Well, it’s 2018 now. I know I’ve posted since it started and all, but now it’s time to do a little bookkeeping, specifically: counting the books!

While I’m very excited to talk about the books I’ve read since the year started (post link to come…?), last year was a p. damn good year of reading for me. Sure, I didn’t read quite as many books as I might have liked to, and sure, I definitely didn’t manage to read ‘only’ Jewish books (not that that was ever the goal, and to be real the ‘Jewish Book Year’ is certainly going to continue into 2018), but I’m pleased with both the depth and breadth of the year (I even read some books that were published in the last 10 years!).

(And yes, there are certainly books I perhaps ought to have read by more and different kinds of diverse authors, but we knew that was going to be the case when we started this whole ‘Jewish Books Project,’ so… I mean, I’ve read Portnoy, so I don’t have to read Roth again for a long time, so that’s good.)

Anyway, the list of books read in 2017, with a key at the bottom:

  1. The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes *
  2. Revolutionary Yiddishland, Alain Brossat and Sylvia Klingberg, trans. David Fernbach *
  3. A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, ed. Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg*
  4. Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie
  5. A Contract with God, Will Eisner +
  6. Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition, David Nirenberg #
  7. The Oral History of the Daily Show, Chris Smith ^
  8. Bartelby the Scrivener, Herman Melville ¢
  9. America Again: Rebecoming the Greatness that We Never Weren’t, Stephen Colbert ^
  10. Homer and Langley, E. L. Doctorow
  11. Pictures of Fidelman, Bernard Malamud
  12. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
  13. The Philosophy of Marx, Etienne Balibar, trans. Gregory Elliott and Chris Turner &
  14. The Everything Guide to Comedy Writing, Mike Bent #
  15. Split Horizon, Thomas Lux
  16. Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living, Manjula Martin
  17. Secrets of Freelance Writing, Robert Bly
  18. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michale Chabon
  19. Bossypants, Tina Fey ^
  20. The Brothers Ashkenazi, I.J. Singer
  21. Later the Same Day, Gracy Paley
  22. The Odessa Stories (from the Complete Works of), Isaac Babel
  23. I and Thou, Martin Buber
  24. The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle *
  25. The Association of Small Bombs, Karan Mahajan
  26. The Rules (silly bike book)
  27. Call it Sleep, Henry Roth
  28. A Voice Still Heard, Irving Howe
  29. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald ¢%
  30. Exodus, Lars Iyler
  31. Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
  32. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout %
  33. Mother of Sorrows, Richard McCann %
  34. Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates %
  35. Sula, Toni Morrison %
  36. Department of Speculation, Jenny Ofill %
  37. Time’s Arrow, Martin Amis %
  38. Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
  39. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Moshin Hamid %
  40. Two by Duras, Marguerite Duras
  41. Leon Trotsky, An Illustrated Introduction, Tariq Ali
  42. The Pure and the Impure, Colette
  43. Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Italo Calvino
  44. Lost in the Funhouse, John Barth
  45. Jews Without Money, Michael Gold (carried into 2018)
  46. Six Memos from the Last Millennium, Joseph Skibell (carried into 2018)

Key:

  • Started prior to 2017: *
  • Audiobook: ^
  • Re-read: ¢
  • Ongoing (plan to finish): &
  • Abandoned: #
  • Graphic novel: +
  • For school: %