C-Dawg’s Top Ten Books I Read in 2009
December24
I read more books in 2009 than I have ever read (which really isn’t saying much), so for the first time I can actually put together a Top Ten Books list for the year (sort of). Remember, these are books I read in 2009 not that were necessarily published in 2009. And I’m always looking for good books to read, so feel free to give me your recommendations.
#10
Title: Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure
Author: Dave Gorman
Publisher: Overlook
Year: 2004
Notes: Plenty of randomness, coincidences, and the unknown around every corner…just sit-back and enjoy the ride.
Synopsis: A Googlewhack is a Google search query consisting of two words (found in a dictionary) that return a single result. At 31 Dave Gorman decided to give up his stupid ways, grow a beard and write a novel. As a result Dave believes people took him more seriously and a new novel was commissioned. While trying to write a novel for his publisher, Dave became obsessed with Googlewhacks when someone notified him that his site had one (Francophile Namesakes), and caused him to travel across the world finding people who had authored them.
#9
Title: Childhood’s End
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Publisher: Ballantine
Year: 1953
Notes: Classic Science-Fiction.
Synopsis: The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city – intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind. Benevolent, they made few demands: unify earth, eliminate poverty, and end war. With little rebellion, humankind agreed, and a golden age began. But at what cost? With the advent of peace, man ceases to strive for creative greatness, and a malaise settles over the human race. To those who resist, it becomes evident that the Overlords have an agenda of their own. As civilization approaches the crossroads, will the Overlords spell the end for humankind…or the beginning?
#8
Title: M*A*S*H: A Novel about Three Army Doctors
Author: Richard Hooker
Publisher: Pocket Books / HarperCollins
Year: 1968
Notes: A must read for any fan of the movie or tv show. Filled with memorable characters, quotes, and stories.
Synopsis: Before the movie, this is the novel that gave life to Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John, Hot Lips Houlihan, Frank Burns, Radar O’Reilly, and the rest of the gang that made the 4077th MASH like no other place in Korea or on earth. The doctors who worked in the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) during the Korean War were well trained but, like most soldiers sent to fight a war, too young for the job. In the words of the author, “a few flipped their lids, but most of them just raised hell, in a variety of ways and degrees.”
#7
Title: Watchmen
Author: Alan Moore
Illustrator: Dave Gibbons
Publisher: DC Comics
Year: 1986-1987
Notes: Classic graphic novel. A gripping story filled with unique characters.
Synopsis: It all begins with the paranoid delusions of a half-insane hero called Rorschach. But is Rorschach really insane or has he in fact uncovered a plot to murder super-heroes and, even worse, millions of innocent civilians? On the run from the law, Rorschach reunites with his former teammates in a desperate attempt to save the world and their lives, but what they uncover will shock them to their very core and change the face of the planet! Following two generations of masked superheroes from the close of World War II to the icy shadow of the Cold War comes this groundbreaking comic story — the story of The Watchmen.
#6
Title: Motherless Brooklyn
Author: Jonathan Lethem
Publisher: Doubleday
Year: 1999
Notes: How can you beat a pseudo-detective with Tourette’s syndrome?? Cinematically having a character with Tourette’s syndrome would prolly come off forced, over-the-top, in bad taste…but it works on the page. You can’t help but empathize with Lionel Essrog as he brings you into his worlds of Tourette’s syndrome and Brooklyn. Quick, easy read that definitely kept my attention throughout.
Synopsis: Lethem fulfills the promise of his earlier, critically acclaimed novels with the gritty and uproarious tale of a Brooklyn P.I. with problems: a dead boss, women trouble, and an uncontrollable case of Tourette’s syndrome.
#5
Title: The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
Author: A. J. Jacobs
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year: 2007
Notes: I read three A. J. Jacobs books (Know-It All & Guinea Pig Diaries) this year and Year of Living Biblically was my favorite. It was fun to learn where a lot of religious traditions/rules come from and how taking the Bible literally is not the best idea. An interesting look at faith, religion, and religious people.
Synopsis: Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also, to obey the hundreds of less-publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers. To grow his beard. To stone adulterers. The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal. Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally, including the Amish and the Hasidim. He discovers ancient Biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the 21st-century brain. Jacobs’s extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. Sure to charm listeners both secular and religious, The Year of Living Biblically is part Cliffs-Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to stop listening.
#4
Title: The Devil in the White City
Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Crown
Year: 2003
Notes: Immensely interesting. A work of non-fiction that feels like fiction. The Architect, The Killer, The Fair, and The City are all compelling characters that Larson is able to weave together into a magical story.
Synopsis: Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.
#3
Title: King Dork
Author: Frank Portman
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Year: 2006
Notes: A great read…very funny. They running joke of new band names is hysterical. This is Frank Portman’s (from the band The Mr. T Experience) first book and supposedly the film is coming out in 2011 with The King of Kong guy directing.
Synopsis: Tom Henderson (a.k.a. King Dork, Chi-mo, Hender-fag, and Sheepie) is a typical American high school loser until he discovers the book, The Catcher in the Rye, that will change the world as he knows it. When Tom discovers his deceased father’s copy of the Salinger classic, he finds himself in the middle of several interlocking conspiracies and at least half a dozen mysteries involving dead people, naked people, fake people, ESP, blood, a secret code, guitars, monks, witchcraft, the Bible, girls, the Crusades, a devil head, and rock and roll. And it all looks like it’s just the tip of a very odd iceberg of clues that may very well unravel the puzzle of his father’s death and–oddly–reveal the secret to attracting semihot girls. Being in a band could possibly be the secret to the girl thing–but good luck finding a drummer who can count to four.
#2
Title: Deal Breaker / Drop Shot / Fade Away / Back Spin :: Myron Bolitar Mysteries
Author: Harlan Coben
Publisher: Dell / San Val
Year: 1995-1997
Notes: The Myron Bolitar series are quick, fun reads. Once I start one I can’t put it down. Highly recommended if you’re a fan of sports and mysteries.
Synopsis: Myron Bolitar was once a college basketball star drafted by the Celtics, but after blowing out his knee Myron’s life took a different path. Went to Harvard Law School, spent a brief time with the FBI, became a lawyer, and is now a sports agent. Trouble seems to always follow Myron and his clients around, so with the help of best friends and business associates Win & Esperanza he is on the case.
#1
Title: Escape From Bellevue (A Dive Bar Odyssey)
Author: Christopher John Campion
Publisher: Gotham
Year: 2009
Notes: Easily my favorite book of the year. Campion is a master storyteller…so funny and honest. This is a MUST read for anyone who has ever met Chris or seen the Knockout Drops or lived in NYC during the 90s or is into booze, drugs, music, and sports (so ALL of you).
Synopsis: Indie rock raconteur Chris Campion—one of the few patients ever to escape from Bellevue’s locked ward—recalls his band’s tumultuous ride, his plummet into addiction, and the strange road back to sobriety. Chronicling more than twenty years in the life of a Long Island kid who became a hardcore fixture of Manhattan’s indie rock scene, Escape from Bellevue is a coming-of-age tale like no other. As the lead singer of New York—based indie rock band Knockout Drops, Campion got a taste of fame (but, alas, no fortune) on a wild ride that lasted from the early 1980s through the 1990s. Charting Campion’s extensive experience in the music industry alongside his personal tales of struggle and survival, Escape from Bellevue puts the spotlight on the collective psychosis of twenty years spent in a rolling bacchanal. Just as the Knockout Drops reached the height of their success, having toured with headliners such as Soul Asylum and Violent Femmes, Campion began his downward spiral. Campion was eventually able to come to grips with his addictions, molding his songs and stories into a sold-out off-Broadway musical, Escape from Bellevue. Now presenting these tales in a memoir of madness and redemption, Campion once again proves to possess the creative genius of a die-hard front man.
Honorable Mention:
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card (1985)
I Love You, Beth Cooper – Larry Doyle (2007)
The Fortress of Solitude – Jonathan Lethem (2003)
Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World – Sarah Vowell (2000)
The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment – A. J. Jacobs (2009)
The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World – A. J. Jacobs (2004)
Fixer Chao – Han Ong (2002)
Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes – Terry Southern (1967)
The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook – Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht (1999)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People – Toby Young (2003)
Card Sharks: How Upper Deck Turned a Child’s Hobby into a High-Stakes, Billion-Dollar Business – Pete Williams (1995)
You Gotta Have Wa – Robert Whiting (1990)
#10
Title: Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure
Author: Dave Gorman
Publisher: Overlook
Year: 2004
Notes: Plenty of randomness, coincidences, and the unknown around every corner…just sit-back and enjoy the ride.
Synopsis: A Googlewhack is a Google search query consisting of two words (found in a dictionary) that return a single result. At 31 Dave Gorman decided to give up his stupid ways, grow a beard and write a novel. As a result Dave believes people took him more seriously and a new novel was commissioned. While trying to write a novel for his publisher, Dave became obsessed with Googlewhacks when someone notified him that his site had one (Francophile Namesakes), and caused him to travel across the world finding people who had authored them.
#9
Title: Childhood’s End
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Publisher: Ballantine
Year: 1953
Notes: Classic Science-Fiction.
Synopsis: The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city – intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind. Benevolent, they made few demands: unify earth, eliminate poverty, and end war. With little rebellion, humankind agreed, and a golden age began. But at what cost? With the advent of peace, man ceases to strive for creative greatness, and a malaise settles over the human race. To those who resist, it becomes evident that the Overlords have an agenda of their own. As civilization approaches the crossroads, will the Overlords spell the end for humankind…or the beginning?
#8
Title: M*A*S*H: A Novel about Three Army Doctors
Author: Richard Hooker
Publisher: Pocket Books / HarperCollins
Year: 1968
Notes: A must read for any fan of the movie or tv show. Filled with memorable characters, quotes, and stories.
Synopsis: Before the movie, this is the novel that gave life to Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John, Hot Lips Houlihan, Frank Burns, Radar O’Reilly, and the rest of the gang that made the 4077th MASH like no other place in Korea or on earth. The doctors who worked in the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) during the Korean War were well trained but, like most soldiers sent to fight a war, too young for the job. In the words of the author, “a few flipped their lids, but most of them just raised hell, in a variety of ways and degrees.”
#7
Title: Watchmen
Author: Alan Moore
Illustrator: Dave Gibbons
Publisher: DC Comics
Year: 1986-1987
Notes: Classic graphic novel. A gripping story filled with unique characters.
Synopsis: It all begins with the paranoid delusions of a half-insane hero called Rorschach. But is Rorschach really insane or has he in fact uncovered a plot to murder super-heroes and, even worse, millions of innocent civilians? On the run from the law, Rorschach reunites with his former teammates in a desperate attempt to save the world and their lives, but what they uncover will shock them to their very core and change the face of the planet! Following two generations of masked superheroes from the close of World War II to the icy shadow of the Cold War comes this groundbreaking comic story — the story of The Watchmen.
#6
Title: Motherless Brooklyn
Author: Jonathan Lethem
Publisher: Doubleday
Year: 1999
Notes: How can you beat a pseudo-detective with Tourette’s syndrome?? Cinematically having a character with Tourette’s syndrome would prolly come off forced, over-the-top, in bad taste…but it works on the page. You can’t help but empathize with Lionel Essrog as he brings you into his worlds of Tourette’s syndrome and Brooklyn. Quick, easy read that definitely kept my attention throughout.
Synopsis: Lethem fulfills the promise of his earlier, critically acclaimed novels with the gritty and uproarious tale of a Brooklyn P.I. with problems: a dead boss, women trouble, and an uncontrollable case of Tourette’s syndrome.
#5
Title: The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
Author: A. J. Jacobs
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year: 2007
Notes: I read three A. J. Jacobs books (Know-It All & Guinea Pig Diaries) this year and Year of Living Biblically was my favorite. It was fun to learn where a lot of religious traditions/rules come from and how taking the Bible literally is not the best idea. An interesting look at faith, religion, and religious people.
Synopsis: Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also, to obey the hundreds of less-publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers. To grow his beard. To stone adulterers. The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal. Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally, including the Amish and the Hasidim. He discovers ancient Biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the 21st-century brain. Jacobs’s extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. Sure to charm listeners both secular and religious, The Year of Living Biblically is part Cliffs-Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to stop listening.
#4
Title: The Devil in the White City
Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Crown
Year: 2003
Notes: Immensely interesting. A work of non-fiction that feels like fiction. The Architect, The Killer, The Fair, and The City are all compelling characters that Larson is able to weave together into a magical story.
Synopsis: Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.
#3
Title: King Dork
Author: Frank Portman
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Year: 2006
Notes: A great read…very funny. They running joke of new band names is hysterical. This is Frank Portman’s (from the band The Mr. T Experience) first book and supposedly the film is coming out in 2011 with The King of Kong guy directing.
Synopsis: Tom Henderson (a.k.a. King Dork, Chi-mo, Hender-fag, and Sheepie) is a typical American high school loser until he discovers the book, The Catcher in the Rye, that will change the world as he knows it. When Tom discovers his deceased father’s copy of the Salinger classic, he finds himself in the middle of several interlocking conspiracies and at least half a dozen mysteries involving dead people, naked people, fake people, ESP, blood, a secret code, guitars, monks, witchcraft, the Bible, girls, the Crusades, a devil head, and rock and roll. And it all looks like it’s just the tip of a very odd iceberg of clues that may very well unravel the puzzle of his father’s death and–oddly–reveal the secret to attracting semihot girls. Being in a band could possibly be the secret to the girl thing–but good luck finding a drummer who can count to four.
#2
Title: Deal Breaker / Drop Shot / Fade Away / Back Spin :: Myron Bolitar Mysteries
Author: Harlan Coben
Publisher: Dell / San Val
Year: 1995-1997
Notes: The Myron Bolitar series are quick, fun reads. Once I start one I can’t put it down. Highly recommended if you’re a fan of sports and mysteries.
Synopsis: Myron Bolitar was once a college basketball star drafted by the Celtics, but after blowing out his knee Myron’s life took a different path. Went to Harvard Law School, spent a brief time with the FBI, became a lawyer, and is now a sports agent. Trouble seems to always follow Myron and his clients around, so with the help of best friends and business associates Win & Esperanza he is on the case.
#1
Title: Escape From Bellevue (A Dive Bar Odyssey)
Author: Christopher John Campion
Publisher: Gotham
Year: 2009
Notes: Easily my favorite book of the year. Campion is a master storyteller…so funny and honest. This is a MUST read for anyone who has ever met Chris or seen the Knockout Drops or lived in NYC during the 90s or is into booze, drugs, music, and sports (so ALL of you).
Synopsis: Indie rock raconteur Chris Campion—one of the few patients ever to escape from Bellevue’s locked ward—recalls his band’s tumultuous ride, his plummet into addiction, and the strange road back to sobriety. Chronicling more than twenty years in the life of a Long Island kid who became a hardcore fixture of Manhattan’s indie rock scene, Escape from Bellevue is a coming-of-age tale like no other. As the lead singer of New York—based indie rock band Knockout Drops, Campion got a taste of fame (but, alas, no fortune) on a wild ride that lasted from the early 1980s through the 1990s. Charting Campion’s extensive experience in the music industry alongside his personal tales of struggle and survival, Escape from Bellevue puts the spotlight on the collective psychosis of twenty years spent in a rolling bacchanal. Just as the Knockout Drops reached the height of their success, having toured with headliners such as Soul Asylum and Violent Femmes, Campion began his downward spiral. Campion was eventually able to come to grips with his addictions, molding his songs and stories into a sold-out off-Broadway musical, Escape from Bellevue. Now presenting these tales in a memoir of madness and redemption, Campion once again proves to possess the creative genius of a die-hard front man.
Honorable Mention:
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card (1985)
I Love You, Beth Cooper – Larry Doyle (2007)
The Fortress of Solitude – Jonathan Lethem (2003)
Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World – Sarah Vowell (2000)
The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment – A. J. Jacobs (2009)
The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World – A. J. Jacobs (2004)
Fixer Chao – Han Ong (2002)
Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes – Terry Southern (1967)
The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook – Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht (1999)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People – Toby Young (2003)
Card Sharks: How Upper Deck Turned a Child’s Hobby into a High-Stakes, Billion-Dollar Business – Pete Williams (1995)
You Gotta Have Wa – Robert Whiting (1990)