List #35: A Few of the Best Books I Read in 2013

Best Way That Kate Atkinson Is Slowly Killing Us:
Life After Life
Kate Atkinson

If you can make it through the “Like a Fox in a Hole” section without needing a break, I suspect you might be emotionally numb beyond redemption.

See also: Cast Histories (Rec. #3), Emotionally Weird (Rec. #282), Human Croquet (Rec. #137), Not the End of the World: Stories (Rec. #301), One Good Turn (Rec. #69), Started Early, Took My Dog (Rec. #270), When Will There Be Good News? (Rec. #192)

Best Short Stories:
Pulse

Julian Barnes  

 

My favorite stories in this collection are the dialogue-only snapshots of dinner parties, but we've also got some more traditional contemporary short fiction and some historical tales.

Best Memoir in Essays:
I Know I Am, But What Are You?

Samantha Bee
(Rec. #285)

 

Samantha Bee is best known as a correspondent on The Daily Show, but here she reveals an eventful past — flashing, a girlhood crush on Jesus, and even a stint as a car thief. The book is in the same vein as Bossypants and Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, but (don’t yell at me) better.

Best Memoir in Paint:
Hyperbole and a Half 

Allie Brosh

 

I might have given this to you as a present. If I haven’t yet, I still might. It’s nearly 400 pages of some of the best bits of Brosh’s blog, plus new content. It’s wonderful and Brosh is a marvel.

See also: Rec. #7

Best Novel in Translation:
The Infatuations

Javier Marias
translated by Margaret Jull Costa

 

The narrator thinks herself over, under, around, and through the many-shaded moralities of murder, love, and death. Jull Costa does a bang-up job of translating both long, deep thoughts and snarky, funny asides.