The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing by Nicholas Rombes

But Bennett also tackles colonialism, religious fanaticism, economics, the environment, and gender issues. Set in a fantasy world with dead gods, City of Stairs can be read as a spy novel infused with political intrigue. I have divided this list into the following rigid genre categories: fiction.Ĭity of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway Books)Īuthor of the highly recommended American Elsewhere, Bennett returns with a fantasy novel that will appeal to a wide range of general readers. Here, then, are my carefully curated favorite reads of the year. Throughout the year, whether they have books on this particular list or not, the publishers who made me happiest were, in no particular order, Two Dollar Radio, Coffee House, Melville, Milkweed, Dorothy Project, New York Review of Books Classics, Sarabande, Dedalus, Drawn & Quarterly, Subterranean Press, Europa Editions (and Picador generally), Tin House, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and New Directions. I also have stopped myself from adding the astonishing Thrown by Kerry Howley, “creative nonfiction” about MMA fighters that should appeal to any fiction reader due to its unique approach. I have not included “ancient” books that I read and loved this year - like Margaret Atwood’s Oryx & Crake and Robert Walser’s The Tanners. (This will frustrate some of you I apologize in advance.) Still, even I have some limits. I am not the kind of reader to begrudge a book its inclusion based on some arbitrary human calendar. The borders of my reading in 2014 were porous and for this reason you will find a few titles from before 2014, like Submergence and Pym. I resented gigs because if I was reading my own work I wasn’t reading The Kills.

It was the tome I could not put down, and it captured me so utterly that I begged off meal invites and bar get-togethers to finish it. I lugged Richard House’s thousand-page hardcover The Kills around with me all over - undaunted by the fact that it was not built for shoving into an airplane seat-back pocket. So, in that context, it’s surprising what stuck and what didn’t.

I grabbed what I could when I could and discarded anything that didn’t keep my attention in an airport, on a plane, in a cab, in a hotel room, in a cave, on horseback, talking to owls, at the end of a bar, dancing with lemurs, through a looking glass, back home for a couple of days. I was on the road exactly five months, two weeks, and three days. There was nothing scientific or complete or logical about it, and I was glad I didn’t have to care about any of that. My year in reading was a chaotic and joyous one. Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.

The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing by Nicholas Rombes