The current issue of The Believer features the results of the reader’s poll, as well as the editor’s top pick, for the best books published in 2007. The editors chose Tom McCarthy’s Remainder, which we haven’t read, and the readers picked Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, probably because the hero is such a nerd. The list follows with our comments; titles are linked to our reviews.
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao—Junot Díaz
- The Yiddish Policemen’s Union—Michael Chabon: We didn’t like this book and are frankly astounded at all the praise it’s garnered.
- The Savage Detectives—Roberto Bolaño: It’s in a stack waiting to be read. The stack is very big though, and the book is very big, so, who knows (in all likelihood it will beat out last year’s reader fave, Pynchon’s impossibly large Against the Day).
- Tree of Smoke—Denis Johnson: We loved it. Top pick of the year. Very divisive, strangely–just read through the Amazon reviews.
- Then We Came to the End—Joshua Ferris
- No One Belongs Here More Than You—Miranda July: Oh my gosh. Seriously? Really? I read half of this at a Barnes & Noble, no exaggeration. I sat and drank coffee and read it. I’m not saying that a book has to take a while to read in order to have weight or substance, but in this particular instance, no, nothing, fluff. This is the kind of thing that people who quit reading after high school mistake for literature.
- On Chesil Beach—Ian McEwan: The library has this on CD; I’ll listen to it this summer. I’ve grappled with the first five pages of Atonement too many times to bother, really. And then I saw the movie, and it sucked. So…
- Zeroville—Steve Erickson
- Like You’d Understand, Anyway—Jim Shepard
- Slam—Nick Hornby: We suspect that The Believer‘s readers are partial to Hornby; would they have given another Young Adult novel a nod? We doubt it.
- Divisadero—Michael Ondaatje: Also in the stack.
- Bowl of Cherries—Millard Kaufman: A pamphlet containing the first three chapters was published as an insert in an issue of McSweeney’s. It was pretty funny.
- Varieties of Disturbance—Lydia Davis
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian—Sherman Alexie: This was fantastic. And it was YA! We rescind our Hornby complaint.
- The Abstinence Teacher—Tom Perrotta
- Call Me by Your Name—André Aciman
- After Dark—Haruki Murakami: Murakami is the writer we wished that we love but we just can’t get into. We remember reading some of his short fiction years ago, in Harper’s and other places, but even The Elephant Vanishes was a trial to get through.
- Darkmans—Nicola Barker
- Diary of a Bad Year—J. M. Coetzee
- Falling Man—Don DeLillo: Dry, self-important, rarely engaging, and not nearly as good as it was pretending to be, Falling Man was only a step above its dark twin, Cosmopolis.
- Five Skies—Ron Carlson
- God Is Dead—Ron Currie, Jr.
- Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name—Vendela Vida
- Shortcomings—Adrian Tomine
- Samedi the Deafness—Jesse Ball
- The Gum Thief—Douglas Coupland: We consistently forget about Coupland. Why? We loved Microserfs, after all…
- Remainder—Tom McCarthy
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—J. K. Rowling: We listened to all the HP books on mp3 over the winter and spring breaks. Deathly Hallows was okay. Lots of time in the forest. Kinda boring, really.
- Acme Novelty Library #18—Chris Ware: We love Chris Ware!
- An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England—Brock Clarke
- Exit Ghost—Philip Roth: Never made it through an entire Roth novel.
- Bad Monkeys—Matt Ruff
- The Last Novel—David Markson
- The Raw Shark Texts—Steven Hall
- Inglorious—Joanna Kavenna
- Mister Pip—Lloyd Jones
- Spook Country—William Gibson: We passed on this one. Gibson has disappointed us too many times now.
- Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey—Chuck Palahniuk: Should we give it a shot? Isn’t this guy just a dirty hack?
- The Indian Clerk—David Leavitt
- The Terror—Dan Simmons
Biblioklept 