Of the 60+ books I read in 2009 (and counting only those that I read for the first time this year), seven stood out, basically in this order:
No. 1. 2666 (my comments here): Brilliant, brutal, complex, unlike anything I’ve ever read.
No. 2. There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Also brilliant and brutal, but not complex. These stories are beautifully streamlined. And also unlike anything I’ve ever read.
No. 3. The Lazarus Project: Hemon is a beautiful nut.
No. 4. Nixonland: A really inventive way of looking at American political history for the past half century.
No. 5. Last Night at the Lobster: A thoughtful, totally sincere paean to the working stiff.
No. 6. An Oresteia: Greek tragedy done up right by the best living writer of English today.
No. 7. The Lords of Finance: Highly approachable history of the crash of 1929 and the worldwide depression that followed.
Photo credit: Sage Ross via Wikimedia Commons
Far From Brooklyn 
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