Bibliography 2018

January 1, 2019, 9:04 PM. Vacation is officially over, though I'm hanging on to the holidays with a nice glass of red wine. I don't mind going back to work. I worked a bit during vacation, so I don't feel completely overwhelmed. And i like my job.

But I'll miss the leisurely mornings. I don't sleep later than 7:30, even on days off, but the rest of my family does like to sleep late, and I love the quiet early morning with the sun streaming in through the windows and the luxury of a second cup of coffee. I'll also miss reading. Well, I read every day, but I'll miss reading for more than 15 minutes at a time.

*****

Speaking of reading, it's time for a new year and a new book list, soon to be handwritten in the back of my 2019 planner. Here's what I read in 2018. I thought that I read more books than this. Maybe I did, and just forgot to write them down. Well, if it's not documented, it didn't happen, so I'll only include the books that I remembered to write down. And they are:

Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff. Ha ha ha ha ha! Who knew that this was the good old days, amirite? In January 2018, Michael Wolff had no idea that shit hadn't even begun to get real. Ha ha ha!

Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance. I wrote about this one here, and have not given it much thought since. That's not a criticism of the book so much as an admission of my tendency to become completely absorbed in something while I'm doing it and then to forget it completely the moment I walk away. I envy gnats their attention spans.

Is It Just Me? Miranda Hart. I wrote about this in the same post, and even found a way to connect Miranda Hart with J.D. Vance. They are both members of very small and exclusive clubs.

Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Amy Krouse Rosenthal. This was also covered here. I don't think there will ever be another writer like AKR, may she rest in peace.

Slouching Towards Jerusalem, Joan Didion. I am standing by my original post about this one, including my strong objection to "towards" rather than "toward" in the title. It's a small but important distinction.

The White Album, Joan Didion. Briefly reviewed here, almost a year ago.

Miranda's Daily Dose of Such Fun, Miranda Hart. I follow only four celebrities on Instagram: Katie Ledecky, Michael Phelps, Alexander Ovechkin, and Miranda Hart. I'll watch Miranda in just about anything, but I still can't believe that I wasted two hours on this silliness. I mean, it's not terrible or anything; it is just extremely uneven. Some of the daily tips are genuinely funny and original; many of the others read as if the author was facing a looming deadline and had to just get words on the page, no matter the words.

Going into Town, Roz Chast. Really wonderful. Not quite as good as Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant, but that's a high bar, even for Roz Chast. Going into Town is about New York City, past and present. It's both a practical guide to living in the city (where to eat, how to find an apartment, how to get from Point A to Point B), and an illustrated memoir of Chast's life there. Roz Chast grew up in Brooklyn and spent her young adulthood in Manhattan, drawing cartoons for The New Yorker. She moved to the suburbs when her children were young and wrote Going into Town for them. I hate calling any book or movie a "love letter" to a city, but the book's subtitle is "A Love Letter to New York," so I guess it's appropriate in this case. You should read this if you are one of those people who can't understand why people love New York so much. You should really read this if you love New York. I love New York, and I love Roz Chast. This was one of my 2018 favorites.

Bergdorf Blondes, Plum Sykes. So silly, and that's not even why I didn't like it. I like silly as well as (more than!) the next person. And I sneer at critics who dismiss any novel written by a young woman as "chick lit." But this book is ridiculous. I, however, am even more ridiculous; because apparently, I read it twice. I mean really.

A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles. This list is in chronological order (not by date of publication, but by date of reading), which is the only reason that this book doesn't appear at the very top. It was my very favorite book of 2018; and in a year that included Joan Didion and Roz Chast and Graham Greene and Maeve Brennan, that is an accomplishment. I wrote about this one here and here and here. No, you don't have to read all of those posts; I mention them only to demonstrate that this book was special enough that I couldn't stop thinking about it, even when the Capitals were playing in the Stanley Cup final. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, Mona Awad. I was certain that I mentioned this book at some point last year, but a search of my blog by the terms 13 and thirteen yields nothing. And now I don't remember very much about the book, other than the clever title, a play on title of the Wallace Stevens poem "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." You might think that a person who spends a third of her life reading and writing would be devoted to poetry, but you would be wrong, because I don't really like poetry very much. But I like this poem, and I liked this book.

Imaginary Friends, Alison Lurie. I mentioned this one here and here. And I never did finish it.

Leaving Home: Reading, Writing, and Life on the Page, Lynn Freed. This one was not on my handwritten list, but I remembered it when I was pulling old posts for this list. I wrote this post in Montreal, after driving past dozens of vacation trailers bearing the Je Me Souviens license plate.

Entering Ephesus, Daphne Atlas.  I mostly hated this book, but I forgave it on account of a few great passages, including one about linoleum and Soviet Russia. You had to be there.

Lina and Serge, Simon Morrison. More Soviet Russians, some luckier than others. I don't have a strong opinion about the musical works of Serge Prokofiev, but I know for sure that I wouldn't have wanted to be married to him. Lina brought a handbag into the gulag. A woman after my own heart.

The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss, Louis Auchincloss. No Bolsheviks in this one, but still worth reading.

To the Barricades, Alix Kates Shulman. A so-so biography of an insufferable subject.

The Clancys of Queens, Tara Clancy. Another memoir, which I liked very much. After I read this, I saw a video featuring Tara Clancy and her mother and many of the friends she wrote about in the book. She asked the group why there are so few stories about working-class women, and her mother said that it was probably because they're too busy working to write about their lives. I also heard part of an interview on NPR, when Tara Clancy explained that she named her first son "Ray" knowing that people would automatically assume that a boy named Ray Clancy would be tough. There should be more boys named Ray.

Evita, First Lady: A Biography of Eva Peron. John Barnes. Another so-so biography of an insufferable subject. This was a coincidence, not a literary theme that I selected in advance. Eva Peron reminds me of someone. Who could it be?

The Long-Winded Lady, Maeve Brennan. Really, really good. I wrote about it here and here, and I don't think I'm done with it yet.

It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis. Well of course it can. Like most of Lewis's novels, this was considered very important and serious. And like most of his novels, it's not very good. Sinclair Lewis might have been an even worse misanthrope than Evelyn Waugh, and he wasn't nearly as good a writer. But the premise--that the United States could descend into totalitarianism after just one election--is entirely valid. This was published in 1935.

My Paris Dream, Kate Betts. My almost-last book of 2018. I was halfway through another book on December 31, but I think I'll count it for 2019.

*****
I wrote half of this after two glasses of wine, and the other half at 4:45 in the morning (I couldn't sleep). Maybe I should have noted this right at the beginning, as a disclaimer. I'll write more semi-literate book reviews for you in 2019. Happy New Year, and don't say you weren't warned.