell)

Donald Barthelme, The King (1990)

Pierre Bayard, Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? (1998, trans. Carol Cosman)

Hershel Parker, Herman Melville: A Biography (Volume 1, 1819–1851) (1996)

Ashley Bristowe, My Own Blood (2021)

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day (1989)

OCTOBER

Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (2005)

P.G. Wodehouse, The Girl in Blue (1970)

Douglas Wolk, All of the Marvels (2021)

Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933)

A.J.A. Symons, The Quest for Corvo (1934)

NOVEMBER

Robert Sullivan, Rats (2004)

J.L. Carr, A Month in the Country (1980)

W. Davenport Adams, By-Ways in Book-Land (1888)

Nicholson Baker, A Box of Matches (2003)

Grant Richards, Author Hunting (1934)

M.P. Shiel, The Lost Viol (1905)

Michael Chabon, Pops (2018)

DECEMBER

Walter Tevis, The Queen’s Gambit (1983)

Stephen King, Danse Macabre (1981)

Kevin Lowe, Champions (1988)

Javier Marías, Berta Isla (2017, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

John Wyndham, The Chrysalids (1955)

* * * * *

SOME NUMBERS NOW

Fiction: 46/77 (60%)

Non-fiction: 31/77 (40%)

Books in translation: 17/77 (22%)

Most-read author: Javier Marías (5)

Favourite fiction: Butcher’s Crossing, Hard Rain Falling, Let Me Think, A Month in the Country, Your Face Tomorrow

Favourite non-fiction: How to Live, The Pope’s Bookbinder, The Quest for Corvo, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2021: 7

2020s: 4

2010s: 18

2000s: 11

1990s: 9

1980s: 9

1970s: 4

1960s: 6

1950s: 2

1930s: 4

1920s: 1

1900s: 1

1800s: 1

What I Read: 2020

JANUARY

Jay Baruchel, Born Into It (2018) (CDN)

Emily Chu (and friends), On-Location YEG (2019) (CDN)*

Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda (1894)

W. G. Sebald, The Emigrants (1992, trans. Michael Hulse)

Javier Marias, All Souls (1989, trans. Margaret Jull Costa) (re-read)

David Shields and Matthew Vollmer (eds.), Fakes (2012)

Mark Forsyth, The Unknown Unknown (2014)

Javier Marias, Dark Back of Time (1998, trans. Esther Allen) (re-read)

FEBRUARY

Javier Marias, Between Eternities (2017, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Leah Price, What We Talk About When We Talk About Books (2019)

George Bowering, No One (2018) (CDN)

Douglas Hunter, The Glory Barons (1999) (CDN)

David Markson, Wittgenstein’s Mistress (1988)

MARCH

Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, The Space Merchants (1953)

Seth, Clyde Fans (2019) (CDN)

Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing (2019)

Paul Myers and S. W. Lauden (eds.), Go All the Way (2019)

APRIL

Dubravka Ugresic, Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (2007, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursac, Celia Hawkesworth, and Mark Thompson)

M. P. Shiel, The Rajah’s Sapphire (1896)

Eva Holland, Nerve (2020) (CDN)

Charles Portis, True Grit (1968)

Elizabeth Von Arnim, The Enchanted April (1922)

Giorgio van Straten, In Search of Lost Books (2016, trans. Simon Carnell and Erica Segre)

B. S. Johnson, The Unfortunates (1969)

MAY

Shaun Assael and Mike Mooneyham, Sex, Lies, and Headlocks (2002)

Janice Galloway, The Trick Is to Keep Breathing (1989)

Roald Dahl, The Witches (1983)

Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, Where Wizards Stay Up Late (1996)

Jon Mooallem, This Is Chance! (2020)

M. Ann Hall, The Grads Are Playing Tonight! (2011) (CDN)*

Tove Jansson, The Summer Book (1972, trans. Thomas Teal)

Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (1999)

JUNE

Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City (2003)

Fritz Leiber, The Second Book of Fritz Leiber (1975)

Nicholson Baker, U and I (1991) (re-read)

James Baldwin, Another Country (1962)

Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)

JULY

Katie Hafner, A Romance on Three Legs (2008)

Sally Dennison, Alternative Literary Publishing (1984)

Vladimir Nabokov, Laughter in the Dark (1932)

Tom O’Neill (with Dan Pienpenbring), Chaos (2019)

Brice Matthieussent, Revenge of the Translator (2009, trans. Emma Ramadan)

Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House (2019)

Didier Van Cauwelaert, One-Way (1994, trans. Mark Polizzotti)

Nicholas A. Basbanes, Among the Gently Mad (2002)

AUGUST

Ngozi Ukazu, Check, Please! (Vol. 1: #Hockey) (2018)

Barbara Comyns, The Vet’s Daughter (1959)

César Aira, Ema, The Captive (1981, trans. Chris Andrews)

Andy Mulvihill (with Jake Rossen), Action Park (2020)

Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)

Steve “Dangle” Glynn, This Team Is Ruining My Life (But I Love Them) (2019) (CDN)

SEPTEMBER

B. Traven, The Night Visitor and Other Stories (1966)

Rick Gekoski, Nabokov’s Butterfly (2004)

Elvis Costello, Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink (2015)

David Walliams, Fing (2019)

Arthur Machen, Tales of Horror and the Supernatural (1948)

M. P. Shiel, Science, Life and Literature (1950)

Sandrine Revel, Glenn Gould: A Life Off Tempo (2016, trans. Montana Kane)

Aubrey Beardsley, Under the Hill (1904)

Roald Dahl, The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me (1985)

A. Kendra Greene, The Museum of Whales You Will Never See (2020)

OCTOBER

Irmgard Keun, Gilgi (1931, trans. Geoff Wilkes)

Robert Musil, Young Torless (1906, trans. Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser)

Steve Martin, Born Standing Up (2007)

Peter Goddard, The Great Gould (2017) (CDN)

Flann O’Brien, The Dalkey Archive (1964)

R. H. Malden, The Sundial (1943)

Daphne du Maurier, The Apple Tree (1952)

Juan Pablo Villalobos, Quesadillas (2012, trans. Rosalind Harvey)

NOVEMBER

Albert Camus, The Plague (1947, trans. Robin Buss)

Tom Wolfe, Hooking Up (2000)

Andy Stanton, You’re a Bad Man, Mr. Gum! (2006)

Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern, Old Books, Rare Friends (1997)

Kevin Chong, The Plague (2018) (CDN)

Andrew Delbanco, Melville: His World and Work (2005)

Jean Giono, Melville (1941, trans. Paul Eprile)

Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror (2019)

DECEMBER

Andy Stanton, Mr. Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire (2007)

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1869)

Samantha Irby, Wow, No Thank You (2020)

Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle (2014)

Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)

Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York (2003)

Vivan Gornick, Unfinished Business (2020)

Nathaniel Philbrick, Why Read Moby-Dick? (2011)

Roy Harley Lewis, Antiquarian Books (1978)

* * * * *

SOME NUMBERS NOW

Fiction: 45/86 (52%)

Non-fiction: 41/86 (48%)

Books in translation: 16/86 (19%)

Male authors: 59/86 (69%)

Female authors: 27/86 (31%)

Canadian authors: 9/86 (10%)

Most-read author: Javier Marias (3)

Favourite book: True Grit (fiction), The Grads Are Playing Tonight! (non-fiction), Chaos (audiobook)

Obvious five-star classics: Another Country, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Plague (Camus), The Space Merchants, True Grit

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2020: 6

2010s: 25

2000s: 13

1990s: 8

1980s: 8

1970s: 3

1960s: 5

1950s: 4

1940s: 4

1930s: 2

1920s: 2

1900s: 2

1800s: 3

1700s: 1

What I Read: 2019

JANUARY

John Gawsworth, Poems: 1930-1932 (1933)

Wayne Gretzky with Rick Reilly, Gretzky: An Autobiography (1990) (CDN)

Jorge Carrión, Bookshops: A Reader’s History (2013, trans. Peter Bush)

Roberto Bolaño, The Return (1997/2001, trans. Chris Andrews)

Helen Potrebenko, Taxi! (1975) (CDN)

Boris Kachka, Hothouse (2013)

Errol Morris, Hear, All Ye People; Hearken, O Earth (2015)

FEBRUARY

Merilyn Simonds, Gutenberg’s Fingerprint (2017) (CDN)

Joseph Mitchell, Joe Gould’s Secret (1964)

Thomas Kunkel, Man in Profile (2015)

Wieslaw Mysliwski, Stone Upon Stone (1999, trans. Bill Johnston)

Nicholas Hirshon, We Want Fish Sticks (2018)

MARCH

Emily Schultz, The Blondes (2012) (CDN)

Susan Orlean, The Library Book (2018)

Jill Lepore, Joe Gould’s Teeth (2016)

M. P. Shiel, How the Old Woman Got Home (1927)

Enrique Vila-Matas, Vampire in Love (2016, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

APRIL

Bruce Cinnamon, The Melting Queen (2019) (CDN)*

David Albahari, Learning Cyrillic (2012, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursac) (CDN)*

Robin Sloan, Sourdough (2017)

Robert Williamson, The Cruise of the Schooner Driftwood (1962) (CDN)

Nicholson Baker, Double Fold (2001)

Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Satantango (1985, trans. George Szirtes)

MAY

Arthur Machen, The Great God Pan (1894)

Bruce Handy, Wild Things (2017)

Waubgeshig Rice, Moon of the Crusted Snow (2018) (CDN)

Lucy Ellmann, I Dated Graham Greene (2019)

Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch (1992)

Jason Purcell, A Place More Hospitable (2019) (CDN)*

Dave Cullen, Columbine (2009)

JUNE

Roy MacSkimming, The Perilous Trade (2003, updated 2007) (CDN)

Marc Weingarten, The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight (2006)

Lynne Tillman, American Genius (2006)

Elizabeth Hardwick, Herman Melville (Penguin Lives) (2000)

Heidi L. M. Jacobs, Molly of the Mall (2019) (CDN)*

Helene Hanff, 84, Charing Cross Road (1970)

JULY

John Metcalf, An Aesthetic Underground (2003) (CDN)

John Metcalf, Going Down Slow (1972) (CDN)

Haruki Murakami, Birthday Girl (2002, trans. Jay Rubin)

Kristen Roupenian, Cat Person (2018)

Stephen King, It (1986)

AUGUST

Anthony Rota, Books in the Blood (2002)

Javier Marias, Voyage Along the Horizon (1972, trans. Kristina Cordero)

Martha Cooley, The Archivist (1998)

Alejandro Zambra, Multiple Choice (2014, trans. Megan McDowell)

Roberto Bolaño, The Spirit of Science Fiction (2016, trans. Natasha Wimmer)

Jon Wynne-Tyson, Finding the Words (2004) (re-read)

Charles Wrey Gardiner, The Answer to Life Is No (1960)

Jon Wynne-Tyson, Anything Within Reason (1994)

SEPTEMBER

Jon Wynne-Tyson, The Civilised Alternative (1972)

A. Reynolds Morse, The Quest for Redonda (1979)

Rachel Cusk, The Lucky Ones (2004)

John Orrell, Fallen Empires (1981) (CDN)*

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) (CDN)

Tom McCarthy, Remainder (2005)

OCTOBER

Don DeLillo, Libra (1988)

David Albahari, Checkpoint (2010, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursac) (CDN)*

Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon (1865, trans. uncredited)

Jules Verne, Round the Moon (1870, trans. uncredited)

Helen Macdonald, H Is for Hawk (2014)

NOVEMBER

Naguib Mahfouz, Adrift on the Nile (1966, trans. Frances Liardet)

Jon Wynne-Tyson, So Say Banana Bird (1984)

Robert Coram, Caribbean Time Bomb (1993)

Richard Kelly Kemick, I Am Herod (2019) (CDN)*

Gabriel Zaid, So Many Books (2003, trans. Natasha Wimmer)

Gillian Flynn, The Grownup (2014)

DECEMBER

John McPhee, Encounters with the Archdruid (1971)

Margaret Atwood, The Testaments (2019) (CDN)

Frank Cowper, Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk (1889)

Elizabeth Gaskell, The Old Nurse’s Story (1852)

H. Russell Wakefield, The Red Lodge (1928)

Walter de la Mare, The Green Room (1925)

Summer Brennan, High Heel (2019)

Alvaro Enrigue, Sudden Death (2013, trans. Natasha Wimmer)

Sally Rooney, Normal People (2018)

* * * * *

SOME NUMBERS NOW

Fiction: 42/75 (56%)

Non-fiction: 31/75 (41%)

Poetry: 2/75 (3%)

Books in translation: 16/75 (21%)

Male authors: 55/75 (73%)

Female authors: 20/75 (27%)

Canadian authors: 18/75 (24%)

Most-read author: Jon Wynne-Tyson (4)

Favourite book: Stone Upon Stone (fiction), Joe Gould’s Teeth (non-fiction)

Obvious five-star classics: Taxi!, Joe Gould’s Secret, The Great God Pan, From the Earth to the Moon

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2019: 7

2010s: 22

2000s: 13.5

1990s: 6.5

1980s: 6

1970s: 7

1960s: 4

1930s: 1

1920s: 3

1800s: 5

What I Read: 2018

JANUARY

Pamela Paul, My Life with Bob (2017)

Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus (1990)

Kurt Vonnegut, Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)

Astrid Lindgren, The Children of Noisy Village (1961, trans. Florence Lamborn)

Nikolai Gogol, Taras Bulba (1835, trans. Andrew Gregorovich)

Eula Biss, On Immunity (2014)

Steve Almond, Candyfreak (2004)

Anne Swannell, Mall (1993) (CDN)

Eric Wilson, Code Red at the Supermall (1988) (CDN)

FEBRUARY

Richard Van Camp, The Lesser Blessed (1996) (CDN)

Volker Weidermann, Ostend (2014, trans. Carol Brown Janeway)

Victoria Jamieson, Roller Girl (2015)

MARCH

Marius Kociejowski, The Pebble Chance (2014) (CDN)

William T. Vollmann, You Bright and Risen Angels (1987)

Alfred Hitchcock, The Murder of Monty Woolley (2013)

Kelly Link, Stone Animals (2004)

Donald Barthelme, A Manual for Sons (1975)

Fouad Laroui, The Curious Case of Dassoukine's Trousers (2012, trans. Emma Ramadan)

APRIL

Alberto Manguel, A Reading Diary (2004)

Jon Wynne-Tyson, Finding the Words (2004)

Tom Gauld, Mooncop (2016)

Peter Miller, Dusty Springfield (2017)

John McPhee, Looking for a Ship (1990)

MAY

Ali Bryan, The Figgs (2018) (CDN)*

Sara Levine, Treasure Island!!! (2012)

Stefan Zweig, Beware of Pity (1939, trans. Phyllis and Trevor Blewitt)

Cyrus Bozorgmehr, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin (2017)

JUNE

Patricia Highsmith, Eleven (1970)

Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, Book Five (2010, trans. Don Bartlett)

David McKnight, Experiment: Printing the Canadian Imagination (2018) (CDN)

M. P. Shiel, The Purple Cloud (1901)

JULY

Nathan Ripley, Find You in the Dark (2018) (CDN)

César Aira, The Linden Tree (2003, trans. Chris Andrews)

Kevin Barry, Beatlebone (2015)

Harold Billings, M.P. Shiel: The Middle Years (1897-1923) (2010)

Sam Anderson, Boom Town (2018)

AUGUST

Helen DeWitt, Some Trick (2018)

Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends (2017)

Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838)

Mat Johnson, Pym (2011)

Deborah Levy, Things I Don't Want to Know (2013)

Deborah Levy, The Cost of Living (2018)

Vivek Shraya, I'm Afraid of Men (2018) (CDN)*

M. P. Shiel, Shapes in the Fire (1896)

SEPTEMBER

Jerry Spinelli, Maniac Magee (1990)

Liliana Heker, Please Talk to Me (2015, trans. Alberto Manguel and Miranda France)

Harold Billings, An Ossuary for M.P. Shiel (2015)

Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night (2006)

Art of McSweeney’s (2010)

Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman (1976, trans. Thomas Colchie)

Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth (2018) (CDN)

M. P. Shiel, Prince Zaleski (1895)

OCTOBER

Lisa Moore, Something for Everyone (2018) (CDN)

Roald Dahl, The Twits (1980) (re-read; read with Finn)

Paula Morris, False River (2017)

Ian Boothby and Nina Matsumoto, Sparks! (2018) (CDN)

Jeffrey Brown, Lucy and Andy Neanderthal: Bad to the Bones (2018)

Ondjaki, Transparent City (2012, trans. Stephen Henighan)

Cait Flanders, The Year of Less (2018) (CDN)

Kelly Shepherd, Insomnia Bird (2018) (CDN)*

NOVEMBER

Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925, trans. Willa and Edwin Muir)

Franz Kafka, Amerika (1927, trans. Edwin Muir)

Sheila Heti, Motherhood (2018) (CDN)

Keith Ridgway, Hawthorn & Child (2012)

Keith Ridgway, Never Love a Gambler (2001)

DECEMBER

Lizzy Goodman, Meet Me in the Bathroom (2017)

Madeleine Thien, Hiroshige Takes the SkyTrain (2017) (CDN)

Cormac McCarthy, Outer Dark (1968)

Matt Prins, ed., Instant Books Are Your Future, #6 (2013) (CDN)*

Ken Reid, One Night Only (2016) (CDN)

Dave Bidini, A Wild Stab for It (2012) (CDN)

Juan José Saer, Scars (1969, trans. Steve Dolph)

Bob Cole and Stephen Brunt, Now I’m Catching On (2016) (CDN)

* * * * *

SOME NUMBERS NOW

Fiction: 47/73 (64%)

Non-fiction: 24/73 (33%)

Books in translation: 13/73 (18%)

Male authors: 51/73 (70%)

Female authors: 22/73 (30%)

Canadian authors: 19/73 (26%)

Most-read author: M. P. Shiel (3)

Favourite book: Eleven (fiction), Boom Town (non-fiction)

Obvious five-star classics: Beware of Pity, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, The Purple Cloud, The Trial

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2018: 14

2010s: 28

2000s: 7

1990s: 5

1980s: 3

1970s: 3

1960s: 4

1930s: 1

1920s: 2

1900s: 1

1800s: 4

What I Read: 2017

JANUARY

Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003) (re-read; read with Bridget)

Tom Angleberger and Cece Bell, Inspector Flytrap (2016) (read with Finn)

Linsay Knight (ed.), Stories for 6 Year Olds (2014) (read with Finn)

Diane Cook, Man v. Nature (2014)

Guillaume Morissette, New Tab (2014) (CDN)

Nevin Martell, Looking for Calvin and Hobbes (2009) (re-read)

Enrique Vila-Matas, The Illogic of Kassel (2014, trans. Anne McLean and Anna Milsom)

Richard Rosenbaum, Raise Some Shell (2014) (CDN) (re-read)

FEBRUARY

Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (2005)

John McPhee, The Crofter and the Laird (1970)

Steven Sherrill, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break (2000)

Vladimir Sorokin, Day of the Oprichnik (2006, trans. Jamey Gambrell)

Victor Pelevin, The Blue Lantern (1994, trans. Andrew Bromfield)

Jim Westergard, Oddballs (2015) (CDN)*

MARCH

Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010)

Jesse Ruddock, Shot-Blue (2017) (CDN)

Mark Sampson, The Slip (2017) (CDN)

Positive Power: The Story of the Edmonton Oilers (1982) (CDN)

Terry McConnell, J'Lyn Nye, and Peter Pocklington, I'd Trade Him Again (2009) (CDN)*

Chris Eliopoulos, Mr. Puzzle Super Collection (2014) (read with Finn)

Martine Leavitt, Calvin (2015) (CDN)*

Michael Dirda, Caring for Your Books (1990)

APRIL

Caroline Adderson, I, Bruno (2007) (CDN) (read with Finn)

Caroline Adderson, Jasper John Dooley: Star of the Week (2012) (CDN) (read with Finn)

J. F. Powers, Morte D'Urban (1962)

MAY

Stuart Ross, Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer (CDN) (2005)

Jesse Ball, A Cure for Suicide (2015)

Donald Antrim, The Verificationist (2000)

Hidenori Kusaka and Mato, Pokemon Adventures: Volume One (1997) (read with Finn)

Alain de Botton, The News: A User's Manual (2014)

Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist (1999)

Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son (1992)

JUNE

Denis Johnson, The Laughing Monsters (2014)

Hidenori Kusaka and Mato, Pokemon Adventures: Volume Two (1997) (read with Finn)

Diane Schoemperlen, One Thing Leads to Another (2017) (CDN)

Caroline Adderson, Jasper John Dooley: Left Behind (2013) (CDN) (read with Finn)

Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano (1947)

JULY

Georges Perec, The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise (1968, trans. David Bellos)

Caroline Adderson, Jasper John Dooley: Not in Love (2014) (CDN) (read with Finn)

Ismail Kadare, The File on H. (1981, trans. David Bellos and Jusuf Vrioni)

Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone, Used and Rare (1997)

Josh O'Kane, Nowhere with You (2016) (CDN)

Javier Marias, To Begin at the Beginning (2016, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Javier Marias, While the Women Are Sleeping (1990, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Caroline Adderson, Jasper John Dooley: You're in Trouble (2015) (CDN) (read with Finn)

AUGUST

Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988, trans. Patrick Creagh)

Hidenori Kusaka and Mato, Pokemon Adventures: Volume Three (1997) (read with Finn)

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)

Caroline Adderson, Jasper John Dooley: Lost and Found (2015) (CDN) (read with Finn)

Rebecca Schiff, The Bed Moved (2016)

SEPTEMBER

César Aira, The Little Buddhist Monk / The Proof (1998/2006, trans. Nick Caistor)

Hidenori Kusaka and Mato, Pokemon Adventures: Volume Four (1998) (read with Finn)

Karl Ove Knausgaard, Autumn (2015, trans. Ingvild Burkey)

John Clarke, The Tournament (2002)

Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint (1969)

OCTOBER

Naben Ruthnum, Curry (2017) (CDN)

Eliza Robertson, Wallflowers (2014) (CDN)

Deborah Willis, The Dark and Other Love Stories (2017) (CDN)*

Eva Crocker, Barrelling Forward (2017) (CDN)

Kevin Hardcastle, Debris (2015) (CDN)

Thomas King, The Inconvenient Indian (2012) (CDN)

Taylor Lambert, Darwin's Moving (2017) (CDN)*

NOVEMBER

Paul de Fortis (ed.), The Kingdom of Redonda: 1865-1990 (1991)

Zadie Smith, Swing Time (2016)

John Green, Turtles All the Way Down (2017)

Marion Rankine, Brolliology (2017)

DECEMBER

Julio Cortazar, Blow-Up and Other Stories (1963, trans. Paul Blackburn)

Eli Horowitz, The Pickle Index (2015)

William Gass, On Being Blue (1976)

Greg Rhyno, To Me You Seem Giant (2017) (CDN)

Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912) (CDN)

Charles Dickens, The Signalman (1860)

A. M. Burrage, One Who Saw (1931)

E. F. Benson, How Fear Departed the Long Gallery (1912)

Algernon Blackwood, The Empty House (1906)

Tom Gauld, You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack (2013)

Chris Bachelder, The Throwback Special (2016)

* * * * *

SOME NUMBERS NOW

Fiction: 55/77 (71%)

Non-fiction:  22/77 (29%)

Books in translation: 11/77 (14%)

Male authors: 57/77 (74%)

Female authors: 18/77 (23%)

Canadian authors: 26/77 (34%)

Most-read author: Caroline Adderson (6)

Favourite not-new book: The Intuitionist

Obvious classics: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Inconvenient Indian, Jesus' Son, Portnoy's Complaint, Under the Volcano

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2017: 10

2010s: 29

2000s: 11

1990s: 12

1980s: 3

1970s: 2

1960s: 5

1940s: 1

1930s: 1

1910s: 2

1900s: 1

1800s: 1

What I Read: 2016

JANUARY

Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star (1977, trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

Roberto Bolaño, Monsieur Pain (1999, trans. Chris Andrews)

Christopher Oldstone-Moore, Of Beards and Men (2016)

Andrew Schartmann, Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack (33 1/3) (2015)

Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project (2008)

Erika Janik, Apple: A Global History (2011)

Rafael Chirbes, On the Edge (2013, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

FEBRUARY

Jonah Keri, Up, Up, and Away (2014) (CDN)

Evelyn Waugh, Scoop (1938)

Mary Pilon, The Monopolists (2015)

Jacques Jouet, My Beautiful Bus (2003, trans. Eric Lamb)

Daniel Levin Becker, Many Subtle Channels (2012)

MARCH

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (1972, trans. William Weaver)

Michèle Audin, One Hundred Twenty-One Days (2014, trans. Christiana Hills)

A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)

Helen Ellis, American Housewife (2016)

Errol Morris, Believing Is Seeing (2011)

Leland Carlson, Dull Men of Great Britain (2015)

Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, The Professor and the Siren (1961, trans. Stephen Twilley)

China Mieville, This Census-Taker (2016)

Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail (ed.), In This Together (2016) (CDN)*

APRIL

Mark Lisac, Where the Bodies Lie (2016) (CDN)*

Vivek Shraya, Even This Page Is White (2016) (CDN)*

Cordelia Strube, On the Shores of Darkness, There Is Light (2016) (CDN)

Helen Oyeyemi, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours (2016)

Nevin Martell, Looking for Calvin and Hobbes (2009)

MAY

Richard Crouse, Elvis Is King (Pop Classics) (2015) (CDN)

Margaret Mackey, One Child Reading (2016) (CDN)*

Shane Jones, Light Boxes (2009)

Dan Vyleta, Smoke (2016) (CDN)

Michael Dirda, Browsings (2015)

Myrna Kostash, The Seven Oaks Reader (2016) (CDN)*

David Peace, Red or Dead (2013)

Scott Esposito, The Surrender (2016)

JUNE

Svetislav Basara, The Cyclist Conspiracy (1988, trans. Randall A. Major)

Michael Chabon, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988)

Michael Chabon, A Model World (1991)

Alex Gino, George (2015)

Bill Watterson, The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book (1995)

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

Inside Roald Dahl’s Writing Hut (2012)

JULY

Roald Dahl, Over to You (1946)

Donald Sturrock, Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl (2010)

Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr Fox (1970) (re-read)

Roald Dahl, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (1977)

Roald Dahl, Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life (1989)

Roald Dahl, Matilda (1988)

Jennet Conant, The Irregulars (2008)

AUGUST

Roald Dahl, My Uncle Oswald (1979)

Stephen Smith, Puckstruck (2014) (CDN)

Jay Hosking, Three Years with the Rat (2016) (CDN)

William Morris, Useful Work v. Useless Toil (1888)

John McPhee, Silk Parachute (2010)

SEPTEMBER

Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend (2012, trans. Ann Goldstein)

Bruce Dowbiggin, Ice Storm (2014) (CDN) (re-read)

Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name (2012, trans. Ann Goldstein)

Tom Solomon, Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Medicine (2017)

Shawna Richer, The Kid (2006) (CDN)

Dasha Tolstikova, A Year Without Mom (2015)

Marty Klinkenberg, The McDavid Effect (2016) (CDN)*

OCTOBER

John Swartzwelder, The Time Machine Did It (2004)

Vivian Gornick, The Odd Woman and the City (2015)

Camilo José Cela, The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942, trans. Anthony Kerrigan)

David Foster Wallace and Mark Costello, Signifying Rappers (1990)

Bill Watterson, Exploring Calvin and Hobbes (2014)

Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (2013, trans. Ann Goldstein)

NOVEMBER

Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child (2015, trans. Ann Goldstein)

Toni Morrison, Sula (1973)

Ander Monson, Letter to a Future Lover (2015)

George Bowering and Charles Demers, The Dad Dialogues (2016) (CDN)

DECEMBER

Emily Schultz, Men Walking on Water (2017) (CDN)

Evan Ratliff (ed.), Love and Ruin (2016)

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter, Hamilton: The Revolution (2016)

Jason Lee Norman, Help (2016) (CDN)*

Nicholson Baker, Substitute (2016)

* * * * *

SOME NUMBERS NOW

Fiction: 41/75 (55%) 

Non-fiction: 34/75 (45%)

Books in translation: 13/75 (17%)

Male authors: 51/75 (68%)

Female authors: 22/75 (29%)

Canadian authors: 17/75 (23%)

Most-read author: Roald Dahl (6)

Favourite new books: Hamilton: The Revolution, Substitute

Favourite not-new books: Ferrante; Many Subtle Channels; Red or Dead; Up, Up and Away

Obvious five-star classics: Frankenstein, Invisible Cities

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2017: 2

2016: 19

2010s: 26

2000s: 7

1990s: 4

1980s: 4

1970s: 5

1960s: 1

1940s: 2

1930s: 1

1920s: 1

1800s: 2

What I Read: 2015

JANUARY

Jan Wong, Out of the Blue (2012) (CDN)

John Vaillant, The Jaguar’s Children (2015) (CDN)

Michael Christie, The Beggar’s Garden (2011) (CDN)

Michael Christie, If I Fall, If I Die (2015) (CDN)

Timothy Caulfield, Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything? (2015) (CDN)*

Daniel Handler, The Basic Eight (1998)

Daniel Handler, We Are Pirates (2015)

Daniel Handler, Adverbs (2006)

FEBRUARY

Alix Hawley, All True Not a Lie in It (2015) (CDN)

Javier Marías, Dark Back of Time (1998, trans. Esther Allen)

Javier Marías, A Heart So White (1992, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Michael DeForge, Ant Colony (2014) (CDN)

Sean McIndoe, The Best of Down Goes Brown (2012) (CDN)

Myrl Coulter, A Year of Days (2015) (CDN)*

Andrey Kurkov, Death and the Penguin (1996, trans. George Bird)

MARCH

Andrey Kurkov, Ukraine Diaries (2014, trans. Sam Taylor)

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963)

Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist (2014)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists (2015)

Chris Leslie-Hynan, Ride Around Shining (2014)

Jean-Patrick Manchette, The Mad and the Bad (1972, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith)

Michel Houellebecq, The Map and the Territory (2010, trans. Gavin Bowd)

APRIL

Georges Perec, A Void (1969, trans. Gilbert Adair)

Jon Ronson, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed (2015)

Michael Paterniti, Love and Other Ways of Dying (2015)

Dan Rubinstein, Born to Walk (2015) (CDN)*

Han Kang, The Vegetarian (2007, trans. Deborah Smith)

David Peace, The Damned Utd (2006)

Horacio Castellanos Moya, The Dream of My Return (2013, trans. Katherine Silver)

MAY

Nicholson Baker, U and I (1991) (re-read)

J.C. Hallman, B and Me (2015)

Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, Book Four (2010, trans. Don Bartlett)

Jenny Erpenbeck, Visitation (2008, trans. Susan Bernofsky)

Vivek Shraya, ed., The Magnificent Malls of Edmonton (2015) (CDN)*

Patti LaBoucane-Benson and Kelly Mellings, The Outside Circle (2015) (CDN)*

Seth, The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists (2011) (CDN)

Geoffrey Gray, Skyjack (2011)

JUNE

Bret Hart, Hitman (2007) (CDN)*

Jurji Zaidan, The Girl of Ghassan (1897, trans. Basil Solounias)

Patrick deWitt, Undermajordomo Minor (2015) (CDN)

Kat Verhoeven, Towerkind (2015) (CDN)

Juan Filloy, Op Oloop (1934, trans. Lisa Dillman)

Stuart Ross, Further Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer (2015) (CDN)

Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women (1971) (CDN)

Jon Chan Simpson, Chinkstar (2015) (CDN)*

JULY

Tracey Lindberg, Birdie (2015) (CDN)*

Shawn Curtis Stibbards, The Video Watcher (2015) (CDN)

Alisa Ganieva, The Mountain and the Wall (2012, trans. Carol Apollonio)

Mikhail Shishkin, Calligraphy Lesson (2015, trans. Marian Schwartz, Leo Shtutin, Sylvia Maizell, and Mariya Bashkatova)

Sergio Pitol, The Art of Flight (1997, trans. George Henson)

Vivek Shraya, God Loves Hair (2010) (CDN)*

Greg Bechtel, Boundary Problems (2014) (CDN)*

Richard Van Camp, Angel Wing Splash Pattern (2002) (CDN)*

AUGUST

Russell Smith, Confidence (2015) (CDN)

Spencer Gordon, Cosmo (2012) (CDN)

Irina Kovalyova, Specimen (2015) (CDN)

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (2015)

Enrique Vila-Matas, A Brief History of Portable Literature (1985, trans. Anne McLean and Thomas Bunstead)

Adalbert Stifter, Rock Crystal (1845, trans. Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore)

Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver (1982, trans. Thomas Teal)

G.V. Desani, All About H. Hatterr (1948)

Jennifer Quist, Sistering (2015) (CDN)*

SEPTEMBER

Milan Kundera, The Curtain (2005, trans. Linda Asher)

Greg Hollingshead, Act Normal (2015) (CDN)*

Vivian Smith, Outsiders Still (2015) (CDN)

Antonio Tabucchi, Time Ages in a Hurry (2009, trans. Martha Cooley and Antonio Romani)

Valeria Luiselli, The Story of My Teeth (2013, trans. Christina MacSweeney)

OCTOBER

César Aira, The Musical Brain (2013, trans. Chris Andrews)

Peter Gzowski, The Game of Our Lives (1981) (CDN)

Mark Spector, The Battle of Alberta (2015) (CDN)*

John Vaillant, The Golden Spruce (2005) (CDN)

John McPhee, Oranges (1967)

NOVEMBER

William T. Vollmann, Poor People (2007)

Jenna Butler, A Profession of Hope (2015) (CDN)*

Meags Fitzgerald, Long Red Hair (2015) (CDN)*

Don Gillmor, Long Change (2015) (CDN)

Selma Lonning Aaro, I’m Coming (2013, trans. Kari Dickson)

César Aira, Dinner (2006, trans. Katherine Silver)

Carolyn Harris, Magna Carta and its Gifts to Canada (2015) (CDN)

Michel Houellebecq, Submission (2015, trans. Lorin Stein)

Shea Serrano, The Rap Year Book (2015)

DECEMBER

Anakana Schofield, Martin John (2015) (CDN)

Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume One: Summary (2015) (CDN)

Patrick Modiano, So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighborhood (2014, trans. Euan Cameron)

Errol Morris, A Wilderness of Error (2012)

Janet Malcolm, The Journalist and the Murderer (1990)

Bruce Dowbiggin, Ice Storm (2014) (CDN)

Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins (2012)

* * * * *

SOME NUMBERS NOW

Fiction: 53/88 (60%)

Non-fiction: 35/88 (40%)

Books in translation: 27/88 (31%)

Male authors: 64/88 (73%)

Female authors: 23/88 (26%)

Canadian authors: 40/88 (45%)

Most-read author: Daniel Handler (3)

Favourite not-new books: The Damned Utd, Skyjack, The Game of Our Lives, The Golden Spruce

Obvious five-star classics: The Fire Next Time, A Void, Rock Crystal

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2015: 34

2010s: 23

2000s: 11

1990s: 7

1980s: 3

1970s: 2

1960s: 3

1940s: 1

1930s: 1

1800s: 2

What I Read: 2014

JANUARY

Charles Yu, Sorry Please Thank You (2012)

Chip Kidd and Dave Taylor, Batman: Death by Design (2012)

Ismail Kadare, Agamemnon’s Daughter (2003, trans. David Bellos)

César Aira, The Hare (1991, trans. Nick Caistor)

Keith Gessen, All the Sad Young Literary Men (2008)

James Wynbrandt, The Excruciating History of Dentistry (1998)

Tomoko Mitani, Will Not Forget Both Laughter and Tears (2002, trans. Yukari F. Meldrum)

Dany Laferriere, I Am a Japanese Writer (2008, trans. David Homel) (CDN)

Dorthe Nors, Karate Chop (2008, trans. Martin Aitken)

FEBRUARY

A.L. Kennedy, All the Rage (2014)

Jessica Hiemstra and Lisa Martin-DeMoor, eds., How to Expect What You’re Not Expecting (2013) (CDN)*

Italo Svevo, As a Man Grows Older (1892, trans. Beryl de Zoete)

Austin Grossman, Soon I Will Be Invincible (2007)

Lorrie Moore, Bark (2014)

Raymond Queneau, Exercises in Style (1947, trans. Barbara Wright)

André Alexis, Pastoral (2014) (CDN)

MARCH

Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World (2004)

Vladimir Sorokin, The Queue (1985, trans. Sally Laird)

Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra (1991, trans. Andrew Bromfield)

Peter Norman, Emberton (2014) (CDN)

Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation (2014)

Padma Viswanathan, The Ever After of Ashwin Rao (2014) (CDN)

James Shapiro, Contested Will (2010)

César Aira, Shantytown (2001, trans. Chris Andrews)

Doretta Lau, How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun? (2014) (CDN)

APRIL

Arjun Basu, Waiting for the Man (2014) (CDN)

Douglas Roche, Peacemakers (2014) (CDN)*

Javier Marías, Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me (1994, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Harry Karlinsky, The Stonehenge Letters (2014) (CDN)

Dan Riskin, Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You (2014) (CDN)*

Enrique Vila-Matas, Montano’s Malady (2002, trans. Jonathan Dunne)

Reinaldo Arenas, The Doorman (1987, trans. Dolores M. Koch)

Jim Gavin, Middle Men (2013)

Lydia Davis, The Cows (2011)

MAY

Inge Bremer-Trueman, A Root Beer Season (2014) (CDN)*

C.P. Boyko, Novelists (2014) (CDN)

Roberto Bolaño, The Third Reich (2010, trans. Natasha Wimmer)

Liliana Heker, The Stolen Party (1994, trans. Alberto Manguel)

Dolly Dennis, Loddy-Dah (2014) (CDN)*

Kevin Roose, Young Money (2014)

Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun (2014)

Brandon Scott Gorrell and Tao Lin, The Brandon Book Crisis (2009)

Kathy Page, Paradise & Elsewhere (2014) (CDN)

Sarah Lang, For Tamara (2014) (CDN)*

JUNE

Lemony Snicket, File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents (2014)

Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, Book One (2009, trans. Don Bartlett)

Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, Book Two (2009, trans. Don Bartlett)

Alex Niven, Definitely Maybe (33 1/3) (2014)

Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, Book Three (2010, trans. Don Bartlett)

Chris F. Westbury, The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even (2014) (CDN)*

JULY

Bill Gaston, Juliet Was a Surprise (2014) (CDN)

Bill Gaston, Deep Cove Stories (1989) (CDN)

Bill Gaston, The Good Body (2000) (CDN)

Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki, This One Summer (2014) (CDN)

Neil Gaiman, Fortunately, the Milk (2013)

Maggie Nelson, Bluets (2009)

Meags Fitzgerald, Photobooth: A Biography (2014) (CDN)*

Warren Ellis and Mike McKone, Avengers: Endless Wartime (2013)

Mary McCarthy, The Group (1963)

Amanda Petrusich, Do Not Sell at Any Price (2014)

Jules Renard, Nature Stories (1896, trans. Douglas Parmée)

AUGUST

Laurence Miall, Blind Spot (2014) (CDN)*

Bryan Lee O'Malley, Seconds (2014) (CDN)

Jon Ronson, The Psychopath Test (2011)

Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage (1997)

David Mitchell, Black Swan Green (2006)

David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks (2014)

Peter Mendelsund, What We See When We Read (2014)

SEPTEMBER

Katie Coyle, Vivian Versus the Apocalypse (2013)

Brian Michael Bendis, Words for Pictures (2014)

Julie Schumacher, Dear Committee Members (2014)

César Aira, Conversations (2007, trans. Katherine Silver)

Jacqueline Baker, The Broken Hours (2014) (CDN)*

Margaret Atwood, Stone Mattress (2014) (CDN)

Alberto Moravia, Agostino (1945, trans. Michael F. Moore)

Michael Lewis, Home Game (2009)

Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs (2009)

Ian Weir, Will Starling (2014) (CDN)

Wendy McGrath, Santa Rosa (2011) (CDN)*

Wendy McGrath, North East (2014) (CDN)*

Chris Turner, How to Breathe Underwater (2014) (CDN)*

OCTOBER

Helen Oyeyemi, Boy, Snow, Bird (2014)

Douglas Coupland, Kitten Clone (2014) (CDN)

John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van (2014)

Peter Midgley, Counting Teeth (2014) (CDN)*

Ted Bishop, The Social Life of Ink (2014) (CDN)*

Mireille Silcoff, Chez L'arabe (2014) (CDN)

Ondjaki, Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret (2008, trans. Stephen Henighan)

Steven Galloway, The Confabulist (2014) (CDN)

Chad Kultgen, The Average American Male (2007)

John McPhee, A Sense of Where You Are (1965)

NOVEMBER

John Vaillant, The Tiger (2010) (CDN)

Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs (2005)

Merritt Tierce, Love Me Back (2014)

Martin Amis, The Zone of Interest (2014)

Lee Henderson, The Road Narrows as You Go (2014) (CDN)

Natasha Deen, Guardian (2014) (CDN)*

Vivek Shraya, She of the Mountains (2014) (CDN)*

DECEMBER

Daniel Kehlmann, F (2013, trans. Carol Brown Janeway)

Ghalib Islam, Fire in the Unnameable Country (2014) (CDN)

Haruki Murakami, The Strange Library (2005, trans. Ted Goossen)

Marian Engel, Bear (1976) (CDN)

Jeet Heer, Sweet Lechery (2014) (CDN)

Richard Rosenbaum, Raise Some Shell (2014) (CDN)

Ken Baumann, EarthBound (2014)

Paul Wells, The Longer I’m Prime Minister (2013) (CDN)

* * * * *

SOME NUMBERS NOW

Fiction: 76/106 (72%) 

Non-fiction: 30/106 (28%)

Books in translation: 24/106 (23%)

Male authors: 74/106 (70%)

Female authors: 32/106 (30%)

Canadian authors: 43/106 (41%)

Most-read author: Aira / Gaston / Knausgaard (3 each)

Favourite not-new books: Omon Ra, The Doorman, The Stolen Party, The Tiger

Obvious five-star classics: Bear

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2014: 52

2010s: 16

2000s: 22

1990s: 6

1980s: 3

1970s: 1

1960s: 2

1940s: 2

1800s: 2

What I Read: 2013

JANUARY

Roberto Bolaño, Antwerp (2002, trans. Natasha Wimmer)

Roberto Bolaño, Woes of the True Policeman (2011, trans. Natasha Wimmer)

Martín Adán, The Cardboard House (1928, trans. Katherine Silver)

Manuel Gonzales, The Miniature Wife (2013)

Jay-Z, Decoded (2010)

C.P. Boyko, Psychology and Other Stories (2012) (CDN)

Jean-Philippe Toussaint, The Bathroom (1985, trans. Nancy Amphoux and Paul De Angelis)

Javier Marías, Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico (1996, trans. Esther Allen)

Richard Van Camp, Godless but Loyal to Heaven (2012) (CDN)*

Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado (1958)

Lynn Coady, Strange Heaven (1998) (CDN)*

FEBRUARY

Lynn Coady, Play the Monster Blind (2000) (CDN)*

Demetri Martin, Point Your Face at This (2013)

Lemony Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?” (All the Wrong Questions #1) (2012)

George Saunders, Tenth of December (2013)

Nellie Carlson and Kathleen Steinhauer (as told to Linda Goyette), Disinherited Generations (2013) (CDN)*

Francine Prose, Blue Angel (2000)

Robert Walser, The Walk (1917, trans. Christopher Middleton and Susan Bernofsky)

Bertram Brooker, Think of the Earth (1936) (CDN)

Michael Ondaatje, The Cat’s Table (2011) (CDN)

Ewa Lipska, Sefer (2009, trans. Barbara Bogoczek and Tony Howard)

MARCH

Annette Lapointe, Whitetail Shooting Gallery (2012) (CDN)*

Shelley A. Leedahl, Listen, Honey (2012) (CDN)*

Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient (1992) (CDN)

Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Family (1982) (CDN)

Alison Wearing, Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter (2013) (CDN)

Gail Sidonie Sobat, Not with a Bang (2012) (CDN)*

Corinna Chong, Belinda’s Rings (2013) (CDN)

Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero (2007) (CDN)

Marty Chan, Barnabus Bigfoot: A Hairy Tangle (2012) (CDN)*

Keavy Martin, Stories in a New Skin (2012) (CDN)*

Timothy Caulfield, The Cure for Everything! (2012) (CDN)*

APRIL

Wayne Arthurson, A Killing Winter (2012) (CDN)*

Sheri-D Wilson, Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe (2012) (CDN)*

Will Ferguson, 419 (2012) (CDN)*

Fran Kimmel, The Shore Girl (2012) (CDN)*

Laura Salverson, The Dark Weaver (1937) (CDN)

César Aira, Ghosts (1990, trans. Chris Andrews)

Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea (2000)

Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo (1955, trans. Margaret Sayers Peden)

Marc Maron, Attempting Normal (2013)

Muriel Spark, The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960)

MAY

Gwethalyn Graham, Swiss Sonata (1938) (CDN)

Marita Daschel, Glossolalia (2013) (CDN)

Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller (1979, trans. William Weaver)

Adam Marek, The Stone Thrower (2013)

Ali Bryan, Roost (2013) (CDN)*

Clarice Lispector, The Foreign Legion (1964, trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

César Aira, An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (2000, trans. Chris Andrews)

Daniel Defoe, The King of Pirates (1719)

Ken Tingley and Lawrence Herzog, Building a Legacy (2013) (CDN)*

JUNE

Jorge Luis Borges, Professor Borges (2000, trans. Katherine Silver)

Franklin Davey McDowell, The Champlain Road (1939) (CDN)

Patricio Pron, My Fathers’ Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain (2011, trans. Mara Faye Lethem)

David Bellos, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? (2011)

Norm Sibum, The Traymore Rooms (2013) (CDN)

JULY

Edith Grossman, Why Translation Matters (2010)

Ringuet, Thirty Acres (1938, trans. Felix and Dorothea Walker) (CDN)

Nancy Jo Cullen, Canary (2013) (CDN)

Tash Aw, Five Star Billionaire (2013)

Tao Lin, Taipei (2013)

Jani Krulc, The Jesus Year (2013) (CDN)*

Lynn Coady, Hellgoing (2013) (CDN)*

Alissa Nutting, Tampa (2013)

Javier Marías, All Souls (1989, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Simon Rich, The Last Girlfriend on Earth (2013)

AUGUST

Alan Sullivan, Three Came to Ville Marie (1941) (CDN)

David Rakoff, Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish (2013) (CDN)

Jess Walter, We Live in Water (2013)

Neamat Imam, The Black Coat (2013) (CDN)*

Michael Winter, The Big Why (2004) (CDN)

Michael Winter, Minister Without Portfolio (2013) (CDN)

Nicholson Baker, Traveling Sprinkler (2013)

Perrine Leblanc, Kolia (2010, trans. David Scott Hamilton) (CDN)

Jennifer Quist, Love Letters of the Angels of Death (2013) (CDN)*

SEPTEMBER

Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge (2013)

Thea Bowering, Love at Last Sight (2013) (CDN)*

Diana Davidson, Pilgrimage (2013) (CDN)*

Todd Babiak, Come Barbarians (2013) (CDN)*

Lauren Elkin and Scott Esposito, The End of Oulipo? (2013)

G. Herbert Sallans, Little Man (1942) (CDN)

OCTOBER

Anakana Schofield, Malarky (2012) (CDN) (re-read)

Todd Babiak, Just Getting Started (2013) (CDN)*

Trevor Cole, Practical Jean (2010) (CDN)

Ross King, Leonardo and the Last Supper (2012) (CDN)

Junot Diaz, This Is How You Lose Her (2012)

Lemony Snicket, “When Did You See Her Last?” (All the Wrong Questions #2) (2013)

Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath (2013) (CDN)

Erlend Loe, Lazy Days (2009, trans. Don Bartlett and Don Shaw)

NOVEMBER

Naomi K. Lewis and Rona Altrows, eds., Shy (2013) (CDN)*

Mary Roach, Gulp (2013)

Philip K. Dick, The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike (1984)

Daniel Alarcón, At Night We Walk in Circles (2013)

Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth (2013) (CDN)

Rosemary Nixon, Are You Ready to Be Lucky? (2013) (CDN)*

Grant Lawrence, The Lonely End of the Rink (2013)

DECEMBER

David M. Friedman, A Mind of Its Own (2001)

Javier Marías, The Infatuations (2011, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Mauricio Segura, Eucalyptus (2010, trans. Donald Winkler)

Leo Kanner, Folklore of the Teeth (1928)

Jon Mooallem, Wild Ones (2013)

Lydia Davis, Break it Down (1986)

David Grann, The Lost City of Z (2009)

* * * * *

STATISTICS

Fiction: 76/103 (74%) 

Non-fiction: 24/103 (23%)

Books in translation: 20/103 (19%)

Male authors: 68.5/103 (67%)

Female authors: 34.5/103 (33%)

Canadian authors: 52/103 (50%)

Most-read author: Michael Ondaatje (4)

Favourite not-new book: A Mind of Its Own

Obvious, five-star classics: If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2013: 40

2010s: 25

2000s: 12

1990s: 4

1980s: 5

1970s: 1

1960s: 2

1950s: 2

1940s: 2

1930s: 5

1920s: 2

1910s: 1

1700s: 1

What I Read: 2012

JANUARY

Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim (1954) (re-read)

Robert Hough, The Stowaway (2004) (CDN)

Martin Amis, Yellow Dog (2003)

Martin Amis, House of Meetings (2006)

John D'Agata, About a Mountain (2010)

Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth (2005)

Ben Marcus, The Flame Alphabet (2012)

John D'Agata and Jim Fingal, The Lifespan of a Fact (2012)

Carl Wilson, Let’s Talk About Love (33 1/3) (2007) (CDN)

FEBRUARY

Greg Southam and David Staples, Barb’s Miracle (2004) (CDN)*

Lysley Tenorio, Monstress (2012)

Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy (1987)

Robert Hough, Dr. Brinkley’s Tower (2012) (CDN)

César Aira, Varamo (2002, trans. Chris Andrews)

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Michael Chabon and Jake Parker, The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man (2011)

Todd Babiak, The Garneau Block (2006) (CDN)*

Julie Wilson, Seen Reading (2012) (CDN)

MARCH

Nicholson Baker, Human Smoke (2008)

Ross Raisin, Waterline (2012)

Douglas Wolk, Live at the Apollo (33 1/3) (2004)

Rosecrans Baldwin, You Lost Me There (2010)

Jesse Ball, The Curfew (2011)

J.G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition (1970)

Tim Bowling, The Tinsmith (2012) (CDN)*

Alex Leslie, People Who Disappear (2012) (CDN)

Julian Barnes, Flaubert’s Parrot (1984)

APRIL

Carrie Snyder, The Juliet Stories (2012) (CDN)

Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists (2010) (CDN)

Dan Kois, Facing Future (33 1/3) (2010)

Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies (1951, trans. Samuel Beckett)

Ellen Ullman, By Blood (2012)

Amelia Gray, Threats (2012)

Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit (1922)

Robert E. Belknap, The List (2004)

MAY

Otto Binder, The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker (1967)

Caroline Blackwood, Great Granny Webster (1977)

Kevin Barry, City of Bohane (2012)

Anakana Schofield, Malarky (2012) (CDN)

Scott Teplin, Mac Barnett, and Eli Horowitz, The Clock Without a Face (2010)

Roy Blount Jr., Alphabet Juice (2008)

Jason Lee Norman, Americas (2012) (CDN)*

Matt Prins, Fart Head (2011) (CDN)*

Laurent Binet, HHhH (2009, trans. Sam Taylor)

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy (524, trans. Victor Watts)

Peter Hobbs, In the Orchard, the Swallows (2012)

Daniel Sada, Almost Never (2008, trans. Katherine Silver)

JUNE

Lynn Crosbie, Life Is About Losing Everything (2012) (CDN)

Curtis Gillespie, Almost There (2012) (CDN)*

Heather Birrell, Mad Hope (2012) (CDN)

César Aira, How I Became a Nun (1993, trans. Chris Andrews)

Etgar Keret, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door (2010, trans. Miriam Shlesinger, Sondra Silverston, and Nathan Englander)

Ali Smith, Ali Smith’s Supersonic 70s (Penguin 70s) (2005)

Pasha Malla, People Park (2012) (CDN)

Buffy Cram, Radio Belly (2012) (CDN)

JULY

Jacques Bonnet, Phantoms on the Bookshelves (2008, trans. Sian Reynolds)

Roberto Bolaño, 2666 (2004, trans. Natasha Wimmer)

Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great (2007)

Charles Demers, Vancouver Special (2009) (CDN)

José Saramago, The Lives of Things (1978, trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

José Saramago, Manual of Painting and Calligraphy (1976, trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

Simon Rich, What in God’s Name (2012)

AUGUST

Enrique Vila-Matas, Bartleby & Co. (2000, trans. Jonathan Dunne)

Adam Levin, Hot Pink (2012)

Martin Amis, Lionel Asbo (2012)

Jorge Luis Borges, A Universal History of Iniquity (1935, trans. Andrew Hurley)

Leanne Shapton, Swimming Studies (2012) (CDN)

Padgett Powell, You & Me (2012)

Nick Hornby, More Baths Less Talking (2012)

Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths (1941, trans. Andrew Hurley)

A.L. Kennedy, The Blue Book (2012)

César Aira, The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira (1998, trans. Katherine Silver)

SEPTEMBER

Dawn Dumont, Nobody Cries at Bingo (2011) (CDN)*

Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning (1999)

Cordelia Strube, Milosz (2012) (CDN)

Sean Howe, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story (2012)

Naomi K. Lewis, I Know Who You Remind Me Of (2012) (CDN)*

Jorge Luis Borges, Artifices (1944, trans. Andrew Hurley)

Neil Turok, The Universe Within (2012)

Nicholson Baker, The Way the World Works (2012)

Zoe Whittall, Bottle Rocket Hearts (2007) (CDN)

Miranda Hill, Sleeping Funny (2012) (CDN)

Louise Ladouceur, Dramatic Licence (2005, trans. Richard Lebeau) (CDN)*

OCTOBER

Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph (1949, trans. Andrew Hurley)

Enrique Vila-Matas, Never Any End to Paris (2003, trans. Anne McLean)

Marcello Di Cintio, Walls (2012) (CDN)*

Jorge Luis Borges, The Maker (1960, trans. Andrew Hurley)

Deborah Levy, Swimming Home (2012)

Mikhail Shishkin, Maidenhair (2005, trans. Marian Schwartz)

Marie-Renée Lavoie, Mister Roger and Me (2010, trans. Wayne Grady) (CDN)

NOVEMBER

Carol Shaben, Into the Abyss (2012) (CDN)*

Jorge Luis Borges, In Praise of Darkness (1969, trans. Andrew Hurley)

Maria Semple, Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2012)

Enrique Vila-Matas, Dublinesque (2010, trans. Anne McLean and Rosalind Harvey)

James Wood, The Fun Stuff (2012)

Jorge Luis Borges, Brodie’s Report (1970, trans. Andrew Hurley)

D.T. Max, Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story (2012)

David Foster Wallace, Girl with Curious Hair (1989)

Horacio Castellanos Moya, Senselessness (2004, trans. Katherine Silver)

David Foster Wallace, Both Flesh and Not (2012)

DECEMBER

Mark Z. Danielewski, The Fifty Year Sword (2012)

Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Sand (1975, trans. Andrew Hurley)

Jocelyne Saucier, And the Birds Rained Down (2011, trans. Rhonda Mullins) (CDN)

Jorge Luis Borges, Shakespeare’s Memory (1983, trans. Andrew Hurley)

Robin Sloan, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (2012)

Alison Bechdel, Are You My Mother? (2012)

Horacio Castellanos Moya, Dance With Snakes (1996, trans. Lee Paula Springer)

Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man (1857)

Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman (1967)

Flann O'Brien, The Poor Mouth (1941, trans. Patrick C. Power)

* * * * *

STATISTICS

Fiction: 83/110 (75%) 

Non-fiction: 27/110 (25%)

Books in translation: 31/110 (28%)

Male authors: 81/110 (74%)

Female authors: 29/110 (26%)

Canadian authors: 30/110 (27%)

Most-read author: Jorge Luis Borges (9)

Favourite not-new book: Never Any End to Paris

Obvious, five-star classics: Flaubert’s Parrot; 2666

* * * * *

PUBLICATION DATES

2012: 42

2010s: 13

2000s: 25

1990s: 4

1980s: 4

1970s: 6

1960s: 4

1950s: 2

1940s: 4

1930s: 1

1920s: 1

1800s: 2

500s: 1

What I Read: 2011

JANUARY

Patton Oswalt, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland (2011)

Grégoire Bouillier, The Mystery Guest (2004, trans. Lorin Stein)

Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel, House of M (#1-8) (2005-6)

Hannah Pittard, The Fates Will Find Their Way (2011)

Dan Charnas, The Big Payback (2010)

Greg Pak and John Romita, Jr., World War Hulk (#1-5, Aftersmash) (2007-8)

John Williams, Stoner (1965)

Nicholson Baker, Room Temperature (1990)

Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross, Marvels (#1-4) (1994)

Justin Taylor, The Gospel of Anarchy (2011)

FEBRUARY

Herman Melville, Typee (1846)

Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)

Matthew J. Trafford, The Divinity Gene (2011)

Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart (1999, trans. Philip Gabriel)

Karen Russell, Swamplandia! (2011)

Deb Olin Unferth, Vacation (2008)

Mike Sacks, Your Wildest Dreams, Within Reason (2011)

David Foster Wallace, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999)

Mark Waid and Alex Ross, Kingdom Come (#1-4) (1996)

Jonathan Ames, I Pass Like Night (1989)

MARCH

Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen, New Avengers, Vol. 2 (#1-6) (2010)

Adam Leith Gollner, The Fruit Hunters (2008)

Sheila Heti, Ticknor (2005)

Haruki Murakami, After Dark (2004, trans. Jay Rubin)

Jessica Page Morrell, Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us: A (Sort of) Compassionate Guide to Why Your Writing Is Being Rejected (2009)

Alison Espach, The Adults (2011)

John Barth, The End of the Road (1958)

Lorrie Moore, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (1994)

Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel, The Alcoholic (2008)

Roger McGough, The State of Poetry (Penguin 70s) (1983-2003)

APRIL

David Foster Wallace, The Pale King (2011)

Alan Heathcock, Volt (2011)

Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End (2007)

Donald Barthelme, Forty Stories (1987)

Rob Taylor, The Other Side of Ourselves (2011)

Lisa Lutz and David Hayward, Heads You Lose (2011)

MAY

Jonathan Lethem, You Don’t Love Me Yet (2007)

Kristen den Hartog, And Me Among Them (2011)

José Saramago, Small Memories (2006, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Horacio Castellanos Moya, The She-Devil in the Mirror (2000, trans. Katherine Silver)

Ian Williams, Not Anyone’s Anything (2011)

Malcolm Bradbury, The History Man (1975)

Lynne Tillman, Someday This Will Be Funny (2011)

JUNE

Michael Murphy, A Description of the Blazing World (2011)

Martin Amis, The Second Plane (2008)

Maude Hutchins, Victorine (1959)

Michael Lewis, Moneyball (2003)

Horacio Castellanos Moya, Tyrant Memory (2008, trans. Katherine Silver)

JULY

Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers (2011)

Kevin Wilson, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (2009)

César Aira, The Literary Conference (2006, trans. Katherine Silver)

Daniel Orozco, Orientation (2011)

J. Courtney Sullivan, Maine (2011)

Isol, Beautiful Griselda (2011, trans. Elisa Amado)

Nicholson Baker, The Fermata (1994)

AUGUST

Misha Glouberman with Sheila Heti, The Chairs Are Where the People Go(2011)

Esmé Claire Keith, Not Being on a Boat (2011)

Dana Spiotta, Stone Arabia (2011)

Nicholson Baker, House of Holes (2011)

George Saunders, Pastoralia (2000)

Muriel Spark, Memento Mori (1959)

Helen DeWitt, The Last Samurai (2000)

SEPTEMBER

David Gilmour, The Film Club (2007)

Edward Riche, Easy to Like (2011)

Elissa Schappell, Blueprints for Building Better Girls (2011)

Lynn Coady, The Antagonist (2011)

Lynn Coady, Mean Boy (2006)

Adam Gopnik, Winter: Five Windows on the Season (2011)

Mary-Louise Gay, Caramba and Henry (2011)

José Saramago, Cain (2009, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

OCTOBER

Peggy Orenstein, Cinderella Ate My Daughter (2011)

D.W. Wilson, Once You Break a Knuckle (2011)

Helen DeWitt, Lightning Rods (2011)

Mélanie Watt, Scaredy Squirrel Has a Birthday Party (2011)

Kate Beaton, Hark! A Vagrant (2011)

Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 (2009, trans. Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel)

Zsuzsi Gartner, Better Living Through Plastic Explosives (2011)

NOVEMBER

Ben Lerner, Leaving the Atocha Station (2011)

Percival Everett, Assumption (2011)

Cheryl Foggo and Qin Leng, Dear Baobab (2011)

Chris Bachelder, Abbott Awaits (2011)

John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead (2011)

David Whitton, The Reverse Cowgirl (2011)

Kaitlin Fontana, Fresh at Twenty (2011)

DECEMBER

Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1918)

Don DeLillo, The Angel Esmeralda (2011)

Jonathan Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence (2011)

César Aira, The Seamstress and the Wind (1994, trans. Rosalie Knecht)

Colson Whitehead, Zone One (2011)

Justin Torres, We the Animals (2011)

Chris Adrian, A Better Angel (2008)

Nikolai Gogol, The Night Before Christmas (1832, trans. Constance Garnett)

Agatha Christie, Crooked House (1949)

Dava Sobel, Longitude (1996)

* * * * *

STATISTICS

Fiction: 72/89 (81%) 

Non-fiction: 17/89 (19%)

Books in translation: 12/89 (13%)

Male authors: 58/89 (65%)

Female authors: 31/89 (35%)

Canadian authors: 23/89 (26%)

Most-read author: Nicholson Baker; Haruki Murakami (3 each)

Favourite not-new book: Lynn Coady, Mean Boy

Obvious, five-star classics: The Education of Henry Adams, Forty Stories, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

PUBLICATION DATES

2011: 45

2010s: 1

2000s: 22

1990s: 7

1980s: 2

1970s: 1

1960s: 2

1950s: 3

1940s: 1

1910s: 1

1800s: 2

What I Read: 2010

JANUARY

J. Courtney Sullivan, Commencement (2009)

Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn (1999)

Chuck Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur (2009)

Nicholas Ruddock, The Parabolist (2010)

FEBRUARY

Molly Young and Chris Luxton, Troubleshooting (2010)

Roberto Bolaño, The Savage Detectives (1998, trans. Natasha Wimmer)

Justin Taylor, Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever (2010)

Stephen King, On Writing (2000)

Zachary Mason, The Lost Books of the Odyssey (2010)

Elizabeth Hay, A Student of Weather (2000)

MARCH

Don DeLillo, Point Omega (2010)

DC Pierson, The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To (2010)

Jane Smiley, Moo (1995)

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Don Heck, Essential Avengers, Vol. 1 (#1-24) (1963-66)

Adam Haslett, Union Atlantic (2010)

Padgett Powell, The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? (2009)

Andrew Kaufman, All My Friends Are Superheroes (2003)

George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone (2007)

Patrick deWitt, Ablutions: Notes for a Novel (2009)

APRIL

Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (2009)

David Lipsky, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace (2010)

P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Impending Doom (Penguin 70s) (1930)

Anne Finger, Call Me Ahab (2009)

MAY

Jorge Volpi, In Search of Klingsor (1999, trans. Kristina Cordero)

David Berry and Josh J. Holinaty, We Hate This Place Here; It’s Our Home (Vol. 2) (2010)

Sam Lipsyte, The Ask (2010)

José Saramago, In Search of the Unknown Island (1997, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Russell Wangersky, The Glass Harmonica (2010)

José Saramago, The Notebook (2010, trans. Amanda Hopkinson and Daniel Hahn)

Teddy Wayne, Kapitoil (2010)

Martin Amis, Einstein’s Monsters (1987)

JUNE

Jorge Volpi, Season of Ash (2006, trans. Alfred Mac Adam)

Simon Rich, Elliot Allagash (2010)

Simon Rich, Ant Farm (2007)

Barbara Pym, No Fond Return of Love (1961)

Martin Amis, The Pregnant Widow (2010)

Nicholson Baker, Vox (1992)

Mary-Beth Hughes, Double Happiness (2010)

David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010)

Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage (1993)

Michael Chabon, The Final Solution (2004)

JULY

Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird (1994)

Kira Henehan, Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles (2010)

Katrina Best, Bird Eat Bird (2010)

Adam Ross, Mr. Peanut (2010)

Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970)

Graham Greene, Doctor Fischer of Geneva or the Bomb Party (1980)

David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (1997)

Michael Lewis, The Big Short (2010)

AUGUST

Miguel Syjuco, Ilustrado (2010)

Steve Hely, How I Became a Famous Novelist (2009)

Lorrie Moore, Self-Help (1985)

Pasha Malla, The Withdrawal Method (2008)

Electric Literature #3 (Winter 2010)

Roald Dahl, Esio Trot (1990)

Emily Gould, And the Heart Says Whatever (2010)

SEPTEMBER

John Gould, Seven Good Reasons Not To Be Good (2010)

Ryan Knighton, C'mon Papa: Dispatches From a Dad in the Dark (2010)

Richard and Florence Atwater, Mr. Popper’s Penguins (1938)

José Saramago, The Elephant’s Journey (2008, trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

Richard Russo, Straight Man (1997)

Jean-Christophe Valtat, 03 (2005, trans. Mitzi Angel)

E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web (1952)

Tom McCarthy, C (2010)

OCTOBER

Andrew O'Hagan, The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe (2010)

Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers (2008)

Tao Lin, Richard Yates (2010)

Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story (2010)

Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach (1961)

Sheila Heti, How Should a Person Be? (2010)

Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Invention of Morel (1940, trans. Ruth L. C. Simms)

Andrej Blatnik, You Do Understand (2009, trans. Tamara M. Soban)

NOVEMBER

Vlado Žabot, The Succubus (2003, trans. Rawley Grau and Nikolai Jeffs)

Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981)

Boris Pahor, Necropolis (1967, trans. Michael Biggins)

Amanda Cross, Death in a Tenured Position (1981)

Jonathan Lethem, This Shape We’re In (2001)

Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad (2005)

Jonathan Lethem, Men and Cartoons (2004)

Harry Karlinsky, The Evolution of Inanimate Objects: The Life and Collected Works of Thomas Darwin (1857-1879) (2010)

Nicolas Dickner, Nikolski (2005, trans. Lazer Lederhendler)

DECEMBER

Nicolas Dickner, Apocalypse For Beginners (2009, trans. Lazer Lederhendler)

Mike Birbiglia, Sleepwalk With Me (2010)

Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, Marvel: Civil War (2006-7)

Elif Batuman, The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (2010)

Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn (Eds.), Yes Yes Y'all: The Experience Music Project’s Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade (2002)

Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, Khoi Pham, and John Romita Jr., Mighty Avengers, Secret Invasion (Book One) (2009)

A.L. Kennedy, What Becomes (2009)

Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Yu, Secret Invasion (#1-8) (2008-9)

Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch, Avengers Disassembled (#500-503, Finale) (2004)

François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34, trans. J.M. Cohen)

* * *

STATISTICS

Fiction: 67/91 (74%)

Non-fiction: 15/91 (16%)

Books in translation: 14/91 (15%)

Male authors: 66/91 (73%)

Female authors: 17/91 (19%)

Canadian authors: 15/91 (16%)

Most-read author: Jonathan Lethem; José Saramago (3 each)

Favourite book: Padgett Powell, The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?

Obvious, five-star classics: Gargantua and Pantagruel

PUBLICATION DATES

2010: 34

2000s: 31

1990s: 11

1980s: 5

1970s: 1

1960s: 4

1950s: 1

1940s: 1

1930s: 2

1500s: 1

What I Read: 2009

JANUARY

Grant Buday, Dragonflies (2008)

Lawrence Lessig, Remix (2008)

Chris Bachelder, U.S.! (2006)

Ben Karlin [ed.], Things I’ve Learned from Women Who’ve Dumped Me (2008)

Lee Gowan, Confession (2009)

FEBRUARY

Kevin Chong, Baroque-A-Nova (2001)

George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)

Nicholson Baker, U and I (1991)

Chris Cleave, Little Bee (2009)

MARCH

David Denby, Snark (2009)

Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)

Hugh Johnston, Radical Campus: Making Simon Fraser University (2005)

Colin McAdam, Fall (2009)

APRIL

[nothing finished—see first item in May]

MAY

David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (1996)

Wells Tower, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (2009)

Joan Didion, The White Album (1979)

Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine (1988)

Santiago Roncagliolo, Red April (2009)

Chuck Palahniuk, Pygmy (2009)

JUNE

Donna Tartt, The Secret History (1992)

Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles (2009)

Clancy Martin, How to Sell (2009)

Graham Greene, The Captain and the Enemy (1988)

JULY

Percival Everett, I am Not Sidney Poitier (2009)

Nathan Rabin, The Big Rewind (2009)

Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)

Dave Eggers, Zeitoun (2009)

AUGUST

Thomas Pynchon, Slow Learner: Early Stories (1984)

Jonathan Lethem, As She Climbed Across the Table (1997)

Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger (2008)

Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (2009)

David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster (2005)

SEPTEMBER

Douglas Coupland, Generation A (2009)

Billeh Nickerson, McPoems (2009)

Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word (1975)

Lorrie Moore, Birds of America (1998)

Chester Brown, Louis Riel (2003)

Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked (2009)

OCTOBER

Philip Hoare, Leviathan; Or, The Whale (2008)

Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs (2009)

John Ortved, The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History (2009)

Tao Lin, Shoplifting from American Apparel (2009)

NOVEMBER

Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence (2009)

Charles Demers, The Prescription Errors (2009)

John Hersey, Hiroshima (1985)

Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist (2009)

Tao Lin, Shoplifting from American Apparel (again)

Chris Bachelder, Bear v. Shark: The Novel (2001)

DECEMBER

Jonathan Lethem, Chronic City (2009)

Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals (2009)

Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays (2009)

David Foster Wallace, Oblivion (2004)

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz (1922)

STATISTICS

Fiction: 35/53 (66%)

Non-fiction: 16/53 (30%)

Male Authors: 48/53 (91%)

Female Authors: 5/53 (9%)

Books in Translation: 2/53 (4%)

Most-read Author: Nicholson Baker; David Foster Wallace (3 each)

Favourite Book: U.S.!

Obvious, Five-star Classics: Infinite Jest; Pale Fire