Books

This is a list of books I’ve read, which is not to say they are all books I recommend.  Fact is, I read a fair amount of crap.

2010
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
Arvo Part – Paul Hillier
A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
Nobody Move – Denis Johnson
The Best of H.P. Lovecraft – H.P Lovecraft
Los Angeles Noir 2 – Denise Hamiltion (editor)
Farewell, My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
Where I Was From – Joan Didion
Too Much Happiness – Alice Munro
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
Point Omega – Don DeLillo
Musicophilia – Oliver Sacks
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
The Savage Detectives – Roberto Bolaño
The Rest is Noise – Alexander Ross
The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
Blood’s a Rover – James Ellroy
Murder on the Leviathan – Boris Akunin
Demons in the Spring – Joe Meno
Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
Darkness at Noon – Arthur Koestler
Fire to Fire – Mark Doty

2009
Native Son – Richard Wright
The Cold War Swap – Ross Thomas
New York Landmarks – Charles J. Ziga
Crimson Snow – Jules Stewart
Charlie Wilson’s War – George Crile
The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman – Laurence Sterne
The Constant Gardener – John Le Carre
Flashman – George MacDonald Fraser
This Republic of Suffering – Drew Gilpin Faust
Shadow Country – Peter Matthiessen
Best American Short Stories 2009 – Alice Sebold (editor)
A Most Wanted Man – John Le Carre
Atmospheric Disturbances – Rivka Galchen
Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories – Steven Millhauser
The Forever War – Dexter Filkins
The Dark Side – Jane Mayer
Thirty-Three Teeth – Colin Cotterill
DeKok and the Mask of Death – A.C. Baantjer
Departing at Dawn – Gloria Lise
The Monster of Florence – Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
The Sack of Rome – Alexander Stille
Hunger – Knut Hamsun
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
Blackout – Gianluca Morozzi
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
Gates of Fire – Steven Pressfield
Daemon – Leinad Zeraus
Gomorrah – Roberto Salviano
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J.K. Rawling
This is Your Brain on Music – Daniel J. Levitin
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes
Homage to Catalonia – George Orwell
The Nautical Chart – Arturo Perez-Reverte
The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby
Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
Saturday – Ian McEwan
Bowling Alone – Robert D. Putnam
Tree of Smoke – Denis Johnson
A Slave No More – David W. Blight
Time and Materials – Robert Hass
Havana Red – Leonardo Padura
Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only – Patrick McGilligan
Shulz and Peanuts: A Biography – David Michaelis
The Man Suit – Zachary Schomburg
Medical Apartheid – Harriet A Washington
The Tailor of Panama – John Le Carre
Out Stealing Horses – Per Petterson
The Pesthouse – Jim Crace
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway

2008
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name – Vendela Vida
Heyday – Kurt Andersen
Exit Music – Ian Rankin
Hotel de Dream – Edmund White
The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
Havana Gold – Leonardo Padura
Knots and Crosses – Ian Rankin
Last Night at the Lobster – Stewart O’Nan
The Indian Clerk – David Leavitt
Dreams from My Father – Barack Obama
Grammar Lessons – Michele Morano
Booklyn Noir 3 – Tim McLoughlin and Thomas Adcock (editors)
The Bells of Nagasaki – Takashi Nagai
The Lottery and Other Stories – Shirley Jackson
Empire of Blue Water – Stephan Talty
Detroit Noir – E.J Olsen and John C. Hocking (editors)
The Pugilist at Rest – Thom Jones
Edith Wharton – Hermione Lee
By George – Wesley Stace
The Dirt on Clean – Katherine Ashenburg
I am Legend – Richard Matheson
The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
Agent Zigzag – Ben Macintyre
The Door – Margaret Atwood
Havana Blue – Leonardo Padura
Cheating at Canasta – William Trevor
The Honourable Schoolboy – John Le Carre
Chrysalis – Kim Todd
Bleak House – Charles Dickens
The Dante Club – Matthew Pearl
Be Near Me – Andrew O’Hagan
We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson
The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova
Lisey’s Story – Stephen King
The Way to Paradise – Mario Vargas Llosa
My Life as a Fake – Peter Carey
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Triangle – David von Drehle
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – John Le Carre
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
Surveillance – Jonathon Raban
The Wall Street Journal Complete Real Estate Investing Guidebook – David Crook
The Atomic Bazaar – William Langewiesche
Smiley’s People – John Le Carre
Dark Harvest – Norman Partridge
What is the What – Dave Eggers
The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
No Country for Old Men – Cormac McCarthy
The Terror – Dan Simmons
Sword and Blossom – Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko Williams
Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett

2007
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carre
Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
Richard Matheson’s I am Legend – Steve Niles and Elman Brown (graphic novel adaptation)
The Secret River – Kate Greenville
The Brooklyn Rail Fiction Anthology – David Breckenridge (editor)
The Worst Hard Time – Timothy Egan
Grief – Andrew Holleran
The Great Deluge – Douglas Brinkley
The Places in Between – Rory Stewart
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
Sweet and Low – Rich Cohen
The Time in Between – David Bergen
The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
Best American Poetry 2004 – Lyn Hejinian (editor)
True History of the Kelly Gang – Peter Carey
I am America (and So Can You!) – Stephen Colbert
The Hill Bachelors – William Trevor
Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll
Sea of Thunder – Evan Thomas
The Looming Tower – Lawrence Wright
Theft – Peter Carey
The Boys of My Youth – Jo Ann Beard
Story – Robert McKee
A Three Dog Life – Abigail Thomas
Girlbomb – Janice Erlbaum
Fortress of Solitude – Jonathon Lethem
House of Leaves – Daniel Z. Danielewski
Self Help – Lorrie Moore
Screenplay – Syd Field
To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
Dracula – Bram Stoker
The First Hurt – Rachel Sherman
A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway
Flight – Sherman Alexie
Schindler’s List – Thomas Keneally
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Nerve Damage – Peter Abrahams
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J.K. Rawling
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
The Pale Criminal – Philip Kerr
The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman
The Emperor’s Children – Claire Messud
How Cities Work – Alex Marshall
About Alice – Calvin Trillin
Four Screenplays – Syd Field
The Boy Detective Fails – Joe Meno
On Becoming a Novelist – John Gardner
The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop – Stephen Koch
District and Circle – Seamus Heaney
China Syndrome – Karl Taro Greenfield
The Brief History of the Dead – Kevin Brockmeier
The Things They Carried – Kevin O’Brien
Better for All theWorld – Harry Bruinius
All Aunt Hagar’s Children – Edward P. Jones
The Way of All Flesh – Samuel Butler
Blue Front – Martha Collins
The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky – Ken Dornstein
The Spider’s House – Paul Bowles
Morocco: the Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges – Marvine Howe
Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
Morocco since 1830 – C.R. Pennell
Inspector Ali – Driss Chraibi
Flutes of Death – Driss Chraibi
Mother Spring – Driss Chraibi
Muhammad – Driss Chraibi
Jean Genet in Tangier - Mohamed Choukri
Ten Little Indians – Sherman Alexie
Stolen Lives – Malika Oufkir
Quills and Other Plays – Doug Wright
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night -Time – Mark Haddon
Holidays on Ice – David Sedaris
How Would A Patriot Act? – Glenn Greenwald
The Razor’s Edge – W. Somerset Maugham
Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
Hiroshima – John Hersey
On the Golden Porch – Tatyana Tolstaya
The Whole – John Reed
Distant Star – Roberto Bolaño
Best American Mystery Stories 2002 – James Ellroy (editor)

2006
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline – George Saunders
Alabanza – Martin Espada
The Voice at 3:00 AM – Charles Simic
Because They Wanted To – Mary Gaitskill
What the Living Do – Marie Howe
Absurdistan – Gary Schteyngart
Vindication – Lyndall Gordon
Small Island – Andrea Levy
The War Works Hard – Dunya Mikhail
Windows on the World – Frederic Beigbeder
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
Motherless Brooklyn – Jonathon Lethem
The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargas Llosa
The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
The Tattoo Artist – Jill Ciment
Selected Poems – Pablo Neruda
Chile by Night – Roberto Bolaño
Rules for Old Men Waiting – Peter Pouncey
Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon – Dean Bakopoulos
Blind Huber – Nick Flynn
On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
Modern Short Stories – Arthur Mizener (editor)
Some Ether – Nick Flynn
Chile: A Literary Traveler’s Companion – Katherine Silver (editor)
Jack and Other New Poems – Maxine Kumin
Watch Where the Wolf is Going – Antonio Skarmeta
The House of Spirits – Isabel Allende
On Writing – Stephan King
Carnivorous Nights – Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson
Heart of the Old Country – Tim McLoughlin
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers – Yiyun Li
Sixty Stories – Donald Barthelme
The Assassin’s Gate – George Packer
A Sudden Country – Karen Fisher
The Peru Reader – Starn, Degregori, and Kirk (editors)
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service – Mario Vargas Llosa
Death in the Andes – Mario Vargas Llosa
Ulysses – James Joyce
Japanland – Karin Muller
The Art of Fiction – David Lodge
Conversation in the Cathedral – Mario Vargas Llosa
Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
Who Killed Palomin Molero? – Mario Vargas Llosa
American Prometheus – Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
Short Fiction: A Critical Collection – James R. Frakes and Isadore Traschen(editors)
Bound for Canaan – Fergus M. Bordewich
Luck is Luck – Lucia Perillo
The March – E.L. Doctorow
Bread and Roses – Bruce Watson
Controlled Burn – Scott Wolven
Beyond Glory – David Margolick
Beasts of No Nation – Uzodinma Iweala
In the Province of Saints – Thomas O’Malley
Love in the Driest Season – Neely Tucker
American Smooth – Rita Dove
The Tyrant’s Novel – Thomas Keneally
Plot & Structure – James Scott Bell
Swimming to Antarctica – Lynne Cox
Soul City – Toure
So Quietly the Earth – David Lee
The Sex Lifes of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific – J. Maaren Troost
The Second Life of Samuel Tyne – Esi Edugyan
On the Wing – Alan Tennant
The Art of Fiction – John Gardner
Blood Done Sign My Name – Timothy B. Tyson
The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Best American Short Stories 2002 – Sue Miller (editor)
The O. Henry Awards: 2001 Prize Stories – Larry Dark (editor)
White Line Fever – Lemmy
The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford

2005
The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
Briarpatch – Ross Thomas
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
Winesburg, Ohio – Sherwood Anderson
You Are Not a Stranger Here – Adam Haslett
Dubliners – James Joyce
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – J.K. Rawling
A Bit on the Side – William Trevor
Here Is New York – E.B. White
You’ve Got to Read This – Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard (editors)
Jesus’ Son – Denis Johnson
The Cold War Swap – Ross Thomas
Building Fiction – Jesse Lee Kercheval
Jesus’ Son – Denis Johnson
Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction – Patricia Highsmith
The Great Influenza – John M. Barry
The Island at the Center of the World – Russell Shorto
Rats – Robert Sullivan
Dancing With Cuba – Alma Guillermoprieto
Natasha and Other Stories – David Bezmozgis
Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson
Don’t Point That Thing at Me – Kyril Bonfiglioli
Creating Short Fiction – Damon Knight
Dubliners – James Joyce
Skin – Roald Dahl
The Specialty of the House – Stanley Ellin
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City – Nick Flynn
Ulysses – James Joyce
Brooklyn Noir – Tim McLoughlin (editor)
Scream at the Sky – Carlton Stowers
Oblivion – Peter Abrahams
Brooklyn Noir 2 – Tim McLoughlin (editor)
Harbor – Lorraine Adams
Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
The Broker – John Grisham
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathon Safron Foer
De Kooning: An American Master – Mark Stevens and Analyn Swan
Blackbird House – Alice Hoffman
A Bit on the Side – William Trevor
Silence of the Lambs – Thomas Harris
Wedding of the Waters – Peter L. Bernstein
At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig – John Gimlette
Breaking the Tongue – Vyvyane Loh
Omaha Blues – Joseph Lelyveld
American Desert – Percival Everett
Writing Down the Bones – Natalie Goldberg
America (the Book) – Jon Stewart and the writers of the Daily Show
How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
Salem’s Lot – Stephen King
The Coffee Trader – David Liss
Who Killed Palomino Molero? – Mario Vargas Llosa
Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto – Gilbert Osofsky
The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
Boss Tweed’s New York – Seymour J. Mandelbaum
The Elements of Style – William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White
Border Town Girl – John D. McDonald
Uncle Fred in the Springtime – P.G. Wodehouse
The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson
The Theory of Poker – David Sklansky
Gambling Theory and Other Topics – Mason Malmuth
Flashman and the Angel of the Lord – George MacDonald Fraser
Flashman and the Mountain of Light – George MacDonald Fraser
The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster

2004
State of Fear – Michael Crichton
Flashman’s Lady – George MacDonald Fraser
Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell – Susanna Clarke
All the Shah’s Men – Stephan Kinzer
Ukridge – P.G. Wodehouse
Flashman and the Dragon – George MacDonald Fraser
The Code of the Woosters – P.G. Wodehouse
Flashman in the Great Game – George MacDonald Fraser
The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
Hold ‘Em Excellence – Lou Krieger
Unburied – Charles Palliser
Medusa – Michael Dibdin
Blood Rain – Michael Dibdin
Dirty Tricks – Michael Dibdin
A Long Finish – Michael Dibdin
The Idiot – Fyodor Doestoevsky
Flashman – George MacDonald Fraser
Hold ‘Em Excellence – Lou Krieger
Yellow Dog – Martin Amis
White Noise – Don DeLillo
Doomsday Book – Connie Willis
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J.K. Rawling
Ulysses – James Joyce
The New Bloomsday Book – Harry Blamires
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Casual Rex – Eric Garcia
The Quincunx – Charles Palliser
A Conspiracy of Paper – David Liss
The Master of Rain – Tom Bradby
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephanson
The White Russian – Tom Bradby
In the Hand of Dante – Nick Tosches
Claudius the God… – Robert Graves
I, Claudius – Robert Graves
La Guardia Come to Power: 1933 – Arthur Mann
The Winter Queen – Boris Akunin
Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien

2003
Prey – Michael Crichton
Buddha’s Little Finger – Victor Pelevin
The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
SS-GB – Len Deighton
Hamlet – Willliam Shakespeare
Cold Six Thousand – James Ellroy
American Tabloid – James Ellroy
The Devil and Sonny Liston – Nick Tosches
Five Days in London – May 1940 – John Lukacs
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J.K. Rawling
Al Smith and His America – Oscar Handlin
The Dinosaur Club – William Hefferman
Liars and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right – Al Franken
My Dark Places – James Ellroy
Beulah Hill – William Hefferman
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
Poker Nation – Andy Bellin
Seabiscuit – Laura Hillenbrand
18 Best Short Stories of Edgar Allen Poe – Edgar Allen Poe
Hollywood Nocturnes – James Ellroy
Mildred Pierce – James M. Cain
True History of the Kelly Gang – Peter Carey
The Tweed Ring – Alexander B. Callow
Mary Reilly – Valerie Martin
The Way of the Traitor – Laura Joh Rowland
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Emperor of Ocean Park – Stephan L. Carter
Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut
The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – J.K. Rawling
Black Hawk Down – Mark Bowden
Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien
White Jazz – James Ellroy
Five Points – Tyler Anbinder
Death of the Last Villista – Allen Martin

2002
The Weaver’s Inheritance – Kate Sedley
The Summons – Peter Lovesey
The Wicked Winter – Kate Sedley
Plymouth Cloak – Kate Sedley
The Reaper – Peter Lovesey
Our Man in Havana – Graham Green
The Vault – Peter Lovesey
L.A. Confidential – James Ellroy
Everything’s Illuminated – Jonathon Safron Foer
Poker Nation – Andy Bellin
Adios, Muchachos – Daniel Chavarria
Black Lotus – Laura Joh Rowland
Murphy – Samuel Beckett
Ulysses – James Joyce
Little Flower – Elliot Lawrence
Big Nowhere – James Ellroy
The Company – Robert Littell
Inside Tracks – Robert Buskin
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
Rimbaud: A Biography – Graham Robb
Q – Quincy Jones
American Tabloid – James Ellroy
Cold Six Thousand – James Ellroy
The Westies – T.J. English
The Club Dumas – Arturo Perez-Reverte
The Flanders Panel – Arturo Perez-Reverte