September 2011 Reads

A bit late with this, as usual these days.  50 books were read/re-read in various languages, including a 10 book re-reading (and two new translation reads) of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince in various languages.  Not much detail this time, since I plan on crashing soon after posting this.

334  Tom Perrotta, The Leftovers (excellent)

335  Michel Bernanos, La montagne morte de la vie (French; new translation appears in The Weird; very good)

336  Clark Ashton Smith, Xiccarph (Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition; very good)

337  Justin Torres, We the Animals (outstanding debut, more later)

338  A.D. Miller, Snowdrops (bland, rather forgettable Booker Prize nominee)

339  Dino Buzzati, Il deserto dei Tartari (re-read; Italian; excellent)

340  A.D. Jameson, Amazing Adult Fantasy (good)

341  Zoran Živković, Knjiga (Serbian, very good)

342  Zoran Živković, Čitalelja (Serbian, excellent)

343  Zoran Živković, The Writer/The Book/The Reader (re-read; I really need to write more formal reviews of Živković's work in the future)

344  Charles Perrault, Histoires ou Contes du temps passé (French; classic edition of French fairy tales from the 17th century)

345  Dino Buzzati, Poema a fumetti (re-read; Italian; graphic novel; moving retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice story)

346  Max Ernst, Une Semaine de Bonte (re-read; French; illustration-novel; seminal surrealist work)

347  Javier Marías, Tu rostro mañana:  1 Fiebre y lanza (Spanish; brilliant)

348  Zoran Živković, Most (Serbian, very good)

349  Zoran Živković, The Bridge (re-read; very good)

350  Javier Marías, Tu rostro mañana:  2  Baile y sueño (Spanish; outstanding)

351  Javier Marías, Tu rostro mañana:  3 Veneno y sombra y adiós (Spanish; one of the best literary trilogies of the 21st century)

352  Dino Buzzati, Il Meglio dei Racconti (Italian; collection of the best of Buzzati's short fiction; excellent)

353  Gonçalo M. Tavares, Learning to Pray in the Age of Technique (read this in translation due to unavailability of the Portuguese original; very well-written)

354  Vladimir Sorokin, Day of the Oprichnik (decent, but not great)

355  Jean Ray, Malpertuis (French; Ray's only novel; very good)

356  Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow:  Fever and Spear (I read the translations for a possible future project; very good translation)

357  Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow:  Dance and Dream (see comment above)

358  Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding (excellent debut novel)

359  Alexander Maksik, You Deserve Nothing (good)

360  Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York (outstanding)

361  Denis Johnson, Train Dreams (very good)

362  Amy Waldman, The Submission (very good debut novel)

363  Javier Marías, Los enamoramientos (Spanish; worthy novel to follow Tu rostro mañana)

364  Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow:  Poison, Shadow and Farewell (see earlier comment)

365 Tom Perrotta, Senior Season (good novella)

366  Rubén Mendoza, Lotería and Other Stories (good story collection)

367  Robert Coover, A Night in the Movies (good collection, but some stories were flat for me)

368  Jean Ray, Les Contes du Whisky (French; early collection; very good stories revolving around whiskey at some point)

369  Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, The Weird (as I have a translation in this, I'm too biased to say anything but how excellent this antho is – even if I didn't have a stake in it, I would have said the same for this massive 750,000 word anthology of a century of weird fiction)

370  Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues (decent but not very good Booker Prize nominee)

371  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince (re-read; French; sentimental favorite)

372  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, El petit príncep (Catalan; same thoughts)

373  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Regulus: Vel Pueri Soli Sapiunt (re-read; Latin; same thoughts)

374  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Mali Princ (re-read; Serbian; same thoughts)

375  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Il Piccolo Principe (re-read; Italian; same thoughts)

376  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, A Kis Herceg (re-read; Hungarian; same thoughts)

377  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Der Kleine Prinz (re-read; German; same thoughts)

378  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, O Principerzinho (Portuguese; same thoughts)

379  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, El Principito (re-read; Spanish; same thoughts)

380  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince (re-read; English; same thoughts)

381  Mercé Rodoreda, The Selected Stories of Mercé Rodoreda (translation from Catalan; excellent story collection released earlier this year)

382  Thomas Ligotti, My Work is Not Yet Done (re-read; already reviewed)

383  Sebastian Rotella, Triple Crossing (good fictionalization of the US-Mexican gang border wars and human trafficking)

384  Daniel Abraham, The Dragon's Path (good start to a new epic fantasy series)

385  Vladimir Nabokov, Despair (not Nabokov's best, but still quite good)


I know October is almost done, but I should have around 51 or 52 entries for that month whenever I get to it in November.  Looking more and more likely that I will have read over 500 books/e-books by year's end, one of my two best reading years.  Any of these you want to know more about or want to weigh in with your opinion?