Monday, December 26, 2011

What's up for 2012?

Books I haven't managed to write about yet include Solzhenitsyn's In the First Circle, a book I was pleased to have read in the past few months, and found to be everything. I hope to follow this up with his last collection (I think), Apricot Jam and Other Stories. In November, I read The Art of Fielding, a first novel by Chad Harbach. Zen and baseball ... how can you go wrong? Set on the campus of Westish College, which is situated in the crook of the baseball glove that is Wisconsin, Harbach's novel is about mindlessness and mindfulness, the varieties and complexities of male relationships, the complexities of relationships, and a great and enjoyable read.

I'm looking forward to revisiting a favorite novel and reading new novels by favorite authors. I recently learned that Dean Bakopoulos is teaching at Grinnell College. I read his 2005 novel, Please Don't Come Back to the Moon when it first came out and it has stayed with me all of these years. I just received it and his newest novel My American Unhappiness as Christimas presents. They are both at the top of my list. I am also looking forward to Ha Jin's new novel, Nanjing Requieum, and David Guterson's new novel Ed King. Ann Patchett has  a newish novel, State of Wonder, as does Umberto Eco. Jonathan Lethem and Stanley Fish both have collections of essays to be explored, and I'm thinking of dipping into Vladimir Sorokin's Ice trilogy, Peter Ackroyd's London Under, Alina Bronsky, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, and R. Zamora Linmark's Leche.

Sounds like a happy New Year. Let the Favorite Books and Book Review know what you're going to be reading in 2012.

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