Favorites:
- Elizabeth Bishop, Poems
- Sharon Olds, Satan Says — Poems. “Satan Says” was amazing.
- H.D., The Gift — Quick read. A memoir by a writer known for her poetry.
- Tove Jansson, The Summer Book — This read like a fable. Gorgeous atmosphere.
- Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
- Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda
Not Great:
- Bill Broun, Night of the Animals — I need to learn to trust Amazon reviews. This book needed an editor.
- Anne Rice, Prince Lestat — Got this for my birthday for the nostalgia factor. This was so, so bad.
- Louise Glück, A Village Life — Poems.
- Derek Walcott, The Prodigal — Poems. In the year of #metoo some of these didn’t sit right.
Mostly Great:
- Edna St. Vincent Millay, Collected Poems
- Anne Carson, Float — Poems in a neat format: several mini-booklets kept in a plastic container.
- Aracelis Girmay, The Black Maria — Poems.
- John McPhee, Annals of the Former World — I had super-high hopes for this one as someone who thinks she loves geology.
- John McPhee, Coming into the Country — All about Alaska.
- Mark Strand & Eavan Boland, The Making of a Poem
- Jan Morris, Hav — Neat book about an imaginary city.
- Michael Ondaatje, Secular Love — Poems.
- Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower
- Octavia E. Butler, Dawn
- Laura Kasischke, Space, in Chains — Poems.
- Jane Hirshfield, After — Poems.
- Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric — Poems.
- Claudia Rankine: Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric — Poems.
- Louise Glück, Descending Figure — Poems.
- Jack London, The Call of the Wild
- Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
- Kassia St. Clair, The Secret Lives of Color
Irritating:
- Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe — Attempt at mashing together Kurt Vonnegut, George Saunders, Stephen Hawking, etc. Read like something from an undergraduate fiction-writing course.
- Dominic Smith, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos — I can’t stand these books, where all the characters live in gorgeous New York apartments, have access to infinite amounts of money, and 40% of the book is spent detailing every last expensive sumptuous detail. Telling us how amazingly decorated someone’s house or body is doesn’t move the story forward.
That’s 2017 — on to 2018!
Brittany N. Jaekel 