Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2012

This title/cover combo made me laugh:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2a/That_Time_I_Joined_the_Circus.jpg

I've read the Mantel, which is great obv, and the Ali Smith, which I remember enjoying a lot. Since the Wolf Hall books kinda meld together for me I'll go Smith.

really want to read the Catling, seems v much my thing

nada

NW is the only one of these I’ve read and the only Zadie Smith I’ve been able to finish - actually enjoyed it fairly well! So there’s my vote.

Telegraph Avenue was so bad and transparent that it made me retroactively dislike Kavalier & Klay.

really want to read the Catling, seems v much my thing

Could be, I found it somewhat opaque but not unfinishable. Might throw 2312 a vote over Mantel and Ferrante, it's not quite as epic as the Mars trilogy but otoh doesn't have pages of martian geography to wade through.

Wow, I get a chance to vote against Ferrante sooner than expected! I loved NW, which I think was inexplicably seen as a dud from Smith at the time. Just a simple, very felt, beautifully written book, not sure what to say beyond that.

Weirdly, I've read only four on this list (those two and lol Gone Girl and Hologram for the King -- I gotta say, people bag on Eggers because of what he's like but every time I read one of these novels I am reminded that he knows how to write novels) and have heard of very few of them.

As with most recent years, only read one on the list, enjoyed it: time for another Ferrante vote.

I haven't read any of these.

have only read the Ferrante and The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker. the Ferrante was good, the other one was so bad that at some point reading it I wondered if I was reading a terrible translation of an English book to French, only to realise that the book was originally written in French. i still don't understand how this terrible book became such a success

Yeah, my eyebrows were raised at the wikipedia entry suggesting that book was a failure in English speaking markets due to its bad writing as in my experience francophone readers tend to be considerably more demanding when it comes to writing style! Strange anomaly.

This is where I get to admit I've only read the first volume of the Ferrante quartet. Bringing Up the Bodies it is, then.

Same! Have the second volume staring at me from the shelf tho.

I've not even made it as far as buying the second volume!

I've only read Telegraph Avenue. It wasn't very good.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I read The Yellow Birds; don’t remember a thing about it.

I have Bring Up The Bodies sitting around waiting to be read. I loved the pose in Wolf Hall so picked up a few Mantels none of which I've read outside of Wolf Hall. Shame if they are all as good.
But I think I have been reading pretty solidly.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2013

Write-in vote for The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus, a book that has only gotten more disturbing & relevant since its publication.

was orphan master’s son 2012?

I have had that Marcus on my shelf since 2012, you're saying I should read it?

You should read what you want to! But I happen to really enjoy The Flame Alphabet, as well as the two short story collections Marcus has since put out. Alphabet was something of an inflection point in his oeuvre, away from fragmentation and towards more accessible narrative forms.

Oh shit, yeah, I loved The Age of Wire & String and Notable American Women so so much when they came out. I forgot I had the Flame Alphabet, I need to track that down and read it.

away from fragmentation and towards more accessible narrative forms.

I think that's why I didn't get into it at the time, I was so so on fire for Age of Wire & String and it was.. not that

There is some fragmentation as the book progresses, but yeah, it's certainly not going to scratch the same itch as AOWS

https://www.vqronline.org/fiction/2018/06/boys

This short story, from his most recent collection, is a pretty good litmus test (imo) for whether or not you're likely to get anything out of the latter-day Ben Marcus.