Best books read in '04?

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Not necessarily the best books from 2004, but the greatest books you've read in the past year. Or the best books from 2004. Whichever!

I'm looking for recommendations, and perhaps this could prove to give me some ideas...

― Roit Gaer, Saturday, 8 January 2005 02:28 (twenty years ago)

Welcom to ILB "Roit." I'm glad to see that your boundless curiosity extends beyond Music and "Everything" to include books.

― Ken L (Ken L), Saturday, 8 January 2005 04:41 (twenty years ago)

Now I'm back on my own computer, after being hastily booted from mine because things were getting cleaned out at the office.

― Riot Gear! (Gear!), Saturday, 8 January 2005 05:06 (twenty years ago)

Gear, that was really you that first post? A certain "gollum"-like figure has been plaguing me all day using a misspelling of your name (see for instance, the second half of his CASABLANCA thread), so I thought you must be him, phishing over here on ILB. Good thing I was polite.

― Ken L (Ken L), Saturday, 8 January 2005 05:42 (twenty years ago)

One of my favorites was a book about cooking in the Middle Ages.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 8 January 2005 10:41 (twenty years ago)

Oops, that might have been you on some the threads, sorry, Gear! I was wondering how "Gollum" got so clever all of a sudden. In any case, last year I enjoyed a witty experimental novel called Tom Harris by Stefan Themerson

― Ken L (Ken L), Saturday, 8 January 2005 13:58 (twenty years ago)

Gombrowicz: Cosmos.

― Matt (Matt), Saturday, 8 January 2005 16:33 (twenty years ago)

I read many good books in 2004, I can't decide on one best. Check my list here:
Books I read in 2004

― Fred (Fred), Saturday, 8 January 2005 16:42 (twenty years ago)

War and Peace. It actually won the "best book I ever read" prize

― misshajim (strand), Monday, 10 January 2005 17:40 (twenty years ago)

Loser Goes First by Dan Kennedy, laughed my ass off and was inspired at the same time.

― Huk-L, Monday, 10 January 2005 19:07 (twenty years ago)

Alan Hollighurst's beautifully written "the line of beauty" clearly deserves a place in here. Really, it's one of the best novels I've read in ages. That and "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel" by Susanna Clarke. It's like a fantasy book written by Thackeray.

― Simone O., Monday, 17 January 2005 09:57 (twenty years ago)

Simone: In what way do you think the novel beautifully written?

That question is not a challenge, but an expression of genuine interest. I have been thinking a lot about the novel's style. I think its casualness is part of, or closely linked to, its precision. It seems to me unlike, for instance, Ulysses, Nabokov, Martin Amis or (why not?) Lorrie Moore.

― the bellefox, Monday, 17 January 2005 14:35 (twenty years ago)

The Sound and the Fury, hands down. Eight or nine months after reading it, I still recall scenes and images from it as if they were experiences from my own life, that's how successfully Faulkner weaves you into his story. I've never had quite such an involving reading experience, certainly not as an adult.

― Gail S, Tuesday, 18 January 2005 14:53 (twenty years ago)

the same happened to me when I read War and Peace, I can still feel the thrill I felt when I read of Natasha and Andreij. I guess that's what makes a novel great...

― misshajim (strand), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 10:11 (twenty years ago)

I think the best book I read last year was The Time Traveler's Wife. I see from the list in the library that Richard and Judy are to feature it on their bookclub (or may have done so already, I wouldn't know.)

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 14:11 (twenty years ago)

I keep on looking for it, you know, but can't find it anywhere in Rome...they say it's out of print and can't be even ordered. grrr

― misshajim (strand), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 15:17 (twenty years ago)

Best books I read that were actually published last year:
Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas
Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (I go back and forth on this one. It's brilliant in a lot of ways, but I had real problems with many, many things about it. It goes on the list of best things I read simply because it was a good read.)
McSweeney’s 13

Best books I read that were published before last year:
Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises
Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase
Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife
Calvino’s Invisible Cities

― zan, Wednesday, 19 January 2005 16:20 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

Like Ali Smith
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million Martin Amis
The Gangster We Are All Looking For Lê Thi Diem Thúy
A Wizard of Earthsea Ursula Le Guin
Trick of the Light Carolyn Polizzotto
Picnic at Hanging Rock Joan Lindsay
Resolution Denise Mina (closer of her Glaswegian crime trilogy)

― cuspidorian (cuspidorian), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 09:47 (twenty years ago)

two weeks pass...

Zan: What were your problems with "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell"? I just finished it, and my first impressions are very good. I’m not a big fantasy reader (at least, not since childhood), so I was a bit surprised to find it so satisfying.

Also, I’m glad to see you liked "A Wild Sheep Chase." My favorite Murakami!

― Cherish, Monday, 28 February 2005 08:33 (twenty years ago)

Cherish: The one thing that sticks out in my mind is that I thought there were far too many superfluous characters. Some characters were strongly developed, yet seemed to go nowhere in the end. Others were poorly developed and felt added just for the chance to throw some decoration around. Even the main characters were hard to become attached to. One of my favorite books is Anna Karenina; unfortunately for me, this means that long books with many characters inevitably get compared to Tolstoy. Still, Clarke would've been smart to follow Tolstoy's lead in character development. Each character in Tolstoy's novel is well-rounded and complete; each has his or her own purpose for the story's development.

BUT, and it's a big one, the last 100 pages of JS & MrN were completely worth the read. I was very haunted by the cat lady, and the image of eternal night (don't want to reveal too much here...). The more I let this book simmer, though, the more I like it. That's why it went on my "Best of '04" list. Maybe I should go back and give it another chance. Though I rarely reread books, and, given the choice, I'd rather reread Anna Karenina.

Re: Murakami... I'm reading Jay Rubin's Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words right now, and his analysis of A Wild Sheep Chase is shedding new light on my original interpretation of the book. It's pretty interesting... though part of me wants that book to hang in the suspense of the unknown.

― zan, Monday, 28 February 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

Zan: I don’t think “Anna Karenina” is a fair comparison; this was Dickens, not Tolstoy! I enjoyed the multitude of characters. True, the only story line I was truly emotionally involved in was Stephen’s. But the atmosphere, the dry humor, and the character of magical England itself were what kept me reading. And, yes, the end! I’ve gotten so used to disappointing endings, stories whose authors don’t know how to end them. But this book got stronger as Strange’s story merged with the fairy king’s.

Thanks for the tip about the Jay Rubin book! I’m not sure I want too much revealed, either. Hmm.

― Cherish, Monday, 28 February 2005 22:18 (twenty years ago)

Dickens would be a much better comparison, but I haven't read Dickens in years, so it didn't feel fair to use that comparison with little to back it up. But I'd like to assume that Dickens' characters are well-rounded too...

I agree about Stephen, and that's what really bugged me: his story was the most emotionally involving, yet it just sort of fizzled out at the end. I didn't feel like he had any solid resolution.

― zan, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

But I'd like to assume that Dickens' characters are well-rounded too...

Well… The only Dickens I go back to regularly is A Tale of Two Cities, so I’m no expert! But, I do think his characters are about on a level with Clarke’s. Both use a roaming limited omniscience, have two or three characters with enough detail to give them some heft, and then surround them with caricatures. The main difference being that Dicken’s main characters are played for sympathy and pathos, while Clarke’s definitely are not.

As for Stephen, his outcome wasn't what I'd hoped for, but I thought it had a certain rightness about it.

― Cherish, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 19:40 (twenty years ago)

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