Jamie Iredell's favorite books of 2010
We asked our favorite Atlanta writers to tell us about their favorite books of 2010. All week long, we'll be running their comments.
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- Jamie Iredell
We asked our favorite Atlanta writers to tell us about their favorite books of 2010. All week long, we'll be running their comments. Jamie Iredell is the author of Prose. Poems. A Novel. and the forthcoming The Book of Freaks.
Of my favorite books read this year, here follow some short descriptions of those published in or around 2010. A few (Pink and Hot Pink Habitat, The Last 4 Things, and The Lost Books of The Odyssey) were published in late 2009, but I read them in '10. I read many other books that were not published recently. Among those favs are A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne, Dear Everybody by Michael Kimball, In the Devil's Territory by Kyle Minor, and The Ingenious Gentleman, Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Edith Grossman, transl).
We Are All Good if They Try Hard Enough by Mike Young (Publishing Genius)
You can read a short review of this book that I wrote for Metazen's blog.
Pee on Water by Rachel B. Glaser (Publishing Genius)
I read most of these stories in literary mags before they were collected, so I had long been excited to read the book. The titular tale—I guess it's a tale—will knock you, or any Bible thumper, out. Rethink Earth's history.
The Best of (What's Left of) Heaven by Mairéad Byrne (Publishing Genius)
Despite this book's 200 pages, it's a quick read, since many poems are very short (i.e., "Luddite": "I'm no Luddite. / I just like saying Luddite."), flippant, funny. But these are interspersed with the dark and beautiful, profound meandering poems about poetry and (some) about skinning things.
Adam Robison and Other Poems by Adam Robinson (Narrow House)
This collection is awesome. I especially like "That Movie Downfall" and all the faux-biographical poems, like "Brahms." The entire book's a playful poetic joke in a way, no but seriously.
Pink and Hot Pink Habitat by Natalie Lyalin (Coconut Books)
With poem titles such as "Breasts of America" how can one go wrong? But what's truly great about this book is how unexpected everything in it is. As in the above-mentioned poem, the first line reads "My father was arrested."