2013 Year In Review: Fiction

Top Ten:

1. THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL by G.K. Chesterton
2. ISLAND OF THE WORLD by Michael O’Brien
3. THE CROSSING & CITIES OF THE PLAIN by Cormac McCarthy
4. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Fyodor Dostoevsky
5. JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte
6. ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy
7. THE CHILDREN OF MEN by P.D. James (review)
8. WOOL by Hugh Howey (review)
9. CORALINE by Neil Gaiman (review)
10. THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE by G.K. Chesterton

Honorable Mentions:

11. OLD MAN’S WAR by John Scalzi (review)
12. BEOWULF: A NEW VERSE RENDERING by Douglas Wilson (review)
13. OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck
14. CELL by Stephen King
15. DEADRISE by Robert Whitehill (review)

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Casting Out Pearls: Men and Reading Fiction

I wrote a piece for CBMW on why men should be readers of fiction. It was published this morning. Here’s an excerpt:

An explanation (or excuse) for this piece can be found in a certain truth, which seems to me very obvious, but which I have seen under attack: that men should be readers. And by readers, I do not merely mean readers of car manuals, the Internet, or those instructions on the backs of microwaveable meals. I mean readers of books, and especially, in this case, readers of stories.

This truth, I say, is under attack. It isn’t that men are lining up with protest signs or writing polemics or having bonfires. It is much more subtle than that. Ray Bradbury’s observation is apropos: “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” To bring the discussion into narrower focus: there are worse crimes than abhorring good stories; one of them is not reading them. Continue —->