I’ll start, finally finished the Power of Now

Class struggle in Africa by Kwame Nkrumah

Salem's Lot by Stephen King

From the Streets of Shaolin (Wu Tang bio)

The Tao of Wu by RZA

White Noise
Antkind

Kafka on the shore

murakami's prose just clicked with me super hard on that book. read it late spring too

legion by brandon sanderson
confessions of a mask by mishima

Read hells angels and fear and loathing in las vegas by hunter s*** was good asf

Pretty fun book about… uh… making friends as an adult, we’ll say….

Need to read this. I’ve always loved the Vegas book but I’ve been stopping and restarting The Rum Diary for like half my life at this point.

Darryl Cook is a man who seems to have everything: a quiet home in Western Oregon, a beautiful wife, and a lot of friends to f*** her while he watches.

damn OP you beat me to it, was gonna make a "your year in books" thread about how many you read, your top 5, what you want to read more/less of, etc.

my favorites this year:

edit: the ones in bold are books that got recommended in this section so shout out to y'all for the recommendations

fiction

The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

non-fiction

Go Ahead In the Rain by Hanif Abdurraqib
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
Washington Bullets by Vijay Prashad

Gotta be half of a yellow sun

fathers and sons by turgenev

Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter
Where Im Calling From by Raymond Carver
Butchers Crossing by John Williams

Long post incoming (* for special favs)

Novels-

*Gayl Jones’ Corregidora (one of my favorite novels ever, it’s thematized by blues motifs to narrate black female sexuality and should be a hit for any Toni Morrison fan)

Hari Kunzru’s White Tears (fascinating mystery thriller novel about the haunting presence left behind by exploited blues guitarists, fetishized by vinyl hounds paying out the ass for undercompensated work)

Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day (my second experience with the author after Never Let Me Go- his style is, in a word, cozy)

Colson Whitehead’s John Henry Days (my fifth or so novel by Whitehead, and possibly my favorite. Recommended for fans of postmodernism in African American Lit)

*William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (one of the most difficult yet rewarding reads)

Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex (very entertaining family epic about immigration, gender identity, and coming of age)

*Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine (another one of my favorite novels ever- tho it plays out like a series of short stories)

Kiese Layman’s Long Division (surreal and comedic novel told in two halves with characters from separate dimensions having access to the other text both of which get read by the reader)

Poetry-

Audre Lorde’s The Black Unicorn & Joy Harjo’s How We Became Human (two classic poets w/ a friendly history)

Morgan Parker’s Magical Negro (very strong contemporary poetry and a major step up from her previous volume)

*Louise Glück’s Wild Iris (absolutely stunning- she is a master of the craft and I need more)

Fred Moten’s Feel Trio (very unique volume that makes serious use of the relationship between black ink and white space on the page)

Nonfiction-

Franz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth (accessible political theory text)

Manu Karuka’s Empire’s Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad (fascinating academic history; I’d be interested to read more in this vein. This is a book where information beats style though, perhaps unsurprisingly)

CLR James’ The Black Jacobins (I read this after seeing it mentioned yet again in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series- a slightly dense but very engaging bit of historic survey- I think the prose style outweighs the quality of info delivered though)

*Billy-Ray Belcourt’s A History of My Brief Body (poetic autobiographical essays dealing with indigeneity and queer theory)

Possibly my most disappointing read of the year… actually that goes to Octavia Butler’s Fledging (super bland prose style… aided by a flat plot to boot- but themes were interesting) but I’m not rushing to any more Adichie anytime soon. Unfortunately I read it too far in the past and didn’t take any notes to really expand on my feelings

Hanif Abdurraqib’s “A Little Devil in America”

U werent messin wit it even at the half way mark ?

I thought the play with time and ambitious cast of characters was unique- tho I didn’t actually care for many of the relationships tbh. Maybe that was the a big drawback for me. I want to say that both sisters were in relationships that I didn’t care much for, but that’s not necessarily the authors fault.

Maybe I just didn’t like her prose style. I usually find reasons to love long novels because of the investment but this one left me lukewarm. I COULD read one of her other texts, but this reading experience dropped them down the list. There are other African novels & novelists I’d like to read too. Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Zimbabwean novel Nervous Conditions was another one from the past year that I enjoyed- though less than this (I’d give Adichie’s text a 7/10 for reference, meaning it was disappointing but still good)

loved this one it stuck with me for a super long time

really fell in love with joan didion this year

Read all the Harry Potter books for the first time and “Goblet of Fire” was my favorite + David Lynch’s book “Room To Dream” was incredible to me. Maybe those 2

“The Secret History” by Donna Tartt and “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong have really stuck with me and been on my mind even if they weren’t my favorites

Probably Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It was so good I don't even care if QT is serious about retiring after his next movie and just writes novels.