Where were we? The one-man book club (which shall now be written as One-Man Book Club, after a unanimously ratified amendment to the One-Man Stylebook) is adrift. Members keep offering excuses: “I have too many TV reviews to write.” “I’m too goddamn tired.” “I feel too fat to blog.” “I would rather drink a little and read these magazines.” Etc. etc.
But we (me) are back. There are three books left from the Great Reading Binge of Late ’09 and Early ’10 — and one book to give a friendly shout about.
All these books-of-the-year and books-of-the-decade lists are out now. I’m too far behind on ’09 to make any sort of guess about what book I liked most. But I can feel some coalescence about the decade by just looking around my study. If a book stuck around from my circa-2000 apartment and made it here to my 140 square-foot retreat in 2005, and is still here today, it must’ve meant I thought it was a pretty freakin’ good read. Here are faves from the ’00s, I think. I’m sure I’ve left something out, likely because I gave my copy away to someone else to read. There has to be more to this list, and I’ll realize later “Oh, no, I left off [blank]!” but I also like the pop-quiz nature of this blog post, on which I’ll spend no more than 15 minutes throwing together a list. No particular order…