Books of the Year: The Grebbies

Well here it is, Christmas time again. The ol' year end. Yup, there it went, and that means it's time to look back and give out some awards.

The Nobel Prize committee has had their say, the National Book Award is done. The Goodreads Books of the Year have been voted on and added to thousands of "To Read" lists, never to be thought of again. The Rooster and the Pulitzer Prize are but blips on the horizon. If you're jonesing for more book awards, you've come to the right place.

Allow me to present the First Annual Grebbie Awards, given to notable books by the staff at grebmaR.net. A more complete list of my notable reads is available on my Goodreads page, but these are my personal highlights.

Books of the Year that I didn't read

Let's face it, I didn't read that many books this year, and I had to skim a Lemony Snickett to hit my Goodreads target of 35 books. Which leaves a lot of books I meant to get to but didn't, including the second book on the Lemony Snickett series. But that doesn't mean I couldn't follow the buzz. And of all the buzz-worthy books, these are the ones I most regret not getting to.

MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood 
This one looked great, but as the third book of a trilogy I never started, it's down on my list.

Tenth of December, by George Saunders 
Okay, here's reason #1037 why publishers don't like short story collections: I read some of these stories in Best American collections and/or The New Yorker, so it didn't make a lot of sense to lay out money for the rest of them. On the other hand, Saunders is an amazing talent, well worth your time. But if you're not already reading The New Yorker or the Best American series, you're probably not his target market. See what I mean?

The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride 
I always regret not reading the NBA winner, and this book, about a kid joining up with the John Brown raids, made this year no exception.

Literary Novel/Book of the Year:

The shortlist of Grebbie-nominated books I did read includes:

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson 
Infinite rebirths, the Blitz of London, and murdering Hitler. What else do you need in a book?

We Live in Water, by Jess Walter 
A compassionate collection of stories about hard luck losers in the Pacific Northwest by one of the great writers of our time (and my Tin House workshop mentor - Hi, Jess!)

A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki
Japanese schoolgirls, ancient Buddhist nuns, diaries that float up on distant shores, and quantum-zen weirdness. Put on your thinking caps, folks, and read this one now.

But the Grebbie goes to...

The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner 
Looking over my list, there wasn't one head-and-shoulders standout. But this book, the story of a young artist known as Reno who in the late 1970's hangs on the outskirts of art collectives and anarchists, was probably my favorite book this year.

I love this book as a perfect blend of everything I'm into, novelistically: Historical labor movements, art, motorcycles, anarchic shadow organizations, sexuality and sexual politics, and yes, myth-making on a shamelessly grand scale.

Pulpy Good Fun retro-read of the year

The Dain Curse, by Dashiell Hammett
When eight diamonds go missing from an eccentric millionaire, it seems like a routine insurance investigation for the Continental Op, until the bodies start piling up and the man's niece - a drug addict, possibly insane - is at the center of the whole thing.

Dashiell Hammett wrote the hell out of mysteries, and his Continental Op is one of the great creations of noir mysteries. The Op is nameless, middle-aged, overweight, and without much in the way of history or emotion. What he does have is a bulldog's perseverence and about as much morality- he's always willing to play people against each other to solve the case. Which is different from pursuing justice, and he'd say the same thing if he were much of a philosopher.

Award for Comics that do what Comics should do:

All-Star Superman, Volume 1

Sure, this title has its problems: A cardboard sex-doll Lois Lane, an overly stuffed smorgasboard of villains, and loose choppy plotting. But it also has some great moments: bio-engineered suicide bombers, multi-dimensional time travel, and Jimmy Olson as Doomsday.

Superman was always his most fun when he let loose of reality and just went with acid trip weirdness: Cities in bottles, flying superdogs, evil clones, Mr. Mxptlyk - everything I think isn't in the last movie (I haven't seen it, the trailer looked like a pretentious gloomy mess) is in here. Repeat after me, everyone: Superman should be fun!

Country of the year: Turkey

Well, I know what you're saying: Turkey is not a book. And you'd be right, Turkey is a country. But you'll notice on my Goodreads list a couple of books by Turkish authors, including Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk, the historical novelist Ayse Kulin, and a collection of Turkish Fairy tales.

That's because, dear reader, I live in Turkey. I haven't written much about it - I pretty much live on the Internet these days - but I hope to bring some of that to this blog in the future. Meanwhile: If you like sweeping historical romances, check out Ayse Kulin. If you like dense brooding exposes on melancholy and the nature of art, Orhan Pamuk is your guy. And, well, who doesn't like a fairy tale once in a while?

So step up to the podium, Turkey, and receive your Grebbie.

And what will 2014 bring? I can't wait to find out.