1) Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
I've enjoyed Whitehead's prose since his days as a reporter for The Village Voice and have looked forward to each of his novels since the release of The Intuitionist in 2000. I waited a bit to read Harlem Shuffle because of the praise it received and because I anticipated that a book about New York City in the 1970s would give Whitehead a chance to show off his reportorial skills on a city he loves. I was not disappointed and thoroughly savored the book. He belongs to the American realist tradition: Crane, James, Dreiser, Hemingway, and Mailer. Perhaps the preeminent American writer after the death of Cormac McCarthy.
2) Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
This 2009 novel by the Polish Nobel laureate is a ferocious thriller. Recent events in Europe has only made this work more timely.
3) The Mad and the Bad by Jean-Pierre Manchette
The best novel by the French writer who in the 1970s combined pulp and philosophy. A book at once delirious and, yet, tightly focused.
4) They Don't Shoot Cowards by John Henry Rees
A wryly amusing Western genre tale from 1973 set in a mining boom town. I sought out this author because he wrote a novel entitled The Looters which provided the basis for one of my favorite films, Don Siegel's Charley Varrick. They Don't Shoot Cowards is a memorable rebuke to Western machismo. I'll be scouring the bargain bins of Portland's book shops for more of Reese's work.
5) You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue
A gory, phantasmagoric, and funny novel about Cortez and Montezuma from the Mexican writer. Enrigue's novel about Caravaggio, Sudden Death, is one of the great novels of the current century. You Dreamed of Empires is almost as good.
6) Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
I never expected to enjoy a novel about game programmers, but I was enthralled by this book which contains interesting ruminations on love, friendship, technology, and Macbeth.
7) Low Life by Lucy Sante
The only non-fiction book on this list unless you count King Jesus. Sante's book is a portrait of the demimonde of 19th century New York in all its seamy glory. History can be fun!
8) Normal People by Sally Rooney
I give.
9) The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut
I never expected to enjoy a novel about physicists, but the Chilean's novel entertained and educated me.
10) King Jesus by Robert Graves
A historical novel that gives an alternate history to the Lion of Judah. Cracked, but brilliant.
I also enjoyed:
Avid Reader by Robert Gottlieb
Holding My Own in No Man's Land by Molly Haskell
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem
I'm Glad My Mom's Dead by Jennette McCurdy
Mortals by Geoffrey Rush
Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
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