2010
in chronological order:
Falconer by John Cheever
Swallow Me Whole by Nate Powell
Frisk by Dennis Cooper
Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
Breath by Tim Winton
Meditations on Violence by Sgt. Rory Miller
Self-Help by Lorrie Moore (reread)
Should You Leave? by Peter D. Kramer
Home Is Where We Start From by D.W. Winnicott
Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas
Lowboy by John Wray
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
Dangerous Laughter by Steven Millhauser
When the World Was Steady by Claire Messud
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Kept Man by Jami Attenberg
This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey by Steve Almond
Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria by Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters
The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr.
Lit by Mary Karr
The Melting Season by Jami Attenberg
Asylum by Patrick McGrath
The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter
The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky
The Position by Meg Wolitzer
Reality Hunger by David Shields
Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet
Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom
Blame by Michelle Huneven
Born to Be Good by Dacher Keltner
Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez
Thoughts Without a Thinker by Mark Epstein
War by Candlelight by Daniel Alarcon
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
In the Freud Archives by Janet Malcolm
The Painted Bed by Donald Hall
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller
Servants of the Map by Andrea Barrett
Winnicott: Life and Work by F. Robert Rodman
Eight White Nights by Andre Aciman
And Now You Can Go by Vendela Vida
Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm
On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored by Adam Phillips
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Beast in the Nursery by Adam Phillips
Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice by Janet Malcolm
Given Sugar, Given Salt by Jane Hirshfield
The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
The Uses of Enchantment by Heidi Julavits
The Path of Minor Planets by Andrew Sean Greer
Desire by Susan Cheever
Trauma by Patrick McGrath
Secret Life by Michael Ryan
Tinkers by Paul Harding
Dr. Haggard’s Disease by Patrick McGrath
Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury by Sigrid Nunez
Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien
mopie‘s YA novel!
Logicomix by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou (art by Alecos Papadatos and Annie DiDonna)
Methland by Nick Reding
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
The Secret Miracle edited by Daniel Alarcon
Going Sane by Adam Phillips
Goldengrove by Francine Prose
Light Years by James Salter
Love’s Executioner by Irvin D. Yalom
Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky
Staring at the Sun by Irvin D. Yalom
Dog Years by Mark Doty
Babe in Paradise by Marisa Silver
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Washington Square by Henry James
Darkness Visible by William Styron
So Much for That by Lionel Shriver
The Ticking Is the Bomb by Nick Flynn
Moments of Engagement by Peter D. Kramer
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Possessed by Elif Batuman
Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales
Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg
How the Dead Dream by Lydia Millet
Lying on the Couch by Irvin D. Yalom
Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer (reread)
The Gift of Therapy by Irvin D. Yalom
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
Every Day Gets a Little Closer by Irvin D. Yalom
The Everlasting Story of Nory by Nicholson Baker
Tales from the Couch: Writers on Therapy edited by Jason Shinder
Animal Crackers by Hannah Tinti
Against Therapy by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Half a Life by Darin Strauss
Momma and the Meaning of Life by Irvin D. Yalom
Final Analysis by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
The Lecturer’s Tale by James Hynes
A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter
The Gathering by Anne Enright
All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang
A Single Hurt Color by Andrew Demcak
Mentor by Tom Grimes
Unstuck by Jane Anne Staw
Catching Tigers in Red Weather by Andrew Demcak
Matrimony by Joshua Henkin
On Not Being Able to Paint by Marion Milner
The Half-Life of Happiness by John Casey
Amazons in the Drawing Room by Whitney Chadwick
Love Junkie by Rachel Resnick
The Pilgrim Hawk by Glenway Wescott
Romaine Brooks by Adelyn D. Breeskin
Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison
The Addict by Michael Stein
Popular Music from Vittula by Mikael Niemi
Wild Girls by Diana Souhami
2009
in mostly chronological order:
Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock
What It Is by Lynda Barry
Because They Wanted To by Mary Gaitskill
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
The Alcoholic by Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel
So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn
Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames
The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa
Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart by Mark Epstein
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up by Stephen Elliott
Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom
Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick
Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Beautiful Children by Charles Bock
Brief Encounters with Che Guevara by Ben Fountain
The Wife by Meg Wolitzer
The Night of the Gun by David Carr
Samaritan by Richard Price
Transmission by Hari Kunzru
The Handmaid of Desire by John L’Heureux
The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet
The Turning by Tim Winton
The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez
Lush Life by Richard Price
Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman
Bad Novel II by me
The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman
The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig
The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs
How to Be Alone by Jonathan Franzen
New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver
Sex for America: Politically Inspired Erotica
It Happened in Boston? by Russell H. Greenan
Playing and Reality by D.W. Winnicott
The Song is You by Arthur Phillips
Clockers by Richard Price
The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder by Stephen Elliott
Borderlines by Caroline Kraus
Picnic, Lightning by Billy Collins
Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lancaster
In the Absence of Horses by Vicki Hearne
The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer
Live Through This by Debra Gwartney
Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp
True Porn: An Anthology
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Pack of Two by Caroline Knapp
The Dogs Who Came to Stay by George Pitcher
The Kindness of Women by J.G. Ballard
The Great Perhaps by Joe Meno
I Pass Like the Night by Jonathan Ames
The Boat by Nam Le
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
I Love You More Than You Know by Jonathan Ames
Away by Amy Bloom
The Beach by Alex Garland
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
Collected Poems by C.P. Cavafy, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
A Life’s Work by Rachel Cusk
Remainder by Tom McCarthy
Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles
The October Palace by Jane Hirshfield
Ignore Everybody (and 39 Other Keys to Creativity) by Hugh MacLeod
Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster
The Nudist on the Late Shift by Po Bronson
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Lance Armstrong’s War by Daniel Coyle
The Writing Class by Jincy Willett
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
This Year I Will . . . by M.J. Ryan
Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno
The Ramen King and I by Andy Raskin
Juggling for the Complete Klutz by John Cassidy and B.C. Rimbeaux
The Dart League King by Keith Lee Morris
The Niagara River by Kay Ryan
Some Things That Meant the World to Me by Joshua Mohr
Use Me by Elissa Schappell
Don’t Cry by Mary Gaitskill
Schlock: A Food-Service Melodrama by me
Elephant Rocks by Kay Ryan
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke
Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link
Edinburgh by Alexander Chee
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Generosity: An Enhancement by Richard Powers
The English Major by Jim Harrison
The Treatment by Daniel Menaker
Underworld by Don DeLillo
Lark & Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
A Mercy by Toni Morrison
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
You Don’t Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem
A Sorrow Beyond Dreams by Peter Handke
Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer
Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet
A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews
Stoner by John Williams
2008
Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland
The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud
Mortification (Anthology)
Arlington Road by Rachel Cusk
The Father by Sharon Olds
The Sea by John Banville
Affliction by Russell Banks
This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Independence Day by Richard Ford
Spartina by John Casey
Fat Kid Saves the World by K.L. Going
Moon Palace by Paul Auster
Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferriss
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer
The Pesthouse by Jim Crace
The Kiterunner by Khaled Hosseini
Thumbsucker by Thomas Kirn
Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala
The Headmaster’s Dilemma by Louis Auchincloss
Changing Places by David Lodge
A Changed Man by Francine Prose
Opening Skinner’s Box by Lauren Slater
Welcome to My Country by Lauren Slater
Lying by Lauren Slater
Too Scared to Cry by Lenore Terr
The Right to Write by Julia Cameron
Alice in Bed by Cathleen Schine
Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katharine Anne Porter
The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness by Erich Fromm
The Story of O by Pauline Reage
Rent Girl by Michelle Tea
Schopenhauer’s Porcupines by Deborah Anna Luepnitz
On Our Backs: The Best Erotic Fiction (Anthology)
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
Attachment and Loss, Volume 1 by John Bowlby
East of the Mountains by David Guterson
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Small World by David Lodge
The Safety of Objects by A.M. Homes
All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen
The Body Artist by Don DeLillo
Wonder When You’ll Miss Me by Amanda Davis
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
Wish I Could Be There by Allen Shawn
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
The Gift of Stones by Jim Crace
Life & Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee
Foe by J.M. Coetzee
Grief by Andrew Holleran
Winner of the National Book Award by Jincy Willett
Circling the Drain by Amanda Davis
Marley & Me by John Grogan
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
The New Yorkers by Cathleen Schine
The Indelible Alison Bechdel
Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman
variety of Dykes to Watch Out For books by Alison Bechdel
Home Land by Sam Lipsyte
Last Night by James Salter
On Writing by Stephen King
Lost Girls & Love Hotels by Catherine Hanrahan
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
Helping Me Help Myself by Beth Lisick
Valencia by Michelle Tea
Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
Everybody into the Pool by Beth Lisick
The Verificationist by Donald Antrim
Accidents in the Home by Tessa Hadley
2007
Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers (Anthology)
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon
In the Fold by Rachel Cusk
Night by Elie Wiesel
The Life Before Her Eyes by Laura Kasiscke
Les Liasons Dangereuses by Pierre de Choderlos de Laclos
What Was She Thinking? (Notes on a Scandal) by Zoe Heller
What is the What by Dave Eggers
The Magic Kingdom by Stanley Elkin
Exploring Pt. Reyes (guidebook)
Graceland by Chris Abani
Angel by Denis Johnson
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch
Riven Rock by T.C. Boyle
Perv by Jerry Stahl
Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See
Country Life by Rachel Cusk
Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Two Girls Fat and Thin by Mary Gaitskill
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
Two Lives by William Trevor
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
Fiskadoro by Denis Johnson
Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner
Don’t Shoot the Dog! by Karen Pryor
Mission to America by Walter Kirn
Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks
The Year of Reading Proust by Phyllis Rose
The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
Free Gift with Purchase by Jean Godfrey-June
Cavedweller by Dorothy Allison
Peaceable Kingdom by Francine Prose
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
Lucky in the Corner by Carol Anshaw
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
Why Moms Are Weird by Pamela Ribon
The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis
The Accidental by Ali Smith
Cool for You by Eileen Myles
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Therapy by David Lodge
About a Boy by Nick Hornby
Shopgirl by Steve Martin
Shy Girl by Elizabeth Stark
Exit A by Anthony Swofford
2006
Seven Moves by Carol Anshaw
Among the Missing by Dan Chaon
Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen
Love by Toni Morrison
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
Four Books by Louise Gluck
House Rules by Heather Lewis
The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
Unless by Carol Shields
Old School by Tobias Wolff
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
My Dog Tulip by J.R. Ackerly
The Hidden Life of Dogs by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Bandit, Dossier of a Dangerous Dog by Vicki Hearne
One L by Scott Turow
A Dog’s Life by Peter Mayle
The New Work of Dogs by Jon Katz
Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler
My Left Foot by Christy Brown
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
The Middle Ground by Margaret Drabble
Oh the Glory of It All by Sean Wilsey
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Tomcat in Love by Tim O’Brien
Continental Drift by Russell Banks
The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
Victory over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist
Gilead by Marilyn Robinson
U and I by Nicholson Baker
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Whores for Gloria by William T. Vollman
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Inheritance by Lan Samantha Chang
Sight Hound by Pam Houston
Happy Baby by Stephen Elliott
A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo
Quarantine by Jim Crace
The Lucky Ones by Rachel Cusk
Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
