Holiday library reading

by Stacey

Since most of us are pretty much doing everything we can to check out early before the holidays begin, I thought it would be fun and easy to share this piece from the Seattle Times literary page that lists the top 10 books taken out from The Seattle Library in 2010. It's a chance to see what Americans, at least in Seattle, are really reading. There aren't any big surprises on the list, but I am personally happy to see the #1 book, The Help, is a first novel. Very incredible in this market that a first time author can find the kind of success that Kathryn Stockett has found with this book. It's also interesting to see the kind of nonfiction that makes the list. Smart, thought-provoking titles, Outliers and Food Rules, books that allow the reader see every day things in a unique and different way. And I'll be picking up a copy of I Stink to read to my kids over the break. I'm curious to know more about this book that made the list alongside all of these adult titles. I hope you'll find something from this list or elsewhere to read over the holidays, and take the time to relax and enjoy family, friends, and a good book. We'll look forward to sharing a lot more publishing-related news and views in the New Year!

All I want for Christmas...Part II

by John

Dear Santa:

Well, I’ve been extra good this past week—even (mostly) stayed away from the holiday treats in the DGLM kitchen. So I’m hoping you’ll accept this semi-serious wish list of adult books I’d like to find under the Christmas tree:


ROCK N’ ROLL! Santa, you gave the world a rockin’ gift in 2010 with Keith Richards’ Life—how about tossing me a major rock star bio in 2011? I’m sure some other members of the old guard are ready to tell all. (I’m looking at you, Elton—you, too, Sir Paul.) Okay, if that’s too tall an order, then I’d love to see other nonfiction books on music: bio, analysis, etc. And if there’s a QUALIFIED rock critic out there, I think all those kids looking to build a record collection could use an updated album guide.

NARRATIVE NON-FICTION: Santa, I’ve sung the praises of Nathaniel Philbrick before on this blog, but this time I want to point out how Nat brings historical events to life through the characters involved—whether it’s cabin boy Thomas Nickerson leading us through the whaling disaster of In the Heart of the Sea, or Massasoit greeting the Pilgrims in Mayflower, throughout Nat’s career critics often remark how his books read like novels, and I think it’s due primarily to this character-based approach. So while I’m wide-open in terms of subject matter, I would love to see this character-based, novelistic style, be it history, politics, entertainment, true crime, etc.

FICTION: I want to laugh! Santa, surely there’s a funny novel you can send my way. I also want to see novel characters sober up—so many of the novels I see have main characters indulging in or struggling with alcohol or drugs, and most of the time that has nothing to do with the main story. Finally, if you’re going to send me historical fiction, Santa, please let it be really historical—like, pre-1970? Too often, it feels like the novels I see set in the 70s, 80s, even the 90s are actually contemporary stories stuck in the wrong era—like substance abuse, the historical details don’t really seem necessary to the story, and instead come across as clichéd or anachronistic.

CRIME/MYSTERY/THRILLERS: Being that these are genre books, certain conventions are unavoidable. But Santa, can you please send me something with a new angle? I’m not sure what that angle is, but I know it isn’t a college professor who uncovers a secret global religious conspiracy or new evidence about the Bible.

SPORTS: Well, I do want some kind of sports story—again, preferably a character-based narrative piece. But I’d be just as happy if the Giants win the Super Bowl in January…


Thank you, Santa, for reading this list. I can’t wait to open all these presents in 2011!


Happy holidays,
John

Grumpy old man

by Jim

Little known fact: I love crotchety old people. One of my goals in life is to survive to an age where I can angrily mutter, “Kids these days!” It’s just the kind of righteous anger that I find endlessly entertaining and endearing.

So imagine my pleasure when reading Jonathan Yardley’s “Best of 2010” list from the Washington Post. Yardley has included only two novels on his list this year which “reflects [his] disenchantment with what passes for American literary fiction these days.” Interestingly, both novels are historical and deal with the impact of the political on the personal. He then recommends three nonfiction books about World War II. So…he has his specific interests.

“Kids these days!” I imagine him muttering to his computer. “With their fakakta ideas about writing about the present! When I was their age…”

It’s a charmingly inane piece that reeks of snobbery and is deeply out of touch. Such a cloistered consideration indicates a man who is very cozy living within his self-proscribed boundaries. Or maybe he has a real argument and I’m just being ageist. Thoughts?

One thing that makes me grumpy in the present is the news that Jersey Shore’s JWoww landed a book deal—the third for a cast member of the show. I thought we all knew that the only book that needed to come out of this show was Snooki’s!

So tell me: is American fiction dead? And what makes you grumpy about the current publishing environment?

Best cookbooks of the year

by Stacey

I wanted to share this piece in today's New York Times about the year's best cookbooks where I was so glad to see two of my books (Flour by Joanne Chang and Christie Matheson and Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef by Shauna James Ahern and Daniel Ahern) included, as well as one of Jane's (Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy by Alice Medrich). It's a really eclectic and diverse list, and I think Julia Moskin does a good job explaining why each of these books works and what they have to offer for different types of cooks or food enthusiasts. For me, it's a peek into the cookbook marketplace, and how for all the talk of it being a dying breed, there is so much unique, innovative and interesting content being published each year. There was a time here when I thought I'd stop working on cookbooks because the market was shrinking, there were fewer publishers (and editors) producing cookbooks, and it seemed the only ones that were working well were the books written by Food Network stars. But I keep on selling them, and I think we've seen something of a resurgence the last couple of years, with a shift away from the glitz and back to the basics. This article highlights that trend. And there's not one Food Network star to be found!

There's another area to me that's worth noting. A lot of food bloggers have been getting books deals recently, some on a very large sale, and a few represented by us, including Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef from this list. The Internet in general has become a place to share stories, recipes, and ideas and people are definitely responding to the good ones, especially those who are also savvy marketers. But one of the things that's interesting to me about Julia Moskin's list in this article is that there are very few bloggers on it. Many of the books she highlights are written by familiar names in the food world who have previously published books. Authors like Alice Waters, Alice Medrich, and Madhur Jaffrey are all considered authorities in their field, and new books from them are always paid attention to, for good reason. Next year will bring a lot of blogger books to the market, so I'll be curious to see how many of them make next year's list.

It's also interesting, and I think a testament to the changing industry, that she discusses a self-published book: Matt Moore's Have Her Over for Dinner. That's not something that happens very often in this type of treatment, so good for the author for writing a book that got the attention of a critic's eye at the Times.

Personally, I'm glad to see so many new cookbooks being well-published and well-received in the marketplace. I will continue to work on them, and have fun reading and eating my way through them! Do you have any cookbook favorites from this year not included on this list? I'd love to hear about them.

As I embrace my younger days

by Stephanie

After reading Jim’s post on lists, I started to do a bit of reading online, and for whatever reason, I was not prepared for the inundation of end-of-the-year lists that I found. After some perusing, I found that I particularly enjoyed Gayle Forman’s piece from NPR with her picks for some of the best young adult novels of 2010. Her list is brief but varied, and includes titles that tackle a range of universal issues: trauma, war, first love, and so on. But what I loved about this list was what I didn’t find—paranormal, otherworldly, fairy-goblin-undead-vampires. Lord knows, many books have done exceedingly well this year being based in the paranormal. But it’s admittedly comforting to know that 2010 also saw its share of quality young adult fiction that involves real people tackling real issues. I wish I saw more things like this in my inbox. There’s just something about reading a young adult novel that takes on tough issues and presents me with characters that I feel I can relate to—I feel myself drawn into their lives, as though I could just as easily run in to the same obstacles and emotions.

Am I talking crazy here? Maybe I’m hurling myself off the paranormal/fantasy train too soon? Who knows. Do you have any young adult favorites from this year?

Get to work!

by John

As Jim wrote in his last post, it’s list season in publishing. So here’s one list that I was a bit surprised to see this time of year:  from The Daily Beast, the top five books about losing your job. 

Nothing like unemployment to get you in the holiday spirit! But I bring it up because I’ve seen a lot of submissions lately featuring main characters who’ve lost their jobs. Of course, they say write what you know, and I imagine there are as many unemployed writers out there as anyone else—probably more, since writing is a great productive outlet during the long, hard slog of job searching. Trust me, having been there myself, my first instinct was to put pen to paper.

But I do wonder if jobless characters are the best way to cure the unemployment blues, or to reach readers. None of the submissions I’ve seen have worked, generally because the negativity of the main characters makes them very hard to like, even if readers can relate to their being out-of-work. Moreover, depriving characters of a workplace to interact with other characters can often lead to navel gazing and a lack of dialogue, i.e., things that keep readers at arm’s length. And most of the time, unemployment isn’t even central to the plot—in just about every submission I’ve seen, the characters could just as easily be working as not.

I think you’ll find gainful employment helps your characters connect better with readers, even those who have lost their jobs in real life. And if unemployment truly is your main thesis—well, it’s telling that none of the books on the Daily Beast list are first novels. Perhaps to write well about joblessness, a writer needs more job experience as a writer first?

The happiest time of the year

by Jim

Now that we’ve passed Thanksgiving, we’ve entered my absolute favorite time of the year. I’m not talking about the Christmas season which totally clogs New York streets with shoppers (though we love all the additional book sales!). It’s something much more magical than the holiday season: December means it’s officially time to rank things. And I looooove a good list.

Largehearted Boy has launched his annual Best-of compendium which includes lists as general as “Best of 2010” and as specific as “Best Hockey Coffee Table Books.” You just know there’s one hockey coffee table book out there that didn’t make the cut, and it’s author is pissed.

I haven’t started compiling my lists yet, though yes, I’m totally nerdy enough to do so. I can, however, easily pick my favorite novel, memoir, and YA novel of the year pretty easily. They are:


A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan: I just don’t understand how Egan does it. Each of her books feels like a revelation, and she gets away with things no one should be able to. 75 pages of this book are a Powerpoint presentation for gods’ sake! Goon Squad is funny, moving, and brilliant. It’s even a quick read!

Just Kids by Patti Smith: I do wonder if my reaction to this book is a bit biased. I love New York stories, and Smith transforms the city into a magical place filled with strange, wonderful, beautiful people. She romanticizes everything which could become grating in lesser hands, but to me just reveals a depth of spirit and wonder.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins: Okay. I know that there are those who didn’t care for how the Hunger Games trilogy ended. I also know that when I last brought this up, there were those who balked that the series is a Battle Royale rip-off (though I’d argue that novel had its own direct antecedents). But here’s what I have to say: Collins took the trilogy down the darkest of all possible roads, showing us that even the strongest among us have our breaking points and that everyone will at times crumble. At the same time, she ended the series with just the right glimmer of hope—sometimes it’s enough just to believe there’s a reason to try. And that, to me, was beautiful.


So those are my three. And hey, they all happen to be by female authors. Take that, Michiko Kakutani.

Anyone else ready to disclose their top picks for the year?

UPDATE: In the time it took me to send this to Lauren to check for typos, I realized that there was another novel that I actually loved even more than the Egan this year. ROOM by Emma Donoghue was simply exceptional. Written in the voice of a five-year-old who has grown up imprisoned in a single room with his mother, it is a virtuoso feat of storytelling and voice. It's simply mesmerizing. I haven't cried as hard at a book in ages, but in the end it's hugely uplifting and deeply special. But the Egan is still amazing!

NBA!

by Michael

No, I'm not suddenly blogging about sports. That would be a stretch! I'm talking the National Book Awards, which were held last night (winners here). I was lucky enough to attend this year with the lovely and talented Sara Zarr, who was a judge in the Young People's Literature category. You can read a bit about her experience judging on her blog. I can only imagine how tough it must have been to whittle the books first down to five finalists, then down to one winner. I'm just glad it wasn't me!

The night was a lot of fun, meeting the other judges and some of the nominees, hobnobbing with illustrious publishing folk. I think it's the only event this year that can boast both Elmo and Tom Wolfe as speakers. (My only disappointment last night was in not meeting Elmo.) But the moment of the night was most definitely Patti Smith's acceptance speech for her nonfiction win for Just Kids. Already in tears as she walked to the stage, she recounted working at Scribner's bookstore years ago, and how she would shelve the National Book Award winners, dreaming that someday she would write a book that could win the award. It was so genuine and so endearing. Already popular, I knew she earned even more admirers last night.

I haven't had much time to scan the blogs today, but I'm curious what everyone thought of the winners. Has anyone even read the fiction winner?

I mean, if Taylor Swift likes it....

by Rachel S.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends passed on this website hosted by Scholastic, called You Are What You Read. Intrigued (obviously), I promptly investigated. Scholastic invented a brand new word on which to base their project:

bookprint [book-print] noun: The list of books that leave an indelible mark on our lives, shaping who we are and who we become.

Okay, so as cheesy as it might sound, it’s actually a pretty cool idea. To readers, books really are an incredibly important part of who we are. The purpose of reading is to further your understanding of both the world and yourself and to see meaning in what before may have been unremarkable or elusive. That books can shape perception as well as action is a truth that needs no expansion. There are some books that I’ve read time and time again, each time as enjoyable as the last. Others I’ll get through only once, but these too can stick with me, usefully popping up for new situations or discussions forever after.

Personal and internal importance aside, books are often also a way of connecting to others- whether it’s in a mutual love or excitement over a particular tome or a fierce disagreement. While choosing only 5 is a really difficult task (so many choices- immediately overwhelmed!), once the books have been narrowed down, you can see who else has been similarly affected by the same words.

Also interesting are the lists of popular titles. The “Most Listed" list differs from the “Most Liked” in parts- obviously you don’t have to necessarily like a book to be marked by it.

I’m really interested to know what your “bookprint” would be if you could only have 5. Also, would it matter that Bill Clinton values The Invisible Man or that Taylor Swift was affected by Charlotte’s Web (or that Daniel Radcliffe’s life was changed by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone…)? Because they all have profiles and Scholastic is conveniently making it easy for your favorite famous people to show you that they like reading, too.

In any case, I really enjoyed exploring the site (though I’m still working on my own list!) and if nothing else, there’s little I like more to look at then lots and lots of book covers all lined up.

‘Tis the Season (Already?)

by John

Today I want to give a shout-out to one of my favorite blogs, Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback. Ostensibly a recap of the previous week’s football games, Easterbrook typically goes off on tangents that even a non-football fan can appreciate, covering everything from astrophysics to economics to Battlestar Galactica.  One recurring item is Christmas Creep: how every year retailers and advertisers seem to be promoting Christmas earlier and earlier in the calendar. For instance, in Yokohama, Japan, the municipal Christmas lights went up on October 31^st (so much for Halloween)!

I’ve had Christmas Creep on the brain, because November 1^st seems to be an unofficial date for the media to start publishing their year-end best-book lists. So far we’ve got the New York Times best illustrated, Publisher’s Weekly and Amazon, with many more to come. I suppose I see the logic in getting these lists out early so that retailers can plan their “best of 2010” holiday displays. But still, by printing “best-ofs” in early November, these media outlets essentially declare that books are done for the year and make November and December a virtual dead zone for new titles.

With so many books fighting all year long for attention, publishers could really use two more months to space out their promotional efforts, rather than having to spend the end of the year focused on “the best.” But what if Christmas keeps on creeping earlier and earlier? Will the window for new book promotion shrink even further, to the point where publishers can only effectively market a few books a year? Or will people start getting skeptical of “best-of-the-year” lists that cover only 10 months or less, especially if there are fewer books to consider? Better yet, could books actually lead the way in reversing the Creep? To me, that would be the best Christmas present of all!

Cookbook heaven

by Stacey

I love cookbooks. Mostly because I love food. Having worked on many amazing cookbooks over the years, I enjoyed seeing this eclectic list that Epicurious.com compiled for their 15th anniversary of their favorite cookbooks since 1995. It's nice to see our own Alice Medrich's Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts, which Jane represents, as their #1 pick! There are some classics, and some familiar faces (no Rachael Ray?!), and of course it's such a small sampling of the many wonderful books available. Enjoy looking at these, and I hope they inspire you to cook something fun and different, or at least to read some of the books listed, even if you don't actually have time to cook -- one of my favorite pastimes, especially with four little ones at home!

Stephen King breaks it down

by Miriam

Our client and friend Kathryn Casey posted a link on Facebook the other day to a blog featuring a 2005 piece by Stephen King that promises to teach you everything you need to know about being a successful writer. Now, Stephen (if I may call him that) and I have always had a troubled relationship. No, not like that! I’ve never met the man. Even though I’ve only ever seen him in person across a crowded Javits Center at BEA back when it was the ABA, like many of you I’ve followed his literary peregrinations with great interest despite the fact that I find every new book by him increasingly impossible to wade through. My feeling is that his prodigious talent as a storyteller and prose stylist notwithstanding, he just misses being one of the “greats” (you know who they are). In recent years, however, I’ve become a fan of his EW columns and I always enjoy his quirky take on pop culture. The guy’s smart and successful and he obviously has a lot of wisdom to impart but he does it in an accessible manner and never seems to take himself too seriously.

Whether you’re a fan of Stephen King’s work or not, however, you have to admit that he has fashioned a brilliant career as a writer and these tips are both amusing and dead-on. Except for #11, of course. You do need an agent to turn everything else to gold—maybe not when SK was starting out, but definitely now that the business has become a multi-headed hydra.

What do you guys think of SK’s advice? Anything that especially jumps out at you here?

Spy novels by spies

by Stacey

I'm not personally a huge fan of spy fiction, but I came across this incredible list in the Seattle Times and felt it was worth sharing with our readers. You don't often hear about the need for credentials to write fiction (even if it's imperative to write nonfiction), but in this case, it certainly helps for credibility and presumably storytelling purposes as well to have worked in the intriguing and mysterious world of spies. If you have any interest at all in this category, this list seems a great starting point for novels across the category. I'll start my reading with le Carré's George Smiley trilogy. Enjoy, and let us know if you have any favorites that Mary Ann Gwinn might have missed in her comprehensive roundup.

Best of the year list, in June!

by Stacey

We're always eyeing lists around town around the holidays to see various picks for the best books of the year. Now Amazon has come up with a way to trump the competition by coming up with a best-of list just halfway through the year. It's kind of nice for readers to have a credible resource to go to without having to wait until the holidays. It's an eclectic list that covers a lot of ground. There's definitely something here for a varied set of interests. The nonfiction book I've been wanting to read for a few months now is the Rebecca Skloot, which has been a big critical and commercial success. Do any of our readers have other ideas for great books from 2010 that aren't on this list? We'd love to hear about them.

Stephen King's pop culture

by Miriam

I’m a fan of Stephen King’s work…in Entertainment Weekly. His stuff for the magazine has a playfulness and wit, not to mention brevity, that is often missing from at least his most recent (and by recent I mean the last 15 to 20 years) long form writing. I find his recommendations for films, music and, of course, books, always intriguing and occasionally baffling—and those are the best kind. Here are his Top 6 summer reads. I know at least four of them will make their way onto my night table pile.

Reading can be not fun

by Miriam

Reading this fun piece about books that have been “described, whether by critics or the authors themselves, as the Ulyssi of their respective cultures” made me remember how much I loathed James Joyce’s masterpiece when we spent what seemed like five years studying it in a graduate school seminar. Maybe it was our professor’s vaguely fascist insistence that this was a masterwork surpassing all others, or my exhaustion at the tautological discussions of the gorgonzola theme in the book, but this class may have influenced my decision to forgo getting a Ph.D. and venture into the publishing business instead.

We’ve all come across books that other people consider the most, the best, the greatest and that we found unreadable. Here are my top five what-are-people-thinking-when-they-rave-about-them-or-force-you-to-study-them-in-school books (the list is, of course, subject to change):

The Iliad
The Scarlet Letter
Moby Dick
Ulysses
The Catcher in the Rye


What are yours?

I usually say no to bookclubs

by Michael

With all the reading I have to do for work, I’ve turned down a few requests to join book clubs. Plus, in my spare time, I want to be sure I’m reading the things I really want to read, not a book chosen by committee. But if I were going to join a bookclub, I’d love to be in this one. I can dream, can’t I?

The perfect summer list?

by Chasya

Last week on the blog, Stacey touched on children’s summer reads which got me thinking: what exactly makes something a good summer read? I mean, I’m no stranger to parking myself on the beach with a good book. Last year while reading a manuscript I managed to burn myself so badly I had trouble sitting for a week. Suffice it to say I’ll be back on the beach a lot this year (albeit with a lot more sunscreen and maybe an enormous umbrella for protection—weekend weather permitting) and enjoying holidays with some tome or another. In the past all sorts of things made it into my pile: literary fiction; thrillers; chick-lit; light mysteries; the most touted and well-publicized book of the month; a less obscure book a friend just happened to own and love. There was no rhyme or reason for why something made it into my summer reading pile.

So this year I decided to do some more research to determine what I should be reading. What qualifies as a “good summer read?” Is it the breezy, fast-paced thriller that you can consume in one sitting or the literary epic you don’t have time for all year and finally—finally—get the chance to pick it up on your staycation or on Independence Day weekend?

Well, I did do some research, and suffice it to say that it seems like everyone and their grandmother has submitted their lists for the summer. Salon’s got it’s “nail biting summer reads” made up of riveting thrillers.  Here NPR lists 15 summer picks of a decidedly more highbrow variety. The Los Angeles Times has got its exhausting and varied 60 Titles for 92 Days list, comprised of new releases. Nina Sankovitch has got her list of six which include both thrillers and epics on HuffPo. According to her, good summer books “tell great stories about unique characters; evoke vernal landscapes of abundant, lush growth or of hot and dusty cobblestones, or of languid humidity; and end with a bang.”

I could go on and on but I’ll stop here. In short, I discovered rather quickly that I’m on a fool’s errand (it’s not the first time, and I doubt it will be the last). When it all comes down to it, it’s what you want to read the most and what will keep your eyes glued to the page for hours that will really lead you to your ultimate summer list. As for me, I love my breezy effortless reads as much as I love hunkering down to those endless and enthralling books that can keep you from getting out of bed for days. I’ve started Kathryn Stockett’s much touted and much lauded novel The Help, which I can already tell fits these criteria and is going to keep me busy for a little while.

So now that I’ve scoured reading lists galore, tell me what’s on yours! I’m also open to suggestions, because there’s no better way to build your reading list than by word-of-mouth!

Kicking ass and taking names

by Lauren

This weekend I went away for Memorial Day to a beautiful riverside cabin in the woods upstate. At one point, sitting by the riverbank in the sunshine, I looked up from my book to take note that all five of us were reading when we could’ve been doing anything we wanted. (We’d all packed more than one book even though we were limited to one duffel bag each—just in case.) It warmed my heart, I tell you. There was also much discussion of what we were reading—particularly of the third book in Stieg Larsson’s trilogy, which one person had brought along and another had already read.

People who’ve read these particular books tend to invoke the heroine’s enviable toughness. I’m often struck by conversations about a heroine so badass that it makes the book worth reading, because it’s not something I can really recall experiencing. I like to think I’m pro-woman (at the very least because I am one, and I’m pretty pro-me) and have a good handle on which ladies supposedly kick ass, but I don’t have that gut reaction of identification or aspiration or whatever it is that so many women (and men) I know do to a tough heroine and the book in which she lives. Of those incredible female characters I can identify off the top of my head, they’re really supplied by my childhood reading: Laura Ingalls; Pippi Longstocking; Jo March, up until the regrettable point that she ditches Laurie for the old German at which point I pretend the book is over so that I can still love it; etc. When I think of my favorite characters from non-children’s books, they’re really all men. As are a large percentage of my favorite authors.

I’m not 100% sure it matters—a great book is a great book, and a great character is a great character—but I still feel like I must be missing something. So this summer, I’m challenging myself to focus my personal reading on amazing women.

Here’s where you come in: since my natural reading proclivities have been steering me the wrong way, I’m going to need a list. I’ll stick Larsson on there, but I’m feeling the overwhelming buzz kick up my contrarian nature, and I’m just not ready to tackle the girl or her dragon tattoo quite yet. So below, let me know your favorite female characters, your favorite female authors, and why (without spoilers), and I’ll give as many as I can a shot. Then I’ll let you know how I fare when the summer is through!

A personal history of reading

by Rachel

A couple of posts ago I mentioned not being able to finish reading Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, despite desperately wanting to. It always seems like such a shame to begin reading a book and then put it aside mid-way. So, I was quite happy to read Sonya Chung’s article on The Millions which details her personal history of reading: books she has read, books she should have read, books she read but felt she shouldn’t have, books she tried to love but just couldn’t read anymore, and so on.

I thought it was a good idea to analyze my own reading and would like to share with you my number one choices for each of Sonya’s categories (please don’t judge!):

The Number One Book I Did Not Finish But Very Much Want To Try Again
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

The Number One Book That I’ve Already Tried More Than Once But Couldn’t Engage With, I Don’t Know Why
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Number One Book That I Found Mostly Painful and Likely Will Not Revisit
Rabbit at Rest by John Updike

The Number One Book I Shlogged Through and Almost Abandoned, But Kept On; No Pay-off, I Felt, In the End
Museum of Innocence by Orham Pamuk

The Number One Book I Struggled Through, Maybe Put Down For a While, But Finished and Am Very Glad I Did
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Now that my taste in reading has been analyzed, care to share your list?