Readings of 2021

The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson (Recommended by a friend. Enjoyed it quite a bit, as Churchill wor­ship goes; I think Larson’s writ­ing here is a sub­stan­tial improve­ment on The Devil in the White City, which I found clunky in parts.)

The Nolan Variations, Tom Shone (A good way to look at Nolan, I think. I’m in it, too.)

A Fairly Honorable Defeat, Iris Murdoch (There’s a lot of Murdoch to be read and last year I read a bunch. This is a pretty nifty vin­eg­ary allegory of sorts.)

Mike Nichols: A Life, Mark Harris (Aside from its inher­ent value, which is more than sub­stan­tial, it gives writers like myself some­thing to aim for.) 

The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright (I knew a lot of this already but this is a bet­ter than decent aggreg­a­tion so to speak.)

True Believer, Abraham Reisman (See above; also Abe’s enthu­si­asm for the Golden Age of Marvel rel­at­ive to his dis­ap­point­ment in Lee makes for enga­ging reading.) 

Exile’s Return, Malcolm Cowley (Oh those wan­der­ing mod­ern­ists. Great.) 

The Recognitions, William Gaddis (Finally did it! And dug it!)

Last Call, Elon Green (A true crime account with a real purpose.)

Beeswing, Richard Thompson (Fascinating, spectacular)

The Quiet Americans, Scott Thompson (The ori­gins of the CIA in four iron­ic­al por­traits; recom­men­ded to Charles McCarry fans for sure.) 

Dark Passage, David Goodis (Goodis, as you like him.) 

V., Thomas Pynchon (A second read­ing; the first was when I was about 13. Definitely got a touch of the magic I felt then. “Keep cool but care” is a stressed-out char­ac­ter­’s obser­va­tion, not the book’s, or Pynchon’s, life motto. Jesus.) 

Moscow to the End of the Line, Venedikt Erofeev (Drunken Soviet mono­logue, exhaust­ing for such a short book.) 

The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy (I could nev­er get into Hardy’s prose when I was a col­legi­ate read­er, but loved his poetry. [Still do.] This hit me hard, so I’ll be get­ting to his oth­er novels.)

Letting Go, Philip Roth (A sweep­ing, curi­ous, genu­inely tor­tured book.)

Castle in the Air, Donald E. Westlake (Mid Westlake, which is still pretty damn good.)

Rhythm is our Business: Jimmy Lunceford and the Harlem Express, Eddy Determeyer (An inform­at­ive but dry account of the amaz­ing bandleader.)

The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock, Edward White (A wholly admir­able and read­able attempt to come to grips with Hitchcock’s char­ac­ter defects while insist­ing on the per­tin­ence and ulti­mate human­ity of his art)

My Life As A Man, Roth (Whatever you think of the guy, you have to admit he got put through the wringer. I mean, maybe you don’t, but I do.)

Enter the Aardvark, Jessica Anthony (A very enter­tain­ing and pur­pose­fully eccent­ric polit­ic­al fable.) 

The Conjure Man Dies, Rudolph Fisher (It’s ter­rible that Fisher died in 1934, only two years after pub­lish­ing his first detect­ive nov­el. Had he lived to keep at it, I think he’d have writ­ten mys­ter­ies that improved on this fas­cin­at­ing but not entirely sat­is­fact­ory Harlem mystery.) 

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (Believe the hype.) 

Ending Up, Kingsley Amis (Old people quar­rel­ing and fall­ing about. Figured I’d read it now, before it got too on the nose.) 

The Black Prince, Murdoch (Good loony philo­soph­ic­al fun.) 

Excavate! The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall, edited by Bob Stanley and Tessa Norton (A dizzy­ing com­pen­di­um of Smith unpack­ing, packed with promo art­work and scribblings)

Later, Stephen King (The Hard Case Stephen King has kinda become a genre unto itself. I dig it.)

Nuns and Soldiers, Murdoch (Possibly the most solidly con­struc­ted of the Murdochs I read this year.) 

No Beethoven, Peter Erskine (Wow, this dude is the fath­er of one of the co-creators of Pen15! Anyway. Protean drum­mer tells cool anecdotes.) 

Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky (My first go-round with this. Hot stuff.) 

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino (Good loony not par­tic­u­larly philo­soph­ic­al fun. And a reveal­ing peek into the psy­cho­path­o­logy of its author to be sure.)

The Wall, Mary Roberts Rinehart (A bit creaky but enjoy­able. A mys­tery, in case you don’t recog­nize the name of the author.) 

Inside Out, Walter Bernstein (Believe the hype.)

Frankly We Did Win This Election, Michael Bender (Aiiiieeeee)

Letters, John Barth (I’d wanted to read this for forever but had­n’t com­pleted all the pri­or Barth works which provide this opus with its dramatis personae…until I did. This was fun, and instruct­ive, mainly in demon­strat­ing that the author can kind of do any­thing he damn well pleases after all. It is not entirely an exer­cise in dick­er­ing trivi­al post­mod­ern­ism, either. )

The Hook, Westlake (A mas­ter­piece, chilly as hell. ) 

The Plague Court Murders, John Dickson Carr (As expected)

Always Crashing in the Same Car, Matthew Specktor (This one slammed me with the force of dis­cov­ery. Two dis­cov­er­ies, really: that of a kindred spir­it, L.A. divi­sion [although Specktor’s a way bet­ter writer than myself I think] and of a truly new form derived from two well-worn ones, the cul­tur­al his­tory and the mem­oir. Cowley’s book falls into that dual cat­egory too, but Specktor does some­thing with it that’s…well just read it.)

The Sovereignty of Good, Murdoch (A couple of philo­soph­ic­al essays. Heartening, sort of.)

Get Real, Westlake (More, Mid Westlake, fun times) 

I’d Rather Be The Devil, Stephen Calt (Or, How Getting To Know Skip James Messed My Mind Up. Eye-opening, dis­heart­en­ing, and while Calt cer­tainly turns over a genu­ine rock, so to speak, he’s also prig­gish and snob­bish in a really jolt­ing way.) 

Dune, Frank Herbert (Research.) 

Seven Types of Atheism, John Gray (A cogent and actu­ally enter­tain­ing sur­vey of disbelief.) 

Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment, James R. Gaines (Gaines’ decision to tell their lives in par­al­lel, while great for mar­ket­ing I guess, res­ul­ted in some brow-furrowing for this read­er. Otherwise aces.)

Flaubert and Madame Bovary, Francis Steegmuller (A little dry and a prob­ably more than a little unfair to Louise Colet but still something.) 

The Sea, The Sea, Murdoch ( I wished so pas­sion­ately to defen­es­trate its nar­rat­or that the whole thing tem­por­ar­ily stalled my Murdoch journey.)

Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen (A true pleas­ure to read and not nearly so Updike-like as its syn­opses might lead you to believe.) 

Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh (Finally, and fine.)

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Nation, Jeff Chang (Again, a lot of stuff I’ve already learned, put togeth­er with pas­sion and purpose.) 

The American Gun Mystery, Ellery Queen (A little too far-fetched.) 

State of Terror, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny (Aiiieeeee.)

Fog of Doubt, Christianna Brand (Surprisingly racy London mystery.)

Your Turn Mr Moto, John P. Marquand (Gak.)

In The Woods, Tana French (Highly satisfactory.)

Spirits of the Dead, Tim Lucas (Great stuff.) 

Bugsy Siegel: The Dark Side of the American Dream, Michael Shnayerson (A good primer on the man who hated being called Bugsy.) 

Sound Man, Glyn Johns (Breezy, fun, slightly wonky [and I like that] chron­icle of a mix­ing man. Nothing about his ’60s clothes sense though.) 

Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner (Whew. Exhausting, agon­iz­ing, all that good stuff. Also kind of an object les­son in how a little Faulkner can go a long way.)

The Case of the Borrowed Brunette, Erle Stanley Gardner (A little more trans­par­ently pro forma than a lot of the Masons I’ve read but okay.) 

The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman (Great fun.) 

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor (Aging and [spoil­er alert] dying in somn­am­bu­lant Olde London, just the way you wanna ring out the year.)