Unlike indomitable, indefatigable Sarah Weinman, I didn’t read over 462 books this year (think about it — that’s a book-and-a-quarter a day people!), so I couldn’t possibly post a best of the year list and keep a straight face. Still, I thought it might be nice to post an unscientific list of my 10 favourite new books of 2009 on the very last day of the year.
Compiling the list, I realised that while I finally read a lot of books I’d been meaning to get to for a while (including the brilliant The Invention of Morel, the insane — and insanely good — Pop. 1280 and the classic New Grub Street), I didn’t actually read a lot of new fiction this year. Mostly it was the result of my monstrous indifference to the majority of novels published in 2009, but there were more than few books — The Girl Who Played With Fire, Invisible, Let The Great World Spin, There Once was a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby, True Deceiver, When I Forgot, Wolf Hall, et al — that are sitting in a big pile that I won’t get to until 2010.
I also realised that — try as I might — it would be impossible to leave out books that I had worked on in some capacity. Apparently I need to get out more, but it I think this is a more universal symptom of work-life, digital-life, and “real” unplugged-life blurring (sometimes uncomfortably) for a lot of people in publishing (or is it just me?).
Anyway, with this in mind, all the books on this list distributed in Canada by Raincoast are identified with an asterisk. They’re here because I genuinely like them, but you’re an adult so you can make up your own mind about their merit.
And one last note: All the title links are to the Book Depository in the UK because they readily ship books worldwide. However, I have also linked to all the respective publishers, and added an IndieBound widget to the left sidebar (with links to all the listed titles) for anyone in the US who would like to support their local independent bookstore (Canadians: You can find your local indie via the CBA website).
And so on to the ten…
ASTERIOS POLYP BY DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI
Pantheon, ISBN 9780307377326
My Advent Books recommendation for 2009, Asterios Polyp made it on to so many best of 2009 lists that Mazzuccelli’s beautifully understated and deceptively nuanced book almost feels over-hyped at this point. But you know what? It couldn’t possibly leave it off this list. I loved it. It’s a elegantly balanced combination of show and tell, and like Maus, Palestine, and, hell, even Watchmen before it, Asterios Polyp feel likes it expands the possibilities of the medium. Oh and Polyp reminds me of my art teacher at school — right down to the way he holds his cigarette — which, to be honest, is more than enough reason to be on this list.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC: 100 CLASSIC GRAPHIC DESIGN BOOKS BY JASON GODFREY
Laurence King ISBN 9781856695923
A wonderful visual shopping list for any design-minded book collector, each of 100 classic graphic design books in this “ideal library” is shown with its cover and a number of spreads. It’s gorgeous and inspiring.
(NB: I’m hoping to have an interview with Jason in the New Year. Fingers crossed).
BIRD* BY ANDREW ZUCKERMAN
Chronicle, ISBN 9780811870986
Zuckerman’s crisp hyper-real photographs (also see Creature, Wisdom) retain a warmth and genuineness that so often goes AWOL in contemporary digital photography. I mean god knows how much — or how little — work was actually done in Photoshop after the fact, but somehow the grace and natural beauty of the birds comes through. There is nothing clever, or even particularly gimmicky about this book, it is just really, really well done. The perfect coffee table book.
CHARLEY HARPER: AN ILLUSTRATED LIFE BY TODD OLDHAM
Ammo Books ISBN 9781934429372
I’d been coveting the oversize and limited editions of this unashamedly beautiful collection of Harper’s paintings and illustrations for a while before Ammo released an affordable hardcover edition this year. This is simply a wonderful, inspiring book, and now there is no excuse not to own it.
A DRIFTING LIFE* BY YOSHIHIRO TATSUMI
Drawn and Quarterly ISBN 9781897299746
Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s lovingly rendered 856 page manga portrait of an artist as a young man in post-war Japan was criminally overlooked in the best of the year lists in my humble opinion. It apparently took Tatsumi a decade to complete. “Epic” is just about the only word that covers it.
A PDF preview is available at D+Q.
THE HANDY BOOK OF ARTISTIC PRINTING* BY DOUG CLOUSE AND ANGELA VOULANGAS
Princeton Architectural Press ISBN 9781568987057
The subtitle — “A Collection of Letterpress Examples with Specimens of Type, Ornament, Corner Fills, Borders, Twisters, Wrinklers, and other Freaks of Fancy” — probably sums up this lovely book best. It is, admittedly, slightly bonkers, but it’s exactly the kind of thing that will eventually go out of print and then you’ll wish you’d bought one when you had the chance (and no, I won’t sell you mine).
THE HUNTER BY RICHARD STARK, ADAPTED & ILLUSTRATED BY DARWYN COOKE
IDW, ISBN 9781600104930
Bleak, snappy, and fabulously illustrated, Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of Richard Stark’s hardboiled Parker novel is pretty much pitch perfect. I only hope more Parker adaptations are on the way. Pretty, pretty please.
LEVIATHAN OR, THE WHALE BY PHILIP HOARE
Fourth Estate ISBN 9780007230143
I deliberated over whether to include Philip Hoare’s charming book about whales in this list. Not that it isn’t worthy — it certainly is (it won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction earlier this year) — but because it was first published in the UK 2008 and it is not available in North America until 2010 (HarperCollins’ Ecco imprint are releasing it under the title The Whale in February). So does it count as a 2009 title? In the end I decided it was eligible because it was published in paperback in 2009 and, ultimately, this is the year I read it (admittedly in hardcover) and it was too good to leave out. And Philip Hoare is from my home town. But that has nothing to do with it. Honestly.
THE MAGICIANS BY LEV GROSSMAN
Viking ISBN 9780670020553
The privileged offspring of Harry Potter and The Secret History (and/or Whit Stillman) invade Narnia and shoot things. It’s almost as good as it sounds, although it’s a shame the protagonist is, to be quite frank, a simpering cock. Nice villain though.
NAÏVE: MODERNISM AND FOLKLORE IN CONTEMPORARY GRAPHIC DESIGN ED. BY R. KLANTEN AND H. HELLIGE
Gestalten ISBN 9783899552478
A tidy collection of contemporary graphic design inspired by the classic mid-century modern of Saul Bass, Lucienne Day, Alexander Girard, Charley Harper, and others. There are a few too many music posters perhaps, but Naïve is still neato coolsville.
So there you go, that’s my 10 favourite books of the year. What were yours?
Naïve: Modernism and Folklore in Contemporary Graphic Design edited by R. Klanten and H. Hellige
