The year 2006 was a stunner for this reviewer. After plowing through exactly 71 books in 11 months, only some of which were for review at this site, I’ve come to believe that: a) my own coming-of-age novel has not only grown up, but left the house and had kids, and maybe it’s better to stop thinking about writing the Great American Novel and end up just hoping to find it; b) my God, there’s a lot of fucking crap published nowadays; and c) trusting book reviewers is a risky business.

I subscribe to every book review publication there is, and the print magazines have just become a joke. If you want political polemic, you can go to The New York Review of Books, but you won’t get fair reviews there. The London Review of Books is strong, but also decidedly anti-American, so be warned. The Times Literary Supplement is the best of the bunch, but it’s also a whopping $169 a year. At least Bookforum is reasonably priced, but it gets a little smarmy with the fiction. Still, that’s probably the best print magazine to get if you’re interested in books. But what about mysteries, science fiction, fantasy, horror and genre fiction? Well, for that, I hope you come to BOOKGASM.

I’ve been very impressed by the stable of reviewers Mr. Lott has assembled. Yeah, I know that sounds like buttkissing, but he’ll just edit it out anyway. What I love about this site and the people who write for it is that they care about these books, because after all, it’s this type of fiction that drives the market, that makes people read and buy books. You don’t have a bajillion people buying the latest pile of pretentious shit from Sarah Waters or J.M. Coetzee, even though they get all the credit and hype and rewards. The real sales come when you’re talking Dan Brown, Sue Grafton, Stephen King and so on.

Does that make them better? Not really, but it does make them worthy of notice, and it seems perverse that the major book review publications and websites treat them so shabbily. So hale on, BOOKGASM, and here’s to the year 2007!

Let’s see what we found in this past year.

Best Books I Reviewed in 2006:

Elaine Cunningham’s SHADOWS IN THE STARLIGHT was a wonderful contemporary murder mystery mixed with elvish fantasy elements all rolled up into strong characters that just beg for more adventures in the series. Sign me up.

The book that marked me as BOOKGASM’s resident hothouse flower was Naomi Novik’s HIS MAJESTY’S DRAGON. I cried twice, full-out, while reading this book. Both times were in a bar at Chili’s. Let me tell you, this does not impress the waitress. But Novik does impress with her taut action scenes, believable characters and emotional depth that can make you sob when a dragon goes down.

Craig Johnson’s THE COLD DISH is the quintessential Western novel with a cold-blooded murder thrown in. It perfectly captures the individualistic, self-contained attitude of the folks who live out West (at least I like to think so, as it’s my own stomping grounds) and at the same time, the book is funny, sad, deep, rich, and features characters lovingly painted, warts and all. I will pay full price for Johnson’s next book. You don’t hear that much from reviewers.

FARTHING by Jo Walton was a fabulous parahistorical look into a reality where the Nazis won World War II, and Britain managed to survive by appeasing Hitler and never getting involved. It doesn’t have the critical recognition of something like Philip Roth’s THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, but it also doesn’t have the pretentiousness or the other literary baggage to be found therein. This book is really subtle in its depiction of how average, good-old-bloke Englishmen and women fear and despise any element of the foreign in their nation. Memorable.

Michael Flynn is a long-established author, but his EIFELHEIM was my first read of him. And now I can’t wait for the second. He seamlessly blends contemporary archival research with a medieval German small town faced with an influx of foreigners. It’s early on we realize these newbies aren’t just from over the hill, but from another galaxy entirely. And still, it’s through the eyes of the charitable Christian Father Dietrich that we come to accept these newcomers and bless them in their daily lives, even as the plague threatens to descend upon the town. It’s a heady mix of deep and hard science fiction, along with a remarkable spiritual aesthetic and fantasy setting. Brilliant.

Best Books I Read – but Did Not Review – in 2006:

I read a lot of non-fiction and only get to review a few titles for BOOKGASM. Some of the outstanding titles I read this past year that did not get pixel time at this website include:

Michael MacCambridge’s AMERICA’S GAME: THE EPIC STORY OF HOW PRO FOOTBALL CAPTURED A NATION is probably the best single-volume history of professional football ever written. This is the magisterial reference book for the NFL. Who would have thought that you could read yet another NFL history and that it would be fresh and informative? Well, this is the one. Well-sourced and a must to own.

THE AMAZING MACKEREL PUDDING PLAN: CLASSIC DIET RECIPE CARDS FROM THE 1970S by Wendy McClure is one of those rare humor books that you keep around because every time you go back to it, there’s still a laugh. McClure found a stash of recipe cards in her mother’s house and decided to write humorous captions for the amazingly frightening dishes portrayed on the cards. This is almost as good as James Lileks’ GALLERY OF REGRETTABLE FOOD. Buy them both – you won’t be disappointed.

Philip Baruth’s THE X-PRESIDENT was published in 2003, but I just got around to it this year. It’s an odd look into the future that satirizes Bill Clinton as a very, very old man who is insanely protective about how his presidency will be perceived by historians. It’s really a great novel for political wonks and a lot of fun, no matter whether your political stripes are red, blue or purple.

Bill Bryson is one of the funniest writers on the planet. If you are older than 35, you will love THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE THUNDERBOLT KID. Mixing Dave Barry craziness with fondly felt nostalgia for American icons of the ’50s and ’60s provides a potent cocktail of laugh-out-loud moments and wondering whatever happened to things like the grocery tunnel.

Finally, Linda R. Monk’s THE WORDS WE LIVE BY: YOUR ANNOTATED GUIDE TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION should be required curriculum material for every high school in the nation. Period. Monk takes the actual text of the Constitution and parses it, paragraph by paragraph, sometimes phrase by phrase (!), showing how it was written, how it might have changed during the editing process, and how it has been interpreted over the years by various Supreme Court bodies and legislatures. Really worth the effort.

Best Publishing Development:
This has to be the cancellation of IF I DID IT, O.J. Simpson’s horrific concept of a book on how he “would have” killed the two people he did kill “if” he were going to kill them, but hadn’t been acquitted because of the dozen protozoans on the jury who seemed incapable of making any causal connection between … well, anything and anything else. It’s a sad thing that it got as far as it did. There are some people who rant about this being an example of censorship, but that’s not the case at all. Simpson is certainly able and welcome (in this great country of ours) to publish his thoughts at his own expense. The unwashed masses of readers are also able and welcome to create a furor at a remarkably egregious lapse of taste on the part of the publishers, the editor and the TV network that was going to air his interview. And did you see the cover design hinting that he did do it, but the crucial word “If” was in a different color? Shameless.

Worst Publishing Development:
No new books for Nicholson Baker, D.B. Weiss or Antoine Bello. Baker’s last few books have been weak, but anyone who has written THE SIZE OF THOUGHTS or THE MEZZANINE must be watched at all times for future brilliance. Weiss’ LUCKY WANDER BOY is one of my favorite novels of all time, and he is remarkably underrated. And pay no attention to the reviews of the insane Philistines on Amazon who whine about Bello’s masterpiece THE MISSING PIECE. This is a tremendous conceptual novel that treats jigsaw-puzzle-building as a multimillion-dollar spectator sport, viciously satirizing televised sport and presenting a wild and successful murder mystery all at the same time. Antoine, more books, please.

Books I Wish Had Been Written:
Hey, here are some things I would have liked to read during 2006, but either no one published them or I couldn’t find them.

How about an average Joe’s guide to your state’s (or the federal) budget? Sure, we can get the actual budget documents from our government, but you need a little guidance to figure out the fudging and the euphemisms. Wouldn’t it be great to know exactly how much money your state is spending and what they’re spending it on? I know, I know: silly me.

It’s time for some non-shallow, in-depth books about reality television. How about a recipe book for TOP CHEF? Pattern books for PROJECT RUNWAY? I still want to see a thorough, episode-by-episode breakdown of the gameplay options for each player in SURVIVOR. I’m talking serious game theory-style exposes of each player’s options, how it might work out and how it did work out. Okay, writers, to your computers! –Mark Rose

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