The Worm Turns

I started reading books purely for enjoyment purposes just before my 20th birthday. Peter Benchley's "Beast," about a giant squid marauding the waters off Bermuda's coast, sucked me in and didn't let go. Early on it was Benchley and other suspense novels from the likes of Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, and then "Watership Down" by Richard Adams. I've since moved on to authors who write about why people do the things they do to each other, generally speaking.

Each year I would read 10, maybe 15 books a year. Then, at the end of 2007, I made it a goal to watch less television and read more often. Last year I finished 26 (not including three or four self-help books as well as short works by H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King) and, in the process, discovered some incredible authors such as Jim Harrison and Philip Roth, while weaning myself off the likes of Charles Bukowski. So far I have finished 10 books this year, as outlined below in order of completion.

"The Farmer's Daughter" by Jim Harrison: Harrison has been compared to Hemingway for his starved style, but I never quite saw the comparison. He's an excellent storyteller, and the three novellas in this book focus on broken characters trying to grasp the mistakes they've made or get past the wrongs others have done to them. A Michigan native, Harrison is strongly influenced by depression, lust and life in the Midwest.

"Couples" by John Updike: A long, dense, slog of a read but a rich and fulfilling story about a group of young couples and families trying to make it work in suburban 1960s New England. It quite brutally and honestly lays bare the challenges of fidelity and the need for something more.

"My Life as a Man" by Philip Roth: Last year I picked up his "The Dying Animal," which was one of the best books I read in 2009. Like Updike, his books focus on the inherent problems of monogamy and fidelity, as well as the unwavering strength of a sexual appetite. It's a clever fiction within a fiction about a somewhat successful writer trying to disentangle himself from a "nightmarish" marriage.

"In Patagonia" by Bruce Chatwin: Probably my least favorite book of the year, about one man's travels through the bleak South American region of Patagonia. Chatwin wanders the region, painting pictures of his experiences from one town to the next.

"The Summer He Didn't Die" by Jim Harrison: Another collection of novellas from the master. It ends with a cleverly told story called "Tracking" about Harrison's years traveling the world and finding out who he wants to be. Also, in the title novella he revisits a recurring character named Brown Dog -- a likable loser who spends his days living on the fringe in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

"Pilgrims" by Elizabeth Gilbert: Gilbert, the author of "Eat, Pray, Love," presents a fast-moving collection of short stories -- snapshots, brief moments in time -- that I can't say were all that memorable, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. The book's standout was "The Famous Torn and Restored Lit Cigarette Trick" about a Hungarian magician who seems to lose his mind.

"Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout: A surprisingly good read. Strout's title character appears in an expertly woven-together tapestry of stories about the imperfect residents of Crosby, Maine. Olive endures an unfulfilling marriage, struggles with her own deficiencies and, in the end, finds happiness in the unlikeliest of places.

"The Other" by David Guterson: The author of "Snow Falling on Cedars" tells a story of two high-school friends who take starkly different paths -- one toward the normal life of a father, husband and schoolteacher; the other toward an ascetic existence in the remote woods of the Pacific Northwest. In essence, it's about the choices we make and what we forfeit by heading in one direction vs. another.

"A Month of Sundays" by John Updike: I love Updike and am now wrapped up in his "The Maples Stories," but "Sundays" paled in comparison to his other works I've read. The topic -- a disgraced preacher forced into "rehab" because of his serial bedding of lonely female parishioners -- interested me greatly, but the first-person narrative fell a little flat.

"Werewolves in Their Youth" by Michael Chabon: To steal a line from an old friend, Chabon "really knows his way around a sentence." In 2009 I finally finished "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," which was most likely the best book I have ever read. This, a collection of shorts, certainly entertained me, but I wanted more from it -- namely, the richness and complexity of his novels.