Although I’ll be writing a long post over at my other blog, OF Blog of the Fallen, I thought I would list briefly here some other enjoyed reads during 2007. When the day closes in roughly 13 hours from the time of me posting this, I ought to have completed 358 novels. Of those, 210 were in English, 131 in Spanish, 4 in Serbian, 4 in Italian, 3 in Latin, 2 in German, 2 in French, and one each in Hungarian and Portuguese translations (I’ll admit that for a couple of these, this was reached by reading a parallel text, but I do know at least several hundred words in all of the above languages but Hungarian). Since my OF post will be devoted to speculative fiction issues, I thought I’d take the time to acknowledge reads that mostly fall outside of that broad category.
Best Spanish-Language Novel Read in 2007
I read (and re-read) a great many books in Spanish this year. Only one was published this year, Luis Leante’s excellent Mira si yo te querré (Quise escribir una revista sobre las temas del libro, pero estuve tan preocupado este verano), but it would have made my shortlist regardless. But here are top 10 (first reads) for 2007:
1. Julio Cortázar, Rayuela
2. Ernesto Sabato, Abaddón el exterminador
3. Antonio Machado, Antología poética
4. Roberto Arlt, Trescientos millones
5. Miguel Cervantes, Don Quijote
6. Jorge Luis Borges, Obra poética
7. Gabriel García Márquez, El coronel no tiene quien le escriba
8. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Rimas y Leyendas
9. Sergio Ramírez, Sombras nada más
10. Luis Leante, Mira si yo te querré
Ten Greatly Enjoyed Novels Read in 2007 but Published Before That Year
There are all regardless of year of publication:
1. Dave Eggers, What is the What
2. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Wizard of the Crow
3. David Anthony Durham, Walk Through Darkness
4. Salvador Plascencia, The People of Paper
5. Danilo Kiš, Encyclopedia of the Dead
6. Cormac McCarthy, The Road
7. Don DeLillo, White Noise
8. Art Spiegelman, The Complete Maus
9. Bishop Fulton Sheen, Life in Christ
10. Edward Whittemore, the books of the Jerusalem Quartet
Hopefully, these two little posts will give the reader some sense of the wide varieties of literature that I enjoy reading. Although I easily could have made extra categories over on the OF Blog, I chose to post it here because the list I’m preparing there deals more with 2007-specific books and this one is more for books published at any time prior to now. Hopefully, there’ll be a few who’ll look into these and perhaps in the near future I shall write a few brief comments on many of these and post them here.
And for the fortunate few (how like Stendhal!), best of wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year! Look for a complete 2007 listing in the next few days here.
2 Comments
January 1, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Larry, so cool that you dug Walk Through Darkness! And I’m impressed by all these books read in Spanish. (By the way, Pride of Carthage is available in Spanish. It was actually a bestseller in a couple of countries. They must have improved it through translation or something…)
Anyway, best to you for the New Year also!
January 1, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I’m always a sucker for internal conflicts played out on such a conflicted socio-political field, David
And my reading comprehension in Spanish is almost the same as it is for English, so it just doubles the possibilities, no? 
And I saw that on your blog a few months ago about it appearing on Mexico’s bestseller list. Maybe I’ll have to read it in Spanish after I get around to reading it in English (I do have a copy, but it’s been one of those “timing” things that’s delayed me reading it to date) and let you know what I thought of the translation.
And again, Happy New Year’s! My beloved Vols won, so it’s truly off to a great start for me!