“You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way.”  - Marvin Minsky

How personal our literary choices feel. My books. Even the words sound tender, and as vital as skin pressed to skin. So when I speak of the books I’ve read this year, perhaps lovingly, perhaps with an impatient distaste, know that I am doing so from a deeply personal place, and that if any of your darlings fall under my sword, that it is I, and not the book, that is being exposed. I am simply reporting how I felt while I inhabited them, carrying with me, always, that particular perspective which is all my own, and which reflects, alters, and warps all things. The more we try to define something, the further away from it’s essence we often move. If this year had a theme, that would be it.

I did not break any records this year. 39 total books read, the lowest in years. 28 works of fiction, and 11 nonfiction. I didn’t focus on any themes this year, and frankly, it shows, as I was all over the place. My low numbers stem from two sources; reading the novels Portnoy’s Complaint, and Pillar’s of the Earth early in the year and in close succession. Both are long, and both were time holes that brought little joy or resonance. But, in retrospect, important reads in their own right. My other low number catalyst is the philosophy and religion books I read. You’ll see them there in the nonfiction list below. Slow thoughtful reads that don’t look like much to someone not interested in those topics, but deep and powerful experiences that shaped my meditations for the year quite heavily.

I fear I am becoming a bit of a sentimentalist, as I couldn’t bring myself to rank my reads straight through as I have done in years past. I choose top fives for Fiction and Nonfiction, but the remaining lists are in loose descending order. There is a fluidity to my feelings about the list that I like. The energy this year feels good to me. Four Foxes will go to print this year. Many adventures, and much love, will unfold. Here’s to another year of great books!

1. All the Light we Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

I dislike synopsis in book reviews (though I’ve done my fair share of them), but there is a character in this novel, the Father, who carves wooden boxes for his blind daughter. These boxes are intricate, elegant, beautiful, and each contains a secret chamber which only careful study will reveal. And this book is just such a box. I had to get more than 300 pages in before I realized what I had on my hands; the dreamy, lugubrious prose had lulled me into a trance, when I suddenly began to see, by moving in ever widening arcs away from the details, pulling up from the individual stories, just what an impressive work of art Doerr created. It is a beautiful book, with sentences like gems plucked from the sea.

2. Nude in a Tub: Stories of Quillifarkeag Maine, G. K. Wuori

This was a random book I picked up at the library just based on the looks of it. This collection of short stories is wildly it’s own animal. Words like raw and assault come to mind. But they fail to express what wandering the trailers, fields, and woods of Wuori’s little fictional northern Maine town feels like. For anyone that has ever felt like they’ve been abandoned at the ends of the earth in some little isolated corner of Maine, this book will tap that vein, and hard. Insanity. That’s another word that comes to mind.

3. House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

“She is beautiful, and men love her, and it ruins her.” Beautiful portrait of despair and futile suffering. Razor sharp assessment of a woman’s worth at that time in that society. Like all Wharton I’ve read, pitch perfect and always exceeding expectations.

4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

Talking cats, transgender librarians, metaphysical journeys, sex with a ghost, much talk of preparing simple yet delicious sounding food, this is Murakami at his finest. I loved this novel. Goal for 2015 is to finish the Murakami canon. Probably not going to happen, considering his most recent weighty tome, but I am at least going to catch up on his older works.

5. Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata

Remarkably sad and beautiful. Stark, elegant, exposing the faulty hearts of us all. A great read for winter. I read it in summer and it was like diving down into cold dark waters. In the best possible sense.

6. NW, Zadie Smith

7. MaddAddam Trilogy (3 books), Margaret Atwood

8. NOS4A2, Joe Hill

Just had to note that I started reading Joe Hill last year and that this novel rates so high for me in part because it is, in my mind, the book where he looked his Dad in the eye and said, fuck you I’m off and running. It is my favorite of his so far. And I have a crush on him.

8. Doctor Sleep, Stephen King

9. Everything is Illuminated, Johnathon Safron Foer

10. Crampton Hodnot, Barbara Pym

The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner

Great quote from this raucous book, “People who want their love easy don’t really want love.”

Heartshaped Box, Joe Hill

Some Tame Gazelle, Barbara Pym

Silent House, Orhan Pamuk

The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follet

We’re all in this Together, Owen King

Pandora, Anne Rice

Tobacco Road, Erskine Caldwell

Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

When She was Good, Philip Roth

Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth

I do not like Philip Roth.