A Year in Reading: Erin Somers

Sprint with me. I started the year by reviewing Elizabeth McKenzie’s sophomore novel Dog of the North for the New York Times. For context, I also read Dog of the South by Charles Portis, a contender for funniest novel ever written. In March, I covered Philip Roth Fest for Esquire, so for several weeks I prepped for that. I reread some or all of Portnoy’s Complaint, Goodbye Columbus, The Ghostwriter, The Anatomy Lesson, The Plot Against America, and more.

In spring, I reviewed Lorrie Moore‘s new book I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home for The Nation, so I reread her backlist, her short stories and the novels Anagrams, A Gate at The Stairs, and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital.

In May, Martin Amis died, and The New Republic asked me to write a remembrance. Huge honor, couldn’t say no. I hadn’t read his major books in 10 years though, so I needed to refresh on a three-day turnaround, and it was the weekend and I have two young kids. Also, when the request came in, I’d already had a glass of wine, which makes me too blurry to read productively. Chaos. I ended up listening to London Fields on two-times speed the next day, while driving into the city to my friend’s kid’s first birthday party (HBD Bodee!). It was outside at a restaurant in the West Village, where I tried to keep my kids from running into the street and lightly freaked out about my tendency to get in over my head. Over the next couple days, I also reread Money and the first seventy-five pages of The Information, Lionel Asbo: State of England, and Zone of Interest. A cram session like I have not experienced since college. I filed the piece on Tuesday.

I read a couple of small press books for the purpose of blurbing them: Lexi Frieman’s The Book of Ayn and Zachary C. Solomon‘s A Brutal Design. The books I read for pleasure were: Penelope Fitzgerald’s Innocence, Percival Everett’s The Trees, Sam Lipsyte’s No One Left to Come Looking for You, Bret Easton Ellis’s The Shards, Banana Yoshimoto’s Dead-End Memories, Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting, Lydia Davis’s Our Strangers, Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk, Esther Yi’s Y/N, Annie Ernaux’s Happening, Nancy Lemann’s The Lives of Saints, Anita Brookner’s Fraud, Brandon Taylor’s The Late Americans, Emma Cline’s The Guest, Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood, Leonard Michaels’s Sylvia, Catherine Lacey’s The Biography of X, Fernanda Melchor’s Paradais, Emmanual Carrère’s Yoga, Benjamin Labatut’s The Maniac, Vinson Cunningham’s (forthcoming) Great Expectations, and Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos. I don’t keep a list, so I might be missing something.

I read a book of commercial fiction called Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus for a profile I wrote about her agent. I typically stay on top of popular contemporary fiction by listening to it on the treadmill or up at 5:30 a.m. playing Magna-Tiles with my children. If I’m listening to a book, it’s either got to be pretty light or contain clues to keep me engaged. The best one I listened to this year was Rebecca Makkai‘s thriller I Have Some Questions for You.

Every year, I try to fill holes in my education. I read Giovanni’s Room, which I had somehow never read before. I read Christian Lorentzen‘s piece about Don DeLillo in revived Bookforum and realized I hadn’t read The Names, so I took it with me to Frankfurt Book Fair, which I was covering for work. Perfect book to read abroad. The disorientation. The “unrelenting politeness” of dinner parties in Europe. I also bought a major celebrity book club pick at the airport and found it dull and corny. I’m not going to tell you which.

What else? I read Another Manhattan by Donald Antrim when I lost faith in writing. I read The Beauties by Anton Chekhov when I lost faith in humanity. I read a book of short stories I found on the ground called simply The Short Story and this was how I encountered Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” for the first time. I read countless pieces online that moved me including “Man Called Fran” by John Jeremiah Sullivan in Harper’s, which is as funny and alive as writing gets. I read the New York Review of Books while cooking pasta for my kids. I read the New York Times on Saturdays while eating a sandwich. Every week the New Yorker arrived and my husband, who usually gets the mail, leafed through it and left it on the counter open to the article he thought I would find most interesting. Often, he was right!

I read Clifford the Big Red Dog aloud 300 times. I read The Napping House 200 times. I read some dumb book about rabbits that I don’t even know what it’s called or how it got into the house probably 3,000 times. I read D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths to my kids at bedtime and encouraged them make fun of the pictures. The cigar/potato monster. The guy covered in eyeballs. Important lesson: it’s okay to make fun of books. They’re not a religion, after all. Only a pastime.