Best of 2013: Top 25 Books Released in 2013

2013 has been a good, if not exactly great, reading year.  There were several books published in multiple genres that I felt were at least very good, if not excellent, works of fiction or non-fiction.  I read a little over 100 of these 2013 releases and having a "success rate" (or at least works that engaged me on some level) of over 50% is very good (helps that I am very careful when selecting books to read, I suppose).  It is difficult to come up with a list of great works that does not exclude at least a handful of others that are very near in quality to those that make such a list, even an expanded one as my Top 25.  In fact, the difference between #25 and #6, to use semi-arbitrary numbers is often minute enough that if I were re-list the books I chose for this list six months later, the ordering might be very different.  But such is the nature of the list beast, I suppose.  Here are the 25 titles over which you can debate their merits, if you so choose (those for which I had already written formal review will contain links to said reviews):

25.  Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being
 
24.  Leena Krohn, Datura 

23.  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Arthur 

22.  Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

21.  Helene Welker,  The Golem and the Jinni  

20.  James McBride, The Good Lord Bird 
 
19.  Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries  

18.  Sinan Antoon, The Corpse Washer 

17.  Matt Bell, In the House upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods  

16.  Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck 

15.  NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names 

14.  Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove 

13.  Jean-Marie Blas de Robles, Where Tigers are at Home 

12.  Matt Rassmussen, Black Aperture 

11.  Umberto Eco, Storia delle Terre e dei Luoghi Leggendari 

10.  William H. Gass, Middle C 

 9.  Gene Yuen Yang, Boxers/Saints 

 8.  John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, March:  Book One 

 7.  Karen Joy Fowler, We are all Completely Beside Ourselves 

 6.  Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch 

 5.  George Packer, The Unwinding 

 4.  Philipp Meyer, The Son 

 3.  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah 

 2.  George Saunders, Tenth of December 

 1.  László Krasznahorkai, Seiobo There Below

Best of 2013: Three Books That Weren't Able to be Read in Time for Consideration

It is always inevitable, that no matter how much I try to plan reads ahead of time or how fast I can read, that there are always books that fly under my radar until it is too late in the year to read them or that something comes up in the way of me getting around to reading it before the rush of the holidays and the year-end posts (and the last-minute reads that I do manage to cram in, sometimes minutes before I do write-ups on various categories).

I just finished reading my 400th and last book for the year and have met or surpassed every single reading goal that I set for 2013.  That reading list will be posted later today if I have time or (more likely) on Wednesday afternoon before I go to work.  But here are three books (one I purchased last week, the other is arriving by UPS today, and the third I've had on my shelf for two months, awaiting the time that I can go through it carefully to see which elements I can lift and alter in case I have to teach English as well as ESL in the upcoming semester) that likely would have garnered at least some consideration for the category shortlists, if not the Top 25 itself:

3.  Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, The Mirror of Beauty

I had this book recommended to me on Twitter on Christmas night by Musharraf Ali Farooqi (2012 Man Asian Prize finalist; review here) and the premise is very promising for this novel that was only just recently released in the US in English translation from Urdu.  Hardcover copy should arrive today.

2.  Michael Cisco, Member

I think Cisco is one of the finest writers writing in the English language today, so it was to my great chagrin that it wasn't until a week or so ago (I believe it was on a Facebook post by Jeff VanderMeer) that I learned that Member had been out since mid-October.  Just not enough time to read it before the new year, alas, as I wouldn't have been surprised if it would crack my Top 25 list if I had somehow had the time to read it.

1.  Jeff VanderMeer, Wonderbook

I have been very curious about this "fully illustrated writing book" ever since Jeff started talking about it around two years ago.  A casual thumbing through has revealed quite a few interesting lines of thought when it comes to the art and craft of writing, but this book deserves much more time from me than I have been able to manage during the past two months.  It will be read in small segments during the early months of 2014 and I might just take a few notes to see how I could apply it in the classroom if I were to teach English/writing full-time again.

Best of 2013: Non-Fiction

2013 Non-Fiction Read:

Lauren Elkin and Scott Esposito, The End of Oulipo?

Justin Landon and Jared Shurin (eds.), Speculative Fiction 2012

Carolyn Dalgliesh, The Sensory Child Gets Organized

Martín Arias and Martín Hadis, Professor Borges:  A Course on English Literature

Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump

Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone

Wendy Lower, Hitler's Furies

John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, March: Book One

Al Gore, The Future

Denise Kiernan, The Girls of Atomic City

Gene Yuen Yang, Boxers/Saints

Umberto Eco, Storia delle Terre e dei Luoghi Leggendari 

Umberto Eco, Le Sette Meraviglie

George Packer, The Unwinding

I read more non-fiction in 2013 than in any of the previous four or five years.  There were popular histories, collections of essays (including one in which two 2012 pieces of mine appeared), autobiographies, graphic novel renderings of histories, art books in Italian, translations from Italian and Japanese, guides to help people understand special needs children, and a transcription of a college lecture series.  Even the one book on the above list that appears on my Most Disappointing Releases list will hold quite a bit of interest for the lay reader (alas, I cannot claim to be such when it comes to the Nazi era).  I learned a lot from reading these books (the Dalgliesh and Higashida in particular opened my eyes further when it came to sensory/children with autism and both provided insight that has helped me immensely at both of my current jobs) and hopefully in the years to come I will discover even more excellent non-fictions that will educate me as much or more as these did this year.  Now for the list of the three that have stuck with me the most:

3.  John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, March:  Book One

I discussed my reasons for liking this graphic novel rendering of Rep. John Lewis's early life up to the 1960 Nashville sit-ins in my previous listing of graphic novels and anthologies read this year.  It is a book that I would love to use as a supplementary reading material if I ever choose to teach 11th grade US History again.

2.  Umberto Eco, Storia delle Terre e dei Luoghi Leggendari 

Excellent art/history of how people over the centuries have envisioned both real and legendary lands near and far.  See my earlier comments in my listing of the best foreign language works released this year.

1.  George Packer, The Unwinding 

Winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Non-Fiction.  Packer interviewed several Americans from all walks of life, from tech founders to those who lost their jobs when the physical economy began to shift toward a service economy in the late 1970s.  Each of these Americans' stories are fascinating and Packer does an excellent job in breaking these narrative threads into chronological years that show the various ways in which people even conceive of "America" has changed since 1980.  One of the best books I've read this year.

Best of 2013: Foreign Language Works

2013 Foreign Language Works:  

João Barreiros (ed.), Lisboa no Ano 2000 (Portuguese)

Alliah, Metanfetaedro (Portuguese)

Ildefonso Falcones, La reina descalza (Spanish)

José Ovejero, La invención del Amor (Spanish)

Umberto Eco, Storia delle Terre e dei Luoghi Leggendari (Italian)

Umberto Eco, Le Sette Meraviglie (Italian; e-book-only)

João Tordo, O Ano Sabático (Portuguese)

Mariano Villarreal and Luis Pestarini (eds.), Terra Nova:  vol. 2 (Spanish)

Despite making an effort to read at least a 1/3 of my 2013 total reads in a foreign language (current count has me at a little over 180 books read in a language other than English), it is very difficult to get very recent works.  Thankfully, more and more publishers are releasing e-editions (more so on iBookstore than on the Kindle store, I've noticed) where US readers such as myself can read them.  Three (and one of those, Lisboa no Ano 2000 was sent to me as a review copy by the publisher) of the books listed above were purchased books; the other five were e-books.  The genres are also varied, with three being SF/F, one historical fiction, two non-fiction/art books, and two more contemporary fictions.  Likely about half of these books will be translated into English in the near future (the first Eco already has, the Falcones is a near-certainty, and I suspect Ovejero and Tordo will see their works translated at some point).  All in all, the number of strong literary works belies the paucity of numbers on this list.

3.  José Ovejero, La invención del Amor 

This 2013 Premio Alfaguara winner is about love, yes, but even more about us humans who "invent" it in order to connect with one another.  I plan on re-reading it and writing a formal review sometime in 2014.

2.  João Tordo, O Ano Sabático

Tordo won the Premio Saramago for an earlier work, As Três Vidas,  and while I wouldn't go as far as to say that his latest matches that excellent work, it does come very close.  His characters, particularly the protagonist Hugo, are dynamic, fully-realized, with memorable scenes.  Will be reading more of his works in 2014.

1.  Umberto Eco, Storia delle Terre e dei Luoghi Leggendari

This is the fourth in a series of non-fiction/art books that Eco has written in recent years.  This time, the subject is the fantastical lands created by millennia of explorers, writers, and other mythmakers.  The accompanying art is beautiful and the essays are erudite without being too overwhelming for readers.  Although I think Eco's books on Beauty and Ugliness are better, this volume is one of the best books I've read this year.  A must-own/read for most sorts of readers (the English translation is already available).

Best of 2013: Poetry

2013 Poetry Collections Read: 

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Arthur 

Adrian Matejka, The Big Smoke 

Mary Szybist, Incarnadine 

Lucie Brock-Broido, Stay, Illusion 

Matt Rassmussen, Black Aperture 

Frank Bidart, Metaphysical Dog

Each year I try to make a resolution to read more recent poetry collections and each year most, if not all, of that year's releases that I read end up being from the National Book Award shortlists.  So it was this year (although if I counted pre-2013 poetry read, I would have had dozens from which to consider).  Five NBA finalists and a posthumously-published epic poem fragment from J.R.R. Tolkien.  Yet the overall quality was high.  This is not the space to devote to in-depth explorations (after all, these Best of 2013 merely are what moved me most in 2013), but I will say that each and every one of these collections deserves to be read.  But there shall only be three listed on these shortlists, so here we go:

3.  Mary Szybist, Incarnadine 

Winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Poetry, this collection combines mystical, religious, and deeply personal themes to create a haunting collection that lingers in the reader's mind days after the final poem is read.

2.  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Arthur 

My June review covers why I loved this unfinished poem, so I'll just suggest that you click on the link above.

1.  Matt Rassmussen, Black Aperture 

Rassmussen took a tragic event (his brother's suicide) and wrote a collection that examines this trauma from a plethora of angles.  I was greatly moved by collection's end, so this is why I have selected it as my favorite poetry collection for 2013.

Best of 2013: Children's/Middle Grades/Young Adult Books

2013 Children's/Middle Grades/Young Adult Books Read: 

Kate DiCamillo, Flora & Ulysses

Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince

Gene Yuen Yang, Boxers/Saints

Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck

Kathi Appelt, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp

Tom McNeal, Far Far Away

I have not read much in the way of children's, middle grades, or young adult literature this year (I do, however, believe it is better to divide the "YA" category into more specific categories, as a book intended for a 9 year-old will differ significantly in some aspects from one oriented more to teen readers).  In fact, all of my reading comes from the National Book Award longlist for Young People's Literature (or 7/10 of the books on that longlist), but that does not mean that I shouldn't at least acknowledge some of the excellent works released in the past year.  Almost all of these seven works I would recommend readily to young readers (the only exception is The Summer Prince, toward which I had slightly mixed reactions) and if I had the time, I would use many of them in my classroom.  While it was difficult to pare it down to three favorites that I thought were among the year's best in the field (or at least the tiny sliver of 2013 YA/MG/Ju. lit that I've read; feel free to suggest alternatives in the comments), here are the ones that moved me the most:

3.  Kate DiCamillo, Flora & Ulysses

OK, it does star a superheroic squirrel, but I could see me enjoying this work immensely if I were about 9 or 10 today.  See linked review for more on the book and why I loved it.

2.  Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck

This book about a Japanese-American farming family and their trials and tribulations was a deserving winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.  The characters and setting are fully realized and the story contains a subtle yet powerful twist toward the end that made it a joy to read.

1.  Gene Luen Yang, Boxers/Saints

Yes, Yang's graphic novel duology makes its second appearance on one of my year-end lists (and it will appear again before the 31st).  It is that good.  See linked review for more details.

Best of 2013: Debut Novels

2013 Debut Novels Read: 

Helene Welker, The Golem and the Jinni

Sofia Samatar, A Stranger in Olondria

NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names

Matt Bell, In the House upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods

J.M. Sidorova, The Age of Ice

Therese Anne Fowler, Z:  A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice

Bill Cheng, Southern Cross the Dog

It was a decent year for debut novels read.  Some writers who had previously published collections or novella-length work saw their first true novels released, while others were completely new to US print publishing.  The stories varied greatly in theme and narrative approach, from personal, autobiographical accounts to reconstructed histories of mythologized historical (and authorial!) characters to tales that contained at least a smidgen of the fantastical.  With one exception (already covered in another post), these books provided at least mild entertainment and some engaged me from start to finish.  But there shall only be three on this shortlist, so here they are (with a note that I was tempted to list a tie for third, as a very solid tale set in a non-quasi-European world did appeal to me):

3.  Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni

Wecker's book has the feel of a historical novel set in 1890s New York, the mythological typology of the better fantasies of that time, and a richness in prose and character development that make it a touching read.  Certainly a work that I'll be wanting to revisit in the years to come.

2.  Matt Bell, In the House upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods

See the linked review for details as to why this was one of my favorite 2013 debut novels.

1.  NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names 

Not too often does a debut novelist see her work end up as a Booker Prize finalist.  The story moved me, short and simple, and that is why it is my favorite 2013 debut.  See linked review for more.

Best of 2013: Graphic Novels and Anthologies

2013 Graphic Novels Read:

Ayun Halliday and Paul Hoppe, Peanut

John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, March: Book One

Gene Yuen Yang, Boxers/Saints

2013 Anthologies Read: 

Nisi Shawl (ed.), Bloodchildren

João Barreiros (ed.), Lisboa no Ano 2000

John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen (eds.), Oz Reimagined

Mike Allen (ed.), Clockwork Phoenix 4

Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-Ayad (eds.), We See a Different Frontier

Mariano Villarreal and Luis Pestarini (eds.), Terra Nova:  vol. 2 

 2013 was not a good year for me in terms of reading graphic novels or anthologies published that year.  Above is the list of the graphic novels and anthologies that I have read, either completely or in part, through the year to date.  Two of the three graphic novels, however, I loved, perhaps in part because of the historical content of the two (and meeting the writers in October in Nashville at the Southern Festival of Books), but certainly because the stories were compelling reads.  As for the anthologies, this is one of those years where nothing wowed me in terms of an extremely strong opening-to-close lineup of knockout stories, but each was mildly pleasing at least to read.  In the end, chose the one in which I had pledged money to in a 2012 Kickstarter, as I did feel like I got my money's worth there.

3.  Mike Allen (ed.), Clockwork Phoenix 4 

The Clockwork Phoenix series of original anthologies has been a personal fav for years and the current volume carries on the tradition of having good, solid, hard-to-classify stories.

2.  Gene Luen Yang, Boxers/Saints (boxed set) 

 See my November review for more on this 2013 National Book Award finalist for Young People's Literature book.

1.  John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, March:  Book One 

This graphic novel rendering of Rep. John Lewis's life up to the immediate aftermath of the Nashville sit-ins is one of the most moving things I've read this year.  It certainly was the most memorable of any on these two lists and so it deserves this ranking.  Go out and read it, ASAP. 

Best (Worst?) of 2013: Five Disappointing Releases

In writing a series of posts regarding the "best" of this passing year in a variety of categories, I debated for some days whether or not to write a post dedicated to those new releases that I read which were either execrable reads or were so flawed in some form or fashion that they did not live up to my modest expectation of entertaining me.  Some of these works others will find to be good or even excellent reads.  Others likely will gender a response of "why the hell did you read that dreck in the first place?"  But a "failure rate" of roughly 5% (5 out of slightly over 100 2013 US releases read, with another 25-50 being a mass of decent to solidly good tales that left only fleeting impressions and nothing truly indelible on my memory) is not too bad, I suppose.  Anyway, here are the five whose stories not only failed to capture my attention, but which left me feeling at least wistful about the time lost to reading/reflecting upon them:

5.  Wendy Lower, Hitler's Furies:  German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields 

See the link above for the original review, but this excerpt summarizes many of my disappointments with the study:

The sources included in the endnotes is impressive.  Although I haven't kept up with the literature since late 1997, there are a wealth of studies on the issues of women in the Third Reich and roles of women in the Holocaust that appear to be promising reads.  Yet within the body of her study, Lower rarely mentions any of these other historians and their contributions to the field.  Perhaps this is due to Hitler's Furies being marketed more to a general audience than toward an academic one, but ultimately this leads to the sense that Lower's narrative is detached too much from the debates that historians have had on this subject over the past six decades.  While it may be understandable that Lower wants to avoid the old Intentionalist/Functionalist debate regarding the level of intent that the decision-makers had in beginning the Final Solution, the book suffers because there is insufficient grounding of her arguments within the context of larger discussions of the Holocaust's beginning, mechanics, and how its perpetrators justified their actions.  Even the women involved seem at times acting within a narrative vacuum; there is not enough explanation to cover their myriad actions.
Yet despite these serious issues that I have with Hitler's Furies, it is a book that at the very least presents vividly-described actresses and whose discussions at least point the way to possible future paths of exploration within the field.  It is a flawed work, but for non-historian readers curious about the time period, it certainly is a work that will appeal to them.  For many historians of the period, however, Lower's work may be frustrating in the sense that it seems that with just more focus on placing her work within the context of current historiography, her work could have been as important as those of Ian Kershaw and Browning in discussing the mindsets of those involved in the Shoah.  The arguments on complicity and the forms in which it took here will continue to rage on.

 4.  Karen Lord, The Best of All Possible Worlds

I bought Lord's second novel on the basis of her strong debut novel, Redemption in Indigo.  Yet when I read it soon after its February 2013 release, I found myself being distracted too frequently while reading the narrative.  There just was no "spark," nothing that interested me, as the setting had too many parallels with prior SF landscapes, the characters were earnest yet lacking in vitality, and while the prose wasn't horrendous, neither did it sparkle with wit, verve, or anything that might have given me a reason to pay closer attention.  The result was a narrative that didn't appeal to me, leaving me then (and now,  months after I traded the book in at the local used bookstore for others) so disinclined to think about its themes that I chose not to write a formal review about how disappointed I was with Lord's sophomore effort.

3.  Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice 

I reviewed this earlier this month and there is little that I would add to that review other than to note that my disappointment stems from the rare case where I tried a book despite my misgivings about the book's premise due to the enthusiastic praise of others.  I suppose in her presumed desire to write a "gender-positive" account that Leckie just failed to make her debut novel a "prose-positive" or "dynamic character-positive" one as well, as the blandness of virtually everything but her underdeveloped theme of the artificiality of gender divisions just left me cold to the pedestrian narrative.

2.  Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, A Memory of Light 

I wrote a detailed review as to why this bloated concluding volume was a major disappointment to me, considering that at one point (well, back in the late 1990s) I enjoyed reading the WoT novels, that any more commentary would just rehash what was stated earlier.  Although I will admit that livetweeting this book back in January (using the hashtag "#WoTTF") did give birth to one of my better literary putdowns:  "non-erotic pornography."

1.  Terry Goodkind, The Third Kingdom 

This is the most disappointing 2013 release read, not because I had any hopes that it would be good, but because I lost a trusted Serbian reading squirrel due to this crap.  Damn good one, Stefan was.  He still is missed, as I have yet to attempt reading another epic fantasy until I can find a suitable replacement.

So there we have it, five disappointing releases, each for different reasons (5:  professional wish for more analysis of sources; 4:  weaker sophomore effort; 3:  too high of expectations based on others' proclamations; 2:  disappointed nostalgia of a former perhaps-fan; 1:  the toil caused by reading the book).  Any thoughts on these five books or any disappointing 2013 releases that you have read this year?

Best of 2013: Short Fiction Collections

Short Fiction Read: 

Tamas Dobozy, Siege 13

George Saunders, Tenth of December

Yoko Ogawa, Revenge

Angélica Gorodischer, Tráfalgar

Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove

Jim Gavin, Middle Men

Joan Silber, Fools

Jyrki Vainonen, The Explorer & Other Stories

Ron Rash, Nothing Gold Can Stay

 

 

I have not read as many short fiction collections this year compared to years' past, or at least not those released during the calendar year, but the ones I did read I tended to enjoy greatly, so it is a pleasantly difficult task to choose those works that I enjoyed most.  One of the very first books I read this year was Tamas Dobozy's Siege 13 and it is a very striking collection of tales and if it weren't for such a passage of time that its impact has faded more for me compared to the three that I chose, it would have likely made the final three.  The same can be said for Ogawa's themed collection or even Jim Gavin's work.  Joan Silber's Fools was longlisted for the National Book Award and it certainly has several memorable stories.  Vainonen's titular story was excellent and if there were more stories in this slender collection, it too would have merited even further consideration.  And then there is Ron Rash's tales, many of them set in Appalachia, that appeal greatly to this Tennessean reader and occasional critic.  Yes, very difficult choices indeed.  But below are the three collections (and yes, I'm aware that some might argue that one is closer to a mosaic novel, but I found that the book perhaps works better as a collection of tales than a singular narrative) that stuck in my memory the longest and most vividly:

3.  Angélica Gorodischer, Tráfalgar 

See above review for more thoughts. 

2.  Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove 

See above review for more.

1.  George Saunders, Tenth of December 

Simply the best collection I have read in quite some time.  Well deserving of its nomination as a finalist for the 2013 National Book Awards (it was my favorite out of the five works chosen).

Best of 2013: Translations into English

2013 Translations Read:

Yoko Ogawa, Revenge

Angélica Gorodischer, Tráfalgar

Ismail Kadare, The Fall of the Stone City

Xu Lei, Search for the Buried Bomber

Pierre Grimbert, The Secret of Ji:  Six Heirs

Nihad Sirees, The Silence and the Roar

Jean-Marie Blas de Robles, Where Tigers are at Home

Sinan Antoon, The Corpse Washer

Martín Arias and Martín Hadis, Professor Borges:  A Course on English Literature

Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump

Inga Ābele, High Tide 

Liliana Bodoc, The Days of the Deer 

Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone 

László Krasznahorkai, Seiobo There Below 

Jyrki Vainonen, The Explorer & Other Stories 

Leena Krohn, Datura 

Andrzej Sapkowski, The Time of Contempt 
João Cerqueira, The Tragedy of Fidel Castro

Edit:  Translators for these titles are listed in the comments to this post.
 
I read more translated works, both fiction and non-fiction alike, in 2013 than I had in recent years.  Yet even this list does not contain every book that I've read that saw an English translation this year (Javier Marías' Infatuations is one prominent example, although as good as that tale was, it would not have made my shortlist of three works), plus there is another book, Zoran Živković's Find Me (a sequel to The Last Book), that I got to read before its English publication (and that one would have possibly cracked the top 5, if not the top 3).

The translations here ranged from autobiographies such as Naoki Higashida's insightful look into his life as a teen in Japan with autism (I credit this memoir with helping me immensely with one of my current jobs) to philosophical meanderings (Leopardi's Zibaldone, which I also read in Italian this year) to various "genre" offerings (the mystery elements present in High Tide to the SF of Tráfalgar to the high fantasy of The Days of the Deer and The Time of Contempt) and all other points in-between and around (such as Datura).  It is difficult to choose the very "best" from this list due to the diversity of the genres listed and the various tastes that readers might have (if anything, I could note a few that were not my favorites, although they were decent reads and would appeal to some readers:  The Secret of Ji, Search for the Buried Bomber), but below are three works, only one of which I have reviewed before, that I would consider to be the Best of 2013 for translations into English:

3.  Sinan Antoon, The Corpse Washer

This harrowing look at the effects of war and terrorism has lingered with me even more than has Nihad Siree's The Silence and the Roar (which does a very good job laying out the crumbling situation in Syria).  See the full review for my thoughts.

2.  Jean-Marie Blas de Robles, Where Tigers are at Home

This 2013 US release was one of the more monumental reads of the year.  Blas de Robles tells what appears to be two stories in parallel, that of a 17th century philosopher/scientist and a contemporary scientist, both engaged in attempting to solve mysteries, but the tale soon becomes that about how we conceive of information systems and knowledge itself.  It sounds extremely complex to explain in a single paragraph, but what Blas de Robles does is create a magnificently-woven tapestry of images and concepts that sucks the reader into its weaving, leaving the reader bedazzled at what she encounters.  I enjoyed this work so much in translation that I sought out the French original a few months later to read it anew.

1.  László Krasznahorkai, Seiobo There Below

I am planning on doing a series of reviews next year of Krasznahorkai's works, but this novel (his fourth to be translated into English) is a true literary beauty.  Readers familiar with his labyrinthine sentences will encounter even more subtlety of expression and meaning (for those who are not, Krasznahorkai is akin to José Saramago in constructing pages-long sentences without using direct quotations, but with some differences to how points are conveyed within those clause-laden sentences).  The story touches upon many things, but at its heart lies the search for Art, Love, and the true Apocalypse where all of our (self-) deceits shall be laid bare.  Here is an exemplary quote fragment:

He set off from the deepest of hatreds and arrived, from deep below, and from far away, from so far below and so far away – that then, at the beginning of the beginning, he had not the slightest idea where he was heading; indeed, he didn't even suspect that there was a route toward anything at all, he had come to hate the country where he lived, come to hate the city where he resided, come to hate the people among whom he stepped onto the metro every morning at dawn, and with whom he traveled home in the evening, it is futile, he said to himself, I have no one here, nothing ties me to this place, let the whole thing go to hell and rot away; since for a good long while he could not decide, he just went with the morning metro and came back with the evening one, back home, and when the day arrived, one morning at dawn, that he no longer stepped onto that metro with the others, he just stood for a while on the platform, there was nothing in his head, he just stood, and he was pushed around, here and there; he picked up one of the free advertising newspapers, then had a beer standing at the counter, and he looked at the want ads and picked out a country along with a job offer, because he knew nothing about it, Spain, that's a good distance away, so let it be Spain, and from that point on things sped up, and a cheap airline was already dragging him along, he was traveling by plane for the first time in his life, yet he felt nothing other than fear and hatred, for he was afraid of them:  he hated the self-confident stewardesses, the self-confident travelers, and even the self-confident clouds that whirled around below him, and he hated the sun and the sparkling light as well – and then he was nearly plummeting down, plummeting down straight into that city, and hardly had he set foot here then he had already been swindled, for of course there was no job behind the job offer, and the money he had saved up was almost immediately gone – it had gone toward the traveling, accommodation for the first few days, and food, so that he could start here, there was no going back, no going back at all – he could start to look for work in this foreign land, which of course he didn't find, everything the "Romanian vagrants" and those of their ilk were chased away, he just wandered around in this beautiful city, and no one would give him any kind of work, and a week passed, and then another and then another, ... (Ch. 21, pp. 165-166)

At first these "walls of words" may be intimidating for even intrepid readers most eager to parse them, but there is a rhythm to his narrator's thoughts, to his blending of description and introspection, that lulls the reader into reading just a little bit more, into considering just a little bit more what is transpiring.  There comes a point (for myself, it was around 20 pages in) where the rhythms become so internalized that the narrative seems to "pulse" (for lack of a better work) with a force that is irresistible.  While this has been true for the other Krasznahorkai novels that I have read, here in Seiobo There Below it is intensified, perhaps because the author's explorations, which formerly focused more on matters of desolation and despair, have expanded to included the yearning qualities of hope and beauty.  It truly is a marvelous work to behold and (re)consider.

Best of 2013: The Longlists

It's that time of year where most anyone with a platform and an opinion starts to release his or her "Best of 2013" lists.  I've been doing this for around a decade now, first on wotmania and then on this blog.  Much has changed since that time, as I've begun again reading much more non-speculative fiction than speculative fiction (although there will be several sterling examples of the latter appearing on these lists).  To date, I have read or have begun reading 101 books released in the US in 2013 and these are the books from which I'll choose shortlisted/winning titles the last week of the year.  Several of these books belong in several categories and I'll list them in such.  Those that do not fit in the preceding ones will be (along with those that do appear in category lists) considered for the general "best of 2013" list.  The titles will appear in the order in which I read them, as I wrote the titles down from my 2013 reading log.  Feel free to argue for/against the titles listed:

Short Fiction Collections:

Tamas Dobozy, Siege 13

George Saunders, Tenth of December

Yoko Ogawa, Revenge

Angélica Gorodischer, Tráfalgar

Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove

Jim Gavin, Middle Men

Joan Silber, Fools

Jyrki Vainonen, The Explorer & Other Stories

Ron Rash, Nothing Gold Can Stay

Anthologies:

Nisi Shawl (ed.), Bloodchildren

João Barreiros (ed.), Lisboa no Ano 2000

John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen (eds.), Oz Reimagined

Mike Allen (ed.), Clockwork Phoenix 4

Mariano Villarreal and Luis Pestarini (eds.), Terra Nova:  vol. 2

Debut:

Helene Welker, The Golem and the Jinni

Sofia Samatar, A Stranger in Olondria

NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names

Matt Bell, In the House upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods

J.M. Sidorova, The Age of Ice

Therese Anne Fowler, Z:  A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice

Bill Cheng, Southern Cross the Dog

Non-Fiction:

Lauren Elkin and Scott Esposito, The End of Oulipo?

Justin Landon and Jared Shurin (eds.), Speculative Fiction 2012

Carolyn Dalgliesh, The Sensory Child Gets Organized

Martín Arias and Martín Hadis, Professor Borges:  A Course on English Literature

Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump

Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone

Wendy Lower, Hitler's Furies

John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, March: Book One

Al Gore, The Future

Denise Kiernan, The Girls of Atomic City

Gene Yuen Yang, Boxers/Saints

Umberto Eco, Storia delle Terre e dei Luoghi Leggendari

George Packer, The Unwinding

Graphic Novels:

Ayun Halliday and Paul Hoppe, Peanut

John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, March: Book One

Gene Yuen Yang, Boxers/Saints

Children's/Middle Grade/Young Adult:

Kate DiCamillo, Flora & Ulysses

Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince

Gene Yuen Yang, Boxers/Saints

Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck

Kathi Appelt, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp

Tom McNeal, Far Far Away

Translated Works:

Yoko Ogawa, Revenge

Angélica Gorodischer, Tráfalgar

Ismail Kadare, The Fall of the Stone City

Xu Lei, Search for the Buried Bomber

Pierre Grimbert, The Secret of Ji:  Six Heirs

Nihad Sirees, The Silence and the Roar

Jean-Marie Blas de Robles, Where Tigers are at Home

Sinan Antoon, The Corpse Washer

Martín Arias and Martín Hadis, Professor Borges:  A Course on English Literature

Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump

Inga Ābele, High Tide 

Liliana Bodoc, The Days of the Deer 

Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone 

László Krasznahorkai, Seiobo There Below 

Jyrki Vainonen, The Explorer & Other Stories 

Leena Krohn, Datura 

Andrzej Sapkowski, The Time of Contempt 
João Cerqueira, The Tragedy of Fidel Castro

Poetry: 

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Arthur 

Adrian Matejka, The Big Smoke 

Mary Szybist, Incarnadine 

Lucie Brock-Broido, Stay, Illusion 

Matt Rassmussen, Black Aperture 

Frank Bidart, Metaphysical Dog 

Foreign Language: 

João Barreiros (ed.), Lisboa no Ano 2000 (Portuguese)

Alliah, Metanfetaedro (Portuguese)

Ildefonso Falcones, La reina descalza (Spanish)

José Ovejero, La invención del Amor (Spanish)

Umberto Eco, Storia delle Terre e dei Luoghi Leggendari (Italian)

Mariano Villarreal and Luis Pestarini (eds.), Terra Nova:  vol. 2 (Spanish)

2013 Novels Not Already Listed: 

Leah Stewart, The History of Us 

Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, A Memory of Light 

Jim Harrison, The River Swimmer 

Thomas Maltman, Little Wolves 

Adam Mansbach, Rage is Back 

Jamaica Kincaid, See Now Then 

Karen Lord, The Best of All Possible Worlds 

Carlene Bauer, Frances and Bernard 

Jennifer Cody Epstein, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment 

Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being 

William H. Gass, Middle C 

Nalo Hopkinson, Sister Mine

Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

Mary Beth Keane, Fever 

James Salter, All That Is 

Ron Currie, Jr., Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles 

Jonathan Dee, A Thousand Pardons 

M. John Harrison, Empty Space 

James Kelman, Mo Said She was Quirky 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah 

Karen Joy Fowler, We are all Completely Beside Ourselves 

Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane 

Benjamin Percy, Red Moon 

Evangeline Walton, She Walks in Darkness 

Jim Crace, Harvest 

Colum McCann, TransAtlantic 

Colm Tóibín, The Testament of Mary 

Philipp Meyer, The Son 

Terry Goodkind, The Third Kingdom 

Alice McDermott, Someone 

Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers 

Elizabeth Graver, The End of the Point 

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland 

Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge 

Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch 

Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries

Tom Drury, Pacific 

Tash Aw, Five Star Billionaire 

James McBride, The Good Lord Bird 

And for those wondering why certain titles were listed in the final section, I chose to list all of the 2013 releases that I read.  It is possible that I might consider doing a "Disappointing 2013 Release" category (although some didn't disappoint as much as they sucked to the level of my low expectations), but I am uncertain.  Should I do such?

Also, I will write a series of articles between Christmas week and New Year's Eve on these categories and there will be a focus on my favorite 3 from each category followed by a combined top 25.  Hope these titles will be of interest to readers looking to buy something in the near future.  I do reserve the right to add any new titles that I don't currently own by Christmas, but odds of that are relatively low for now.

This is where I have pretensions of having a mid-year "Best of 2013" list

Since the time is now ripe for people to repeat themselves all over again and write up short lists of what new releases they have enjoyed through the (not quite) halfway point of the year, I thought perhaps I could do something similar but without worrying overmuch about what people think about the books I have selected (after all, one might need to have heard of some of these titles before weighing in, n'est ce pas?).  I'm not doing a Top 5, 10, or 20-style list, but instead just a note of works that I consider to be exceptional.  I'll leave it up to the hoi polloi to classify these by genre:

1.  Sinan Antoon, The Corpse Washer - Review later, but damn if I weren't moved by this short novel.

2.  Chimamanda Adichie, Americanah - Review later, but this will not leave you feeling indifferent.

3.  William Gass, Middle C - Still haven't been able to organize my thoughts to write a coherent review.

4.  Karen Joy Fowler, We are all Completely Beside Ourselves - a definite must-read.

5.  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Arthur - Much better than LotR in terms of writing achievement.

6.  José Ovejero, La invención del amor - Possible review later.  2013 Premio Alfaguara winner.

7.  Nihad Sirees, The Silence and the Roar - might take a second read for its full effect to kick in.

8.  Kate Atkinson, Life After Life - Might get around to reviewing this one day.

9.  Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni - Might review this later as well.

10.  Ron Currie, Jr., Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles - Clever yet honest.  An intriguing combination in a metanarrative.

11.  Ismail Kadare, The Fall of the Stone City - Kadare still mining gold from a rich vein of tragic history.

12.  Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being - Touching.  Already wrote a short review.

13.  Jim Gavin, Middle Man - One of the two best short story collections read this year.

14.  Jamaica Kincaid, See Now Then - Been too long since a Kincaid story.  Already reviewed.

15.  Angélica Gorodischer, Trafalgar - Interesting set of interconnected stories.  Already reviewed.

16.  Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove - Another of the top collections released this year.  Already reviewed.

17.  (At this point I should note that positions below #1 are very fluid and might change with further consideration)  George Saunders, Tenth of December:  Stories - Moving.  Already reviewed.

18.  Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Debating still whether or not this is "good" or "mediocre" Gaiman.

19.  Thomas Maltman, Little Wolves - Maybe the best werewolf novel of 2013 that I've finished to date?

20.  Yoko Ogawa, Revenge - Very good story collection.  Did intend to review it, but haven't yet.

21.  Ildefonso Falcones, La reina descalza - Third historical novel of his, third that I (mostly) liked.


OK, which of these have you heard about before this post?  That's the important question, not whether or not you liked any on this list.