Since I read so haphazardly, I didn’t really keep a list of the books I read this year. But here are a few that stuck with me.
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Miklós Bánffy’s Transylvanian Trilogy needs to go at the top of this list because, since the three volumes add up to 1,400 pages, it was the book (or collection of books) I spent the most time with. It chronicles ten years in the lives of a group of Transylvanian aristocrats before World War I, and has all the momentum of a soap opera and the gravitas of impending history.
I also read The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg twice. I’ve heard some complaints that the eponymous Middlesteins—obese matriarch Edie; her fed-up husband, Richard; their borderline-alcoholic daughter, Robin; pothead son, Benny; his high-strung wife, Rachelle; and their sullen teenage daughter, Emily—are too unpleasant a crew to want to spend much time with. But I think that Attenberg writes about them sympathetically, even when they’re not being likable. Also, Attenberg’s descriptions of the food at the Golden Unicorn, maybe the world’s best strip-mall Chinese restaurant, are magnificent, and they made me really hungry. (The Golden Unicorn is, alas, not real. It’s not even based on a real strip-mall Chinese restaurant in the northwest suburbs. I was crushed to learn this.)
The other is Vintage Attraction, an awesomely bad novel by Charles Blackstone about a romance between an English teacher and a sommelier. I wondered if the whole book was an elaborate joke. Others have speculated that Blackstone’s stilted prose and awkward metaphors were just a sad attempt at humor. Far funnier was Time Out Chicago‘s Vintage Attraction drinking game. If you must read the book, keep this guide and plenty of alcohol nearby.
