It is the second day of the New Year and it is time to look back on the old year. From a bookish perspective, I had fun looking back at my reading experience the previous year and thinking about which were the books I liked the most. Here is what came out of my thinking.
I had an interesting reading year. I read some beautiful books by authors whom I hadn’t heard of before and in the process discovered some wonderful new writers. I celebrated ‘My Year of Reading French Literature’ and in the process read my first Balzac, my first surrealist novel (Andre Breton’s ‘Nadja’), my first French-Canadian writer (Nicole Brossard) and my first Marguerite Duras book, read my first novel-in-verse, my first book by a fictitious author (Richard Castle), my first Swedish novel, the latest book by Barbara Kingsolver, Dan Brown, Neil Gaiman and Julian Barnes and re-read ‘The Three Musketeers’ after a long time. I also participated in RIP VIII and German Literature Month.
My most favourite book of 2013 was ‘The Wall’ by Marlen Haushofer. It is my most favourite German book ever and it is one of my favourite books of alltime. If you haven’t read it yet, get it now and read it today 🙂
This is the complete list of my favourite books from 2013. There are lots of them, and that is because I like most of the books I read. I think I have reached the stage, where I instinctively pick books that I will end up liking. For the picture books I have written a brief description, because I haven’t reviewed most of them. For the rest, I have linked the titles to my reviews of the books.
Picture Books
(1) Frogs by Nic Bishop – This is a photo essay on frogs and how they live. There are stunning, colourful photos of different types of frogs throughout the book – bullfrogs and red-eyed frogs and yellow-coloured gliding frogs and strawberry and blue-coloured dart poison frogs and glass frogs which have transparent skin. I never knew that frogs came in so many different bright colours. The book also talks about how frog parents take care of their children – how African bullfrogs fiercely defend their eggs and tadpoles, how the marsupial frog carries its eggs and tadpoles in its pouch, how the strawberry dart poison frog takes care of each of her tadpole babies individually and feeds them – she looks almost human. The author Nic Bishop is not just a photographer but is also a proper biological scientist with a doctorate in biology. I have been indifferent to frogs till now, but after reading this book, I have fallen in love with them. I will look forward to reading my next Nic Bishop book. If you have young children at home or you want to gift books to your nephews / nieces or your friend’s children, gift them this one. Thanks a lot to my favourite friend for seeing the child in me and gifting me this beautiful book.
(2) Portland Impressions by Steve Terrill – This is a photo album on the beautiful city of Portland in Oregon. Portland is one of my favourite cities in the world. One of the reasons is that one of my favourite friends is from there. Another reason is that it is the home of some of my favourite writers – Virginia Euwer Wolff (her ‘The Mozart Season’ is one of the great Portland YA novels and deserves to me more widely read), Ursula Le Guin, Alexis Smith. And then, of course, there is the wonderful Powell’s, the only bookshop in the world which stocked Cuban novelist José Lezama Lima’s ‘Paradiso‘. This beautiful book-sized photo essay by award winning photographer Steve Terrill, is a fitting tribute to this beautiful city and has stunning photographs which bring out Portland in all its glory. There are pictures of the city’s skyline, the snowcapped Mount Hood, the Columbia and the Willamette rivers, the Columbia River Gorge, the interesting bridges, the renowned flower gardens, the universities, the sculptural homage to Lewis and Clark, the sculpture of Portlandia, the Singing Christmas tree, the boat festivals at the waterfront during different times of the year – they are all featured there. I was hoping to see photos of the Laurelhurst pub and some depicting the literary and art scene in the city, but unfortunately they were not featured. But PortlandStateUniversity was featured and so was the wonderful Powell’s. That made me very happy. If you want to read books about this beautiful city, I would recommend two – this beautiful book and Virginia Euwer Wolff’s wonderful ‘The Mozart Season’. If you would like to watch a movie set in this city, I would recommend ‘Feast of Love’ which is mostly set in PortlandStateUniversity and stars Morgan Freeman with others.
(3) Mother’s Love : Inspiring Stories from the Animal Kingdom by Melina Gerosa Bellows – This has beautiful photographs of animal mothers and their cute babies with quotes on mothers by writers and stories on how animals mothers risked everything to save their kids. Can keep looking at the pictures all day. Most of my favourite cats are featured – lioness, cheetah, lynx, tiger, housecat, leopard – only the puma was missing. My favourite quote from the book was by author Elizabeth Stone – “Making a decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” A must for animal lovers.
(4) Let’s Do Nothing by Tony Fucile – This is a picture book and tells the story of two friends Frankie and Sal, who feel that they have done most things – having played all games including board games, read most comics, pained more pictures than Van Gogh, baked lots of cookies – and now they don’t know what to do. Sal suggests that they do nothing for a short while and Frankie agrees. But ‘doing nothing’ is not as simple as it seems. Actually it turns out to be the most difficult thing. What happens after that is the rest of the story. I found it funny and also very insightful because the book shows how difficult it is to be quiet or do nothing for even a short while, especially for our 21st century mind which is filled with a blizzard of thoughts. And it does that in a way that children can understand. The story is humorous and funny and the theme it addresses is very Zen. I totally loved it. This is a wonderful book to gift to your children or to your nieces / nephews or your friends’ children.
German Books
(5) The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
(6) Mrs. Sartoris by Elke Schmitter
(7) The Thirtieth Year by Ingeborg Bachmann
French Books
(8) Yesterday, at the Hotel Clarendon by Nicole Brossard
(9) Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac
(10) The Square by Marguerite Duras
(11) The Mark of the Angel by Nancy Huston
(12) The Lost Estate by Alain-Fournier
(13) One Hundred Great French Books by Lance Donaldson-Evans
English Books
(14) Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith
(15) The Language of Others by Clare Morrall
(16) A Virtual Love by Andrew Blackman
YA Books
(17) The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
(18) Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
(19) The Pull of Gravity by Gae Polisner
Poetry
(20) The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
Memoir
(21) Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill
(22) She Left Me the Gun by Emma Brockes
Now some numbers with respect to my reading experience in 2013.
Total No. of books read – 70
Books by genre
Fiction – 46
Non-Fiction – 5
Comics – 4
Plays – 2
Poetry – 1
Picture Books – 6
Children Books – 6
Fiction by genre
Classics – 6
Literary Fiction – 22
Young Adult – 6
Thriller / Horror / Fantasy – 11
Science Fiction – 1
Books by language in which they were originally written
English – 46
French – 12
German – 5
Tamil – 2
Spanish – 1
Italian – 1
Swedish – 1
Yiddish – 1
Japanese – 1
Books by
Men authors – 40
Women authors – 30
The two things I was disappointed with was that I read only 12 French books (it was after all ‘My Year of Reading French Literature’ – I should have read more), and I read only 5 German books (Normally I read 10 German books during German Literature Month alone.) I am hoping to read more French and German books during the coming year. I also want to read more comics.
How was your reading year in 2013?
Wish you a very Happy New Year! Hope your year is filled with lots of beauty and light and joy and happiness and lots of books and beautiful reading moments.
Congratulations on a wonderful reading year, Vishy, and a happy new year!
You read so many books and they all sound wonderful! It’s great that you got to focus on French and German books. I will have to lookfor The Wall at my library, you make a strong case for it! And I would recommend Bechdel’s comic Are you there mother if you want to read more comics 🙂
Thanks Bina 🙂 Wish you too a very Happy New Year!
I loved the French and German books that I read last year. I am hoping to read more this year. Hope you get to read ‘The Wall’ and like it. It is a wonderful, beautiful book. I will look forward to hearing your thoughts on it. Thanks for recommending Bechdel’s ‘Are You There Mother’. It is a beautiful title. I will add it to my ‘TBR’ list and I will look for it.
I love that you included those picture books and the information you gave. You make me want to book a flight to Portland or read at least The Mozart Season.
I have a similar book on animal friendhsips. I’ll have to write about it. I absolutely love it.
I’ve got two of your YA novels on my piles The Fault in Our Stars and Eleanor and Park and am looking foward to them. The FRench and German books I know. 🙂
I just noticed I ddn’t include Mrs Sartois but only because I wanted to limit the choices to one -two books per month.
I hope you’ll have a great reading year, Vishy.
Glad to know that you liked the description of those picture books, Caroline. I enjoyed reading them and each of them was beautiful in its own way. I hope you get to read ‘The Mozart Season’ and like it. It was published first in the early ’90s, before the word ‘YA’ was probably invented and so the book is not widely read. It is a beautiful evocation of Portland and the music scene there and the book has a classical music backdrop. I hope the publishers release a new edition of it and promote it. It deserves to be read more widely. Wonderful to know that you have a book on animal friendships. I will look forward to reading your thoughts on it. So nice to know that you have ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ and ‘Eleanor and Park’. I hope you enjoy reading them. I loved both of them. I will look forward to hearing your thoughts on them. You too have a great reading year, Caroline. Happy reading!
Glad to see The Fault in Our Stars and Eleanor & Park. I still need to read The Pull of Gravity. Happy New Year, Vishy. May 2014 contain an abundance of happy reading.
Thanks for gushing about ‘The Fault in Our Stars’, Michelle. I wanted to read it after seeing it in both your list and Ben’s list of favourite reads last year. Hope you enjoy reading ‘The Pull of Gravity’. Happy New Year to you too! Hope you discover many wonderful new books and writers and have many beautiful reading moments.
I am currently between books. I think I’m going to take your advice, go get The Wall, and read it today. I just have to hope that my bookstore has a copy.
Hope you enjoy reading ‘The Wall’, M—–l. I will look forward to hearing your thoughts on it. Happy reading!
They had it, but the font didn’t agree with my eyes. I will have to look for a different printing. I did buy a book, though. I got The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley. I’d never heard of it before, but ithe synopsis sounds good. Today’s a sick day and a snow day for me and it’s my plan to curl up on the couch with my new book and read the day away.
Yes, one of the editions of ‘The Wall’ has small font. The other edition has bigger font. I hope you are able to get it and hope that doesn’t strain your eyes. Hope you enjoy the L.P.Hartley book. The title sounds quite interesting. Reading the day away – sound so exciting! Happy reading!
I just wanted to stop back to let you know that I read the Hartley book and a copy of The Wall with a better font. Both books were great and I’d like to thank you for recommending the latter.
So glad and happy to know that you liked Marlen Haushofer’s ‘The Wall’, M—–l 🙂
That’s a lot of books, Vishy, congratulations!
I am intrigued by The Wall, maybe I’ll get to read it sometime.
The Fault in Our Stars is going to be a movie released this year, now you can watch it and compare it with the book.
I hope you get to read many more great books this year.
Thanks Delia 🙂 Hope you get to read ‘The Wall’ and like it. It is nice to know that ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ is going to be released as a movie this year. I will look forward to watching it and comparing it with the book.
Hope you too have a wonderful reading year in 2014 with lots of wonderful books and beautiful reading moments. Happy New Year!
12 may not seem a lot but it’s a fair proportion of the 70 and it equates to one a month with is good 🙂 Eleanor & Park was one of my favourites too, such a good book. Happy new year, Vishy!
Thanks Charlie 🙂 Yes, 12 was not bad 🙂 I also liked most of the French books I read and so that was nice. So glad to know that ‘Eleanor and Park’ was one of your favourites too. I enjoyed reading your review of it. Happy New Year to you too! Hope you have a wonderful year filled with lots of wonderful books and beautiful reading moments!
Some great books I have the wall and will be getting to it soon hoping to find the DVD of the film as well to watch at the same time all the best stu and a happy new year
Thanks Stu 🙂 Hope you get to read ‘The Wall’ and like it. I will look forward to hearing your thoughts on it. I also can’t wait to watch the film version. Happy New Year to you too! Hope you have a wonderful year filled with lots of wonderful books and beautiful reading moments!
It seems like you had a wonderful reading year. I think reading 12 French books is pretty impressive! I hope 2014 is an even better year of reading for you!
I’m off to look at Let’s Do Nothing for my little guy!
Thanks Lindsey 🙂 I hope you too have a wonderful reading year in 2014.
Hope you are able to find ‘Let’s Do Nothing’. I think David will love it. I think he might also like Nic Bishop’s books. Other than this one on frogs, he has also written books on saving the snow leopard, saving a unique parrot called Kakapo and searching for the tree kangaroo. They are all beautiful with stunning photographs.
Wow — what a fantastic list and I applaud your drive to seek out so many TYPES of books. I think it’s all too easy to get lulled into our favorite genres and authors and getting out there and trying something new is a great challenge — clearly with rewards!
Thanks Steve 🙂 I love reading different kinds of books, though I mostly still stick to fiction. I love children books and comics as they are very beautifully produced and educational and make me feel like a child again.
VIshy, I absolutely love these lists of yours. I am surely going to try some German and French literature this year.
I agree with your YA choices. This year I didn’t read much YA but ones I did read were awesome.
Thanks Shweta 🙂 I hope you enjoy exploring German and French literature. I would highly recommend Marlen Haushofer’s ‘The Wall’. It was one of my greatest reading moments this year (and any year) when i discovered this book and read it. It is so beautiful and a work of absolute genius. Out of the French books I would recommend Marguerite Duras’ ‘The Square’ and Nancy Huston’s ‘The Mark of the Angel’ – both of them are beautiful in different ways. So glad to know that you enjoyed the YA books you read this year.
I will look forward to reading your favourite books post.
What an eclectic list! I’ll be following your reviews with interest in 2014. I wish you the best for this new year.
I hope you’ll have time for French lit again in 2014. 🙂
I see A Virtual Love made your list too.
Thanks Emma 🙂 I hope to continue reading French literature this year. One of the books that I want to read first is ‘Promise at Dawn’ by Romain Gary 🙂 I loved ‘A Virtual Love’ – especially the grandfather character.
Hope you are enjoying the first days of the new year.
I love all the different types of books you read Vishy. I don’t have a favorite genre either. Looks like you read some wonderful books last year. I hope 2014 brings you even more reading joy. Happy New Year.
Thanks TBM 🙂 Wish you too a Happy New Year! Hope your year is filled with many wonderful new books, many beautiful reading moments and exciting travel and food adventures.
I loved loved this post. Adding a few books to my to read list.
Glad to know that, Linda 🙂 Hope you enjoy reading them. Happy reading!
Just catching up, Vishy. Sounds like a good reading year! Thanks very much for including my book in your list – it means a lot to me. Coincidentally I just read the Alain-Fournier book and enjoyed it a lot. Along with the two books you gave me, it’s been a good start to my reading year!
Thanks Andrew 🙂 I loved ‘A Virtual Love’. I can’t wait to read your next book. So nice to know that you read Alain-Fournier’s ‘The Lost Estate’ and liked it very much. I will look forward to reading your review of it. Glad to also know that you liked Ed Smith’s book.