elliott holt

Last year I posted a list (on Facebook) of all the books I read (or reread) in 2010. By popular demand, I present my 2011 list so far— I’ll probably read more books in December now that I am done writing my novel. This year I reread a lot of books (probably because reading new books was distracting to my writing process). Here they are, in the order in which I read them. Books published in 2011 that I highly recommend are in bold—maybe you’ll find holiday gifts for the people on your list?

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (reread)
2. A Sport and a Past Time by James Salter (reread)
3. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (reread)
4. Things that Fall from the Sky by Kevin Brockmeier
5. A Mountain of Crumbs by Elena Gorokhova (memoir of Soviet childhood)
6. Nox by Anne Carson (I worship Anne Carson)
7. The Three Theban Plays (Antigone, Oedipus Rex, and Oedipus at Colonnus) by Sophocles (Robert Fagles translation—I reread them because I was teaching a tragedy seminar)
8. Rethinking Tragedy, edited by Rita Felski
9. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
10. The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale
11. King Lear (reread)
12. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
13. Endgame by Samuel Beckett (reread)
14. The Long Goodbye by Meghan O’Rourke (reread)
15. Beloved by Toni Morrison (reread)
16. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (reread)
17. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
18. The Secret History by Donna Tartt (reread)
19. The Wolf in the Parlor by Jon Franklin (nonfiction about dogs!)
20. Microscripts by Robert Walser (Susan Bernofsky translation)
21. Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain (so good!)
22. The Hours by Michael Cunningham (reread)
23. The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard
24. Atonement by Ian McEwan (reread for the third time)
25. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (reread—I read it every year)
26. Vilette by Charlotte Bronte
27. Zone One by Colson Whitehead
28. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
29. When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
30. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (what took me so long to read this gem?)
31. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (Oh how I love the NYRB Classics)
32. Other People We Married by Emma Straub
33. Cover Her Face by P.D. James
34. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
35. Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest
36. Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (reread)
37. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (reread)
38. They Do it With Mirrors by Agatha Christie
39. The Group by Mary McCarthy
40. This is Not Your City by Caitlin Horrocks
41. This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman
42. We the Animals by Justin Torres (THIS BOOK IS GORGEOUS. I can’t recommend it highly enough)
43. The Curfew by Jesse Ball
44. Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
45. Pym by Mat Johnson
46. The Great Frustration by Seth Fried
47. Blueprints for Building Better Girls by Elissa Schappell
48. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
49. Blue Nights by Joan Didion
50. Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell
51. Stories for the Nighttime and Some for the Day by Ben Loory
52. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
53. Bossypants by Tina Fey (I read this right when it came out, so it should be earlier on this list—but oh well)
54. Open City by Teju Cole
55. Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
56. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
57. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (reread—I love Graham Greene)
58. The Submission by Amy Waldman

On deck (to be read before the end of the year, I hope—I don’t get out much):

The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obrecht

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss

Then Again by Diane Keaton

The Book of Life by Stuart Nadler

The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

The Wilding by Benjamin Percy

Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

Volt by Alan Heathcock