Best books I read: 2014

I didn't read as much as I could have in 2014 and I don't feel too bad about that. Much as with people, I don't want my relationship with books to become just another conduit for ticking clocks or action items. My year-end lists are just that - simple sequences of my own thoughts on what I've read. I found many of my favorites in the first half of the year, but that just left me a more leisurely pace for reading in the second half.

My main regret is that I kind of checked out of writing reviews. I find them more helpful than anything else in terms of keeping my thoughts organized, in drawing connections between things, and giving myself notes for future reading. I don't feel bad about dropping a half-read book I didn't enjoy, but of the ones I did finish, some kind of review, even if only a quick paragraph, seems like the least I could do.

What I can do about that in 2015 I'm not sure; promises to yourself are always tricky to keep. I mean, I read barely half as many books this year as I did last year, which isn't encouraging for the future. Fiction in particular really fell off a cliff for me this year, since nothing I read after June was as good as anything I read before. I guess that'll happen and there's not much to say except that I need more recommendations and more willpower.

But whatever - there's always next year. Here's the best 5 fiction and best 10 non-fiction books I read in 2014, in alphabetical order as usual.

Fiction:

Louis-Ferdinand Céline - Death On the Installment Plan. This novel is absolutely bursting with every kind of nasty, seedy, disgusting, abhorrent aspect of human behavior you could dream of. I haven't read a book that so revels in filth to the same degree in a long time, maybe ever. Reading it is less a process of bloodlessly analyzing the language/syntax/diction/tone like your high school English teachers tried to beat into you, and more about inhaling the impossibly appalling phantasmagoria of lust, greed, idiocy, malevolence, and every other ugly side of humanity there is, all layered under as many thick puddles of every gross bodily waste product Céline could think of (and as he was a doctor in real life, that's quite a lot). It's great.

Herman Melville - Moby Dick. This novel is just as good as its mammoth (or should I say leviathan) reputation indicated it would be. It was caricatured to me as a dull slog through a science exhibit on whaling, but it's famous for a reason: a thoughtful examination of our relationship with nature, an extremely rewarding character study, and an informative investigation of an entire livelihood, all with plenty of wit, insight, depth, and great writing. In fact, while I was reading it I had several of those moments where I get irritated at how much more self-indulgent and less pleasurable a lot of contemporary novels seem than 19th century ones. It might seem odd to call anything more self-indulgent than this long, digressive, allusive tome about whaling that has not one but multiple sections where Melville stops the action to explain his own use of symbolism, but not only are those moments usually funny or informative, they help give the book an enjoyable rhythm that makes it speed along in a way that a truly self-indulgent book could never manage.

Richard Powers - The Gold Bug Variations. Two moving and mobile plotlines, a clever high-level structure, and more affectionate science nerdery than you could reasonably hope for. The novel's title works in Edgar Allan Poe's The Gold Bug and Johann Sebastian Bach's The Goldberg Variations, in a clever nod to the main thematic material, but in addition to those motifs of codebreaking and music, Powers also works strains of genetics, knowledge, and information into the mix, in addition to more human subjects like love, fidelity, and responsibility. He manages a deft admixture of somewhat quotidian plots with high-level concepts (genetics and Bach over two interrelated love affairs), and I think he succeeded at unifying ideas and messages he wanted to get across with the action. In fact, the scaffolding tricks he used to unfold the story were so clever that it's even more impressive that the main narratives were as compelling as they were in comparison.

Raymond Queneau - Exercises In Style. Some books are clever in theory but dull in execution, whether due to the abstruseness of the underlying ideas or some incapacity of the writer. Exercises In Style is not one of those; even in translation (performed ably by Barbara Wright), it's obvious that this is one of those books that came out just as the author intended. While the underlying conceit (Queneau takes a boring, everyday scene - the unnamed narrator watches two other men jostle for space on a bus, and then later sees one of them again being given fashion advice - and describes it in 99 different ways) may seem a bit lame, the underlying product is quite funny and enjoyable.

Lu Xun - The Real Story of Ah-Q. I always respect authors who are willing to make bold criticisms of their own societies, because nothing is artistically easier or more temptingly lucrative than to simply give people what's familiar and flattering to their own prejudices. But these short stories, which are often very funny in their amused chronicling of universal human foibles, are incredibly uncomplimentary to basically every aspect of what at the time was a catatonic and stagnant culture, and Lu deserves real credit for his Nikolai Gogol-esque portraits that are instantly relatable even as they depict people at their worst and least likable. Only someone who actually cared about his country could make a story of people's ignorance and gullibility so affectionate and amusing.

Non-Fiction:

Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee - The Second Machine Age. Brynjolfsson and McAfee's earlier book Race Against the Machine was a sober, data-driven overview of what they thought the likely effects of increased automation on the labor force would be, with interesting case studies and plenty of good data. Its major flaw, in my view, was an ending solutions chapter that spent more time on perennial Silicon Valley wishlist items like reforming the patent system or allowing for more H1-B visas than on engaging with the political process. While those wishlist items haven't gone away, this sequel - devoted to the three characteristics of modern technological progress: exponential growth, large amounts of digitized information, and constant remixing of old ideas into new ones - not only offers a greatly expanded take on their earlier analysis of technological progress, but a broader and more carefully thought-out list of possible solutions to problems that automation will cause for many workers even as the economy as a whole benefits greatly.

Richard Ben Cramer - What It Takes. By far the most detailed book about presidential campaigns I've ever read, in fact so detailed it's almost exhausting over its thousand-odd pages of tiny, close-set type, What It Takes is an extremely entertaining read that also raises profoundly troubling questions about the whole venture. Out of all the people contesting the 1988 presidential campaign, Cramer selects Democrats Joe Biden, Michael Dukakis, Dick Gephardt, and Gary Hart, Republicans George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole, and asks some serious questions about their ultimate goal. What makes people want to become president? What sort of person takes that idea and commits to it? What does that commitment really mean in terms of how it relates to the rest of your life, the quiet, private, alone parts? What kinds of obstacles are there along the way? What is it really like to be completely surrounded by the press and by other people, and by the public? How often do people crack under the strain and what is that like? All these questions and more get raised and answered, but one can't help but be unsettled by the process, and ask why the public tolerates this kind of spectacle.

Robert Drews - The End of the Bronze Age. A fascinating look at the history of the Bronze Age collapse, one of the least-known but most pivotal periods in history. Even though the invasions of the Sea Peoples were so devastating that there aren't even records of their proper name, and despite the passage of over thirty centuries and the disappearance of most of the historical record, Drews reviews the greater part of the known evidence of the battles that the eastern Mediterranean civilizations fought against them and comes up with fairly convincing theories to explain how so many nations vanished so suddenly during the 12th century BC, how the Egyptians eventually managed to stop them, and what the consequences were for military tactics and Western civilization as a whole.

Eric Foner - Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men. All the more impressive for having been initially released as a PhD dissertation, this is one of the most comprehensive and insightful treatments of a specific ideology that I've read. While it requires some fairly advanced knowledge of the issues of the antebellum political system (issues like the Wilmot Proviso, party factions like Barnburner Democrats, and key figures like Horace Greeley get dropped into the analysis with cursory to no effort made to explain their context), Foner manages to pull together a large amount of primary source material to explain just what ideological positions and political tactics took the Republican Party from marginal upstarts to the nation's dominant political party in less than a decade. While his decision to structure the book one theme at a time instead of purely chronologically means that the narrative jumps around a bit, ultimately it's a highly effective way to tie together all the threads of thought from the various movements and issues that dominated the national agenda in the 1840s and 50s - how the country would expand, who would get to settle in the new territories, and what kind of life they would be able to live.

Steven Moore - The Novel. Such a vast, erudite, ambitious, encyclopedic work as this deserves applause. Steven Moore was once the editor of Dalkey Archive Press, one of the best publishers around, and his goal of showing that many so-called "innovations" of modern novels are actually quite ancient might come as old news to many seasoned readers, but he handily succeeds at showing why this literary heritage matters in a reading environment where sophisticated fiction often struggles. His enthusiasm for the project, the vast range of material he's gone through, and his highlighting of countless forgotten or unknown books (sure to be news to even the most hardcore bibliophiles) will be extremely welcome to anyone whose reading list just isn't long enough, or who wants a quick tour through basically all of world literature until the year 1600.

Alex Ross - Listen to This. At its best, music criticism can be revelatory, casting a formerly unappreciated work in a new light or turning the listener on to entirely new sounds. By those criteria Ross succeeds handily: I found myself mentally revising my opinions many times and adding more and more works to my to-listen list the further I got through the book. The essays run from historical classical composers, to contemporary composers, to conductors, to singers, to performers, to pop artists. Best of all, much like with his previous book he has a listen-along guide on his website so it's possible to hear much of what he talks about rather than having to buy dozens of CDs (though he does provide a buyer's guide as well in an appendix). Highly recommended for classical music fans, and still recommended for those with an open musical mind.

Kevin Starr - Golden Dreams. Starr has done a tremendous job synthesizing vast amounts of research on California's transformation into the most American part of America, a position it's never really relinquished. He talks about the booming of the major cities and the blossoming of the minor towns. He analyzes trends in music and its composers, movies and their stars, architecture and its designers, and literary movements and their authors. He notes the vast demographic trends and the ubiquitous cultural innovations. He chronicles the politics of water usage and the struggles over freeway construction. He connects the growth of the super-cities with the solitary wildernesses they encroached on. He profiles the civic leaders and the restive outcasts, the cops and the criminals, the ordinary citizens and the pioneering artists, the religious figures and the radical environmentalists, the trailblazing progressives and the reactionary conservatives. As the legendary lazy grade school book report has it, California emerges as "a land of many contrasts".

James Stewart - Den of Thieves. As with all stories about high-flying 80s Wall Street players, Den of Thieves inspired in me that peculiar mix of disgust and envy - disgust for the unethical behavior and blatant criminality that these guys thought they could get away with, and envy for the amazing lifestyles and sheer balls they had. One of the main characters has a resume created for himself with a hilariously straightforward summary: "Dennis describes himself as a person who truly loves to do two things: do deals and make money". What happens when that kind of personality is unleashed upon the junk bond market in the Reagan 80s? A lot of money is made for some, a lot of money is lost for others, and a very interesting story of finance, ethics, and the law unfolds.

James Stewart - Disneywar. Very early on in the book, Stewart reveals a fascinating bit of trivia about the Disney leadership's corporate culture: every senior executive, no matter if they're the public face of the company or if they're in a behind-the-scenes workhorse position, has to spend a day at a Disney theme park in costume as a character. They do this not as a hazing ritual, but to help the people who run the company understand that for many people, Disney isn't just another media/entertainment company - it's the creator of their childhoods. It's one thing to work in the office making deals, planning strategy, and cutting costs; it's quite another to put on a Goofy suit and give a high-five to a 4-year-old who thinks you're the greatest thing that's ever happened to them. The unique nature of Disney products - the word "magical" gets thrown around a lot - means that the stakes around any business decision they make are about as high as it gets in the entertainment world. That's why it's so fascinating to read all the downright un-magical behind-the-scenes material about the tumultuous tenure of superstar CEO Michael Eisner that Stewart unearthed. Rarely will you get see so many men worth hundreds of millions of dollars, each dedicated to the careful curation of childhood, act so childishly themselves.

Matt Taibbi - The Divide. As perhaps the most fully realized book Taibbi has written so far, The Divide retains all the markers of his signature style - the specific personal faces on abstract trends, the outraged tone, the hilariously inventive ways of insulting people - and matches them to a simple but powerful idea about how American society is quietly sorting itself into two different moral landscapes. The idea of "two Americas" is quite old, of course, but one important manifestation of our recent slide into a neo-Gilded Age is the division between patricians and plebeians in the criminal justice system. There are many books on economic inequality, plenty on inequities in the justice system, and still more on the perversities in our immigration system, but rarely do you see them all tied together in such a compelling way. In this book as in his others though, the only downside is that the picture of systematic injustice he draws is so all-encompassingly bleak it's difficult to imagine how it could be halted or reversed.