2009: my year in books [books]

i'm not really big on year-end lists, but i had a pretty decent reading year in 2009 and a good portion of this blog has been devoted to books. so here's a cursory rundown of my year in books.

total books read: 30 [18 novels, 9 non-fiction, 5 re-reads]

best book: red dust by ma jian

worst book: the judgment by chart korbjitti
* read this for our new book club. it's a thai novel, and, to be fair, the translation is likely not great, but neither is the story.

longest: don quixote (928 pp), 2666 (891 pp)
* both are noteworthy, doorstop-like books. both very good, too.

shortest: here is new york (58 pp)
* excellent treatise on new york. stands up today. highly recommended.

thirty books is a pretty good run for me, i'm not a fast reader. best book was pretty clearly red dust simply because of how much of a sucker i've become for travel lit, but others that deserve honorable mention include 2666, chronic city (j. lethem) and fictions (borges). befriend me on goodreads if you're over there.

chronic city [books]

here we have a case of sold by the cover. after wandering the bookstore, marveling again at the superior inventiveness and style of asian (taiwanese and thai, at least) paperback cover art, i came to the new release tower in the english section. i managed to frugally pass over hardcover editions of nicholson baker's the anthologist and everything ravaged, everything burned by wells tower, but i couldn't resist the cover of faber and faber's first paperback edition of jonathan lethem's latest, chronic city. there aren't any revolutionary elements here: a bit-mapped tiger image with fangs of new york skyscrapers. enter my bibliophilia and the fact that this has been on my list, and the deed was done. i'll try to remember to take my camera to the bookstore in the future and do a post about these enviable asian book covers.

LINK: chronic city made the nytimes 10 best of 2009