Far From Brooklyn

I often begin years or seasons with plans for reading. In 2010, I recall, I thought I would backfill my somewhat spotty knowledge of modern American and English playwrights – and in the end I did read a handful of titles but the reading was not programmatic and within a month or two I was back to my helter-skelter habits of old, picking up books as I came across them.

This year, then, my plan (unlikely to be followed, of course) is as follows: I will read (and write about) only new books – that is, books published only in 2012.

Every year I read at least a handful of new books, mainly fiction but non too. In 2011 I read the following books published in or nearly in 2011 (or at least, those that when I listed them I thought were published in the preceding, say, 18 months. The actual publish dates are listed in parentheses, inserted after making the list:

A Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (October 2011)
The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje (October 2011)
The Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon (November, 2010)
The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker (September 2009)
Scorecasting by Tobias Moscowitz and Jon Wertheim (Janunary 2011)
The Sly Company of People Who Care by Rahul Battacharya (April 2011)
Open City by Teju Cole (February 2011)
The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips (April 2011)
Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson (June 2011)
The Crimean War by Orlando Figes (April 2011)
The Magnetic North by Sara Wheeler (February 2011)
Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan (October 2011)
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray (August 2011)
Zone One by Colson Whitehead (October 2011)
Funeral for a Dog by Thomas Pletzinger (March 2011)

It turns out the only one I really misjudged as far as “newness” goes was the Baker. Coincidentally or not, that was also my favorite book of the year – by far.

That said, though, clearly I can find a lot of new to read if I try, and it might be interesting to register these things as they hit the public consciousness. So, on my list for 2012:

American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar
The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq
Hope, a Tragedy by Shalom Auslander
The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander
Satantango by Laszlo Krasznahorkai
Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru
Billy Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk by Ben Fountain
The Lower River by Paul Theroux
In One Person by John Irving
How Should a Person Be, by Sheila Heti
The Devil in Silver by Victor Lavalle
Varamo by Cesar Ara

These are all drawn from “The Millions” list so it’s perhaps self-selected the wrong way – I’ll have to look around for some other annotated guides to the books coming down the pike, and particularly more non-fiction books, but the above is a pretty good list as a starter.

So in theory this year I will read those books plus a bunch of related titles (earlier books by those authors, for instance) and see if I can write about them with some of the same energy and thoughtfulness I gave to the task in 2009 and early 2010. Doubtful!!!

Just last night I began “The Art of Fielding,” which may be newish enough to qualify as a 2012 book for the purposes this plan… Or the Akhtar and Houellebecq titles are now available, I think…