Loin de Médine
Assia Djebar
Incredible book about the women who were involved with the beginnings of Islam (including those women who opposed it), told in fragments, monologues, anecdotes. Moving and deeply fascinating.

Paris Nocturne
Patrick Modiano

Melville: A Novel
Jean Giono

2018

Emergency Brake
Ruth Madievsky
Great poetry book, full of surprises and vicious twists

Fossil Capital
The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming
Andreas Malm

A Void
Georges Perec

A Brief Alphabet of Torture
Vi Khi Nao

I Am Flying Into Myself
Bill Knott

Mrs. Hollingsworth’s Men (a.k.a Hologram)
Padgett Powell

The Known World
Edward P. Jones

Homesick for Another World
Ottessa Moshfegh

Gork, the Teenage Dragon
Gabe Hudson

The Sellout
Paul Beatty

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Peter Godfrey-Smith

Loving
Henry Green

Margaret the First
Danielle Dutton

The City
Melanie Amaral and Stephen Crowe

Umbilical Hospital
Vi Khi Nao
Mysterious and shifting poem, made of sheep, grass, and wilderness.

At the Lightning Field
Laura Raicovich

2017

Made for Love
Alissa Nutting

Late Arcade
Nathaniel Mackey

The Engagement
Georges Simenon

L’Étranger
Albert Camus
(Read this in French and it took me what felt like four months to finish. Great and strange)

The End of Vandalism
Tom Drury

Sixty Stories
Donald Barthelme

Goodbye, Vitamin
Rachel Khong
Funny, sweet, and totally engrossing. 

Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador
Horacio Castellanos Moya

Miles: The Autobiography
Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe

The Babysitter at Rest
Jen George

Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
Geoff Dyer

Noble Hustle
Colson Whitehead

Try Never
Anthony Madrid
Madrid’s incredible follow-up to I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say is mind-bending, charming, and full of rhyme and wisdom

L’enfant Noir
Camara Laye

The Hero and the Blues
Albert Murray

New Collected Poems
W. S. Graham

Fish In Exile
Vi Khi Nao
One of the best books I read in 2016

Utopia or Bust: A Guide to the Present Crisis
Benjamin Kunkel

2016

Loitering
Charles D’Ambrosio

The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead

God Is Round
Juan Villoro

The Surrender
Scott Esposito

A Man Lies Dreaming
Lavie Tidhar

The Great Glass Sea
Josh Weil

Combien de terre fault-il à un homme
Annelise Heutier and Raphaël Urtwiller
French children’s book based on a story by Tolstoy. Beautiful artwork.

Slant Six
Erin Belieu

Magic Hours
Tom Bissell

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
David Shafer

Mislaid
Nell Zink

Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve
Tom Bissell

The Getting Rid
Anthony Madrid
Poetry chapbook; funny, wild, catchy; hard rhymes, birthday poems, and unhinged cheers. So good.

Mr. Cogito
Zbigniew Herbert
Third (fourth?) time I’ve read this and it gets better every time

While the Women Are Sleeping
Javier Marias

Calligraphy Lesson
Mikhail Shishkin

The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories
Hassan Blasim

Apex Hides the Hurt
Colson Whitehead

In A Strange Room
Damon Galgut

The Old Philosopher
Vi Khi Nao
The Old Philosopher, a poetry collection, is hilarious, sensual, beguiling, and wild. There is a set of Biblical poems in this book that will stay with you forever (that is a guarantee) and other poems that will do the same. It’s unlike pretty much anything else out there. Check it out.

Zona
Geoff Dyer

Sphinx
Anne Garréta

Newspaper
Édouard Levé

War Music
Christopher Logue

The Making of Zombie Wars
Aleksandar Hemon

Eileen
Ottessa Moshfegh

Undermajodomo Minor
Patrick deWitt

The Peregrine
J.A. Baker

Where Have You Been?
Michael Hofmann

Cries for Help, Various
Padgett Powell

The Pickle Index
Eli Horowitz

Class War
Megan Erickson

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