20) J.D. Salinger - Franny and Zooey
Salinger takes his dissection of upper-class White America too far, to the point of excruciating boredom. Major disappointment.

21) A.J. Jacobs - The Year of Living Biblically
Fairly entertaining, although Jacobs comes of as enormously smug in a passive-aggressive sort of way.

18) Chris Ware - Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (380 pages)
Wow-wee. Talk about a downer. Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan is a socially retarded, lonely man with a domineering mother -- your stereotypical uber-loser. Great emotional realism. Very painful to read. Bravo, Chris.


19) J.D. Salinger - Nine Stories (320 pages)
Pretty great stuff, most of this. "Teddy" is tremendous, as is "A Perfect Day for a Bananafish." A few others are damn good, too. Only real clunker is "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period." Must now read Franny and Zooey.

17) Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (610 pages)
A wondrous disappointment. I just couldn't get over the writing style. Too much description. Too much heavy-handedness. And the story itself doesn't come together in a satisfying way. Okada is a great and sympathetic character except for the troubling fact that he cares for and forgives his wife too, too much. Oh, I understand all the whys and what-nots of why he does what he does, but I don't care - it just doesn't work for me.

16) Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - Mother Night (288 pages)
My new favorite Vonnegut. Mother Night is funny, intelligent, entertaining satire.

Next up is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. So excited.

15) Pete Jordan - DIshwasher (374 pages)
Eh, it was okay. Interesting, but pretty repetitive. Not much to say.

14) Craig Thompson - Blankets (574 pages)
Thompson has successfully crafted something that appears to be very large and epic, but is not. You can power through over 100 pages of this whiny, sentimental poo-poo in half an hour. It gives the reader the false impression that s/he can't put Blankets down without nearly finishing it ("It must be good!")
Thompson is so bent on presenting himself as a lonely loser who is a victim of hick society and fundamentalist religion that he never gives us a reason to like or care about him. He plays the pity card instead. This is especially troubling vis-a-vis his relationship with Raina, a gorgeous, amazing girl that has absolutely no reason to be attracted to a mopey goofus like him. He clings to her like a helpless, hungry babe to the Golden Mother, continuously suckling on her teet and despairing when she rests her bosom or, god forbid, offers it to another person.
Obviously this is not precise characterization -- we are meant to see Caig and Raina as Thompson saw them, not as they were exactly. Well, that's fine and good for you, Craigy boy; you think you were the world's most awkward assface and this girl was a goddess. And we all go through that, feeling awkward and idealizing our first loves, don't we? But you didn't write this when you were 17, Craig. You had the great fortune of being able to look back, after some not insignificant removal from the situation. So shame on you -- tsk-tsk -- for not allowing your character to do the same thing, instead forcing him to wallow in adolescent poppycock for nigh on 600 pages.

13) Alan Moore - Watchmen (413 pages)
While I liked it, I feel a bit let down given its status as some sort of masterpiece. Perhaps a second reading at some point in the future will guide me through to the place where most of you Watchmen fanatics dwell.

12) Alison Bechdel - Fun Home (232 pages)
Ok, this was awesome. Got to love a graphic novel that sends you scurrying toward your OED.

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I may get to Blankets next. Or Watership Down. We'll see what strikes my motherfuggin' fancy.

11) Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - Cat's Cradle (287 pages)
Entertaining, if a bit heavy-handed, even 45 years removed from the threat of imminent nuclear doom.

Reading Fun Home now.

I am copying this over from another site.

I'm going to go ahead and cheat a little and include books I read in December and finished in January. I firmly believe that there is no chance that I will read close to fifty books this year. I'm just too lazy. That said, I sure do like to build and list things, and essentially this is what I'm going to be doing here - erecting some sort of monumental psychogenic phallic structure out of the books I read this calendar year. And cataloguing its pieces along the way.

So let's start.

1) Chuck Klosterman - Killing Yourself to Live: 85 of a True Story (272 pages)
I've been meaning to check out Klosterman for a while. I tend to forgive, even admire in some sick 'I am a lesser you!' kind of way, writers who meander and are self-indulgent. This is Klosterman. So a big PLUS for him there. Being a pathetic music nerd, I also accordingly enjoyed his diatribes on the subject.
I'm happy I read this book.

2) Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (240 pages)
I was dating an autistic girl several months back, so I thought I ought to read this one to gain some more insight into her fantastically strange and interesting condition. I could have read something more instructive or helpful, sure, but come on. No.
So this novel was a delightful little romp, but quite disturbing in the sense that this girl who told me she was autistic was probably a fibber. She resembled nothing of our courageous young hero. I never brought this up, instead opting to quietly flee from her liar's grasp.
So for a life lesson learned, I am overjoyed to have read this book.

3) Steven Hall - The Raw Shark Texts (448 pages)
This is the kind of zany thing that I could dream up and bother people about. My cup of tea. Very good first half or so; very 'meh' conclusion. Oh well. Still worth the time, I think.

4) Jonathan Ames - What's Not to Love (288 pages)
I was actually at the library looking for something by Steve Almond and came across this one instead. Glad I did. It is uproarious. I found myself uproaring so violently on the bus, in fact, that my actions suddenly became socially stigmatizing and uncomfortable for those seated near me. Such is the life of such persons, I guess.

5) Augusten Burroughs - Running With Scissors (336 pages)
I don't know why I read this. I found it mildly enjoyable despite hating it. Not much else to say.

6) Jonathan Ames - Wake Up Sir (352 pages)
More Ames. More hilarity. Sags a bit in parts, but a wholly satisfactory effort. Must now seek out The Extra Man.

7) Joe Meno - Hairstyles of the Damned (270 pages)
I read (most of) Tender as Hellfire last year and enjoyed it a fair amount. This one is crap in comparison. Meno's adopted style for this train-wreck is meandering, boring, and unlikable. That it may have been his intent is of no consequence. The only reason I finished it is the copious amount of references to Chicago's infamous Haunted Trails, one of my most cherished childhood stomping grounds. To be nostalgically assaulted so feverishly nearly absolves Meno of this literary sin.
Well, no, not really. It's still crap.

8) Tao Lin - Eeeee Eee Eeee (211 pages)
There is a place in my world for novels that feature bears who gently smash their fists into human faces. Eeeee Eee Eeee is disposable, yes, but it's quite funny at times and a joy to read.

9) Rob Sheffield - Love Is a Mix Tape (224 pages)
I'm not really sure what I was expecting here. Sheffield's style is simple, tired, unimpressive. The only thing that could have saved this pity-fest is if the guy had decent taste in music, which would have made his pontifications on the subject a bit more bearable. I mean, Sheffield writes for Rolling Stone (I knew this going in) -- this should have been an immediate red flag.

I can only blame myself.

10) Jonathan Ames - The Extra Man (316 pages)
If I may be hyperbolic for a second here, I will contend that Jonathan Ames writes the most interesting characters of any contemporary author. Plotwise, The Extra Man was initially very engaging but ultimately sagged as the developments made in the relationship between the principal characters took far too long to play out. This could have been a novella -- half the length -- and all achieved would still be achieved. What kept me interested was the characters of Louis and (especially) Henry. Damn interesting if I may say so. Their interactions are by far the strongest points of the novel. All things considered, I may have preferred Wake Up, Sir a smidgen more, but The Extra Man is still a well-written and very entertaining book that deserves a wider audience.
I look forward to searching out Ames' other novel and non-fiction work. He also has a graphic novel coming out in the Fall, which has me fantastically excited.

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I picked up Cat's Cradle and Blankets today. One of these will probably be next.