Top Ten Books of 2007 (my picks)

[masterofsparks]

Oh, and I'm glad to see some Lawrence Block love on your list. I love pretty much everything he writes.

[Purple-Shit]

Books are for queers.

[Skiddy Kid]

What I'm referring to are these books that get all this high praise and once you try and read them your like huh.

That's fair enough, but your original post had a broader scope.

[Fido]

What I'm referring to are these books that get all this high praise and once you try and read them your like huh.

I remember having this experience a few years back with Don DeLillo's Underworld. After a great intro/first section it became one of the biggest reading chores ever.

Wow, I had the same feeling about Underworld.  It was my first Don DeLillo read, and I can't say I enjoyed it.  I thought there was something wrong with me, with the amount of critical acclaim that DeLillo has garnered.  I think I can honestly say my reaction was one of being "like, huh?"

[Fido]

Books are for queers.

Heh.  I am gay, so I guess books are for me.  Thanks!

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

I don't know anyone who's managed to finish Underworld, but White Noise is pretty great.  My top books of 2007 (no, I haven't read them all but I can't wait to):

The Best of LCD: The Art and Writing of WFMU, edited by Dave the Spazz
Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects of Unexpected Significance, edited by Joshua Glenn and Carol Hayes
Reading Comics, by Douglas Wolk
The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein
The World Without Us, Alan Weisman
You Don't Love Me Yet, Jonathan Lethem
Novels in Three Lines, Felix Feneon (translated by Luc Sante)
Dream: Reimagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy, Stephen Duncombe
The Red Men, Matthew de Abaitua
What of The Night and Letters From Cuba, Maria Irene Fornes

[masterofsparks]

I couldn't make it through White Noise either. The guy could give George Lucas a run in the "wooden dialogue" department.

[zonny the nun]

Someone mentioned the new reprint of Everyday Drinking by Kingsley Amis. Just came across this essay on Amis's writings on alcohol in the latest Bookforum: http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/014_05/2055

[Rainer]

The World Without Us, Alan Weisman

Read this a couple of months ago and enjoyed it immensely. 

I also heeded Buffcoat's recommendation and read -- well, listened to in my car -- "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.  Great book. If nothing more, it slits the throat of The Bell Curve.  Good riddance.

[buffcoat]

The World Without Us, Alan Weisman

Read this a couple of months ago and enjoyed it immensely. 

I also heeded Buffcoat's recommendation and read -- well, listened to in my car -- "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.  Great book. If nothing more, it slits the throat of The Bell Curve.  Good riddance.

Good on ya, Rilke.  And it does whack Charles Murray's embarrassing old racist garbage pretty good, even if that wasn't the primary reason for writing the book.

In fact, the whole subsection on how people interpret things to be knowable because that's what they want should give Mr. Murray a whole lot to think about.  Not that he will.

[octopus volcano]

Ditto on the DeLillo.  I'd enjoyed some of his stuff previously (though I think White Noise is overrated), but I slogged through half of Underworld before I gave up.  It's been sitting on my shelf with a bookmark in it for 10 years. 

Any Martin Amis fans here?

[bruce]

I've read Money and Dead Babies years ago Octopus. I tried to read his dad book Anti Death league it has not aged well at all.