Best Shit List 2021
I read a bunch of books again. I set a goal to beat 2020’s Covid Reading Explosion, and I did, by one. I wrapped up A Life’s Work by Rachel Cusk on New Year’s Eve.
The accomplishment made me feel really dumb! Gonna read fewer books in 2022, for real.
The rules for the Best Shit List say books don’t have to be released that year to qualify, but songs and albums do. Unfortunately, 2021 was the year I listened to the least amount of new music ever. The few songs and records I did get into, I got into deeply, with lots of repeating. I also spent a ton of time with new music made by folks I work for. That’s the story every year, but moreso in 2021. Perhaps it’s because I miss them. Even the couple shows I saw clients play didn’t result in much hanging. Protocols, dude. The bubble.
My favorites below! Books first, and then music.
NOVELS
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
My favorite “new release”. One of the smartest people I know told me they thought it was an important book, and now when I recommend it, I feel empowered to say the same simple thing. It’s not a word you’d put to most novels, right?
LaserWriter II by Tamara Shopsin
A great little book. Buncha excellent weirdos in there. Tamara avoids easy nostalgia; it feels like straight documentary sometimes. The publisher’s page says ‘At its heart, a parable about an apple’. Damn. I suspect this one’s sneaky, and rewards a second reading.
A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet
Hot damn! Another climate novel, I guess, but it’s so much more than that to me. Heavy duty.
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan
Now forever one of my favorite books of all time. I bought 10 copies and gave them to friends, and I’ll be doing that again. It’s my new Blue Bourbon Orchestra.
Car by Harry Crews
I didn’t know about him before this year. I bought the Classic Crews reader on recommendation from a friend, and started with his novel Car. This feels like discovering a band with you somehow missed with a deep catalog you get to go after. I see some out-of-print Crews books are getting re-issued in ’22.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Did the audiobooks, 1.4x - 2.0x speed. Don’t judge. Both books are awesome, obviously.
CRITICISM
From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe
I wish the book could update itself with a new chapter on residential architecture in Nashville, 2012-present: the Tall White Triangles (Tall-Tri™) movement.
POETRY
Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez
These poems are joyful and frustrated, funny haha and funny sad, courageous but anxious, hyper self-aware but cool and comfortable with contradiction, correction, and error. José’s writing is super readable and very easy to trust, and it’s packed with the weight of the times, like these exact minutes right now. Family, race, friendship, immigration, nations, etc.
Mortal Kombat by Caleb Curtiss
Unpublished. It’s very good! A smart editor should scoop this up.
BIOGRAPHY
Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock by Gregory Alan Thornbury
I sidestepped all Larry Norman albums and discussions until this year. In my days discovering the mostly-mediocre world of underground Christian punk and alternative rock, I saw Larry as an old, hippie-adjacent lame-o. Later, I was cyclical and couldn’t accept that something rad and truly weird had actually happened in that world before my special time in there. More recently, I’ve been concerned he would fuck up the pet thesis of the novel I’m working on. It didn’t, and I’m glad I gave that shit up and listened to this audiobook. I paused to check out the songs and records as the story went along. Incredible. Give me the HBO mini-series now, plz.
FULL DUMB LIST OF ALL THE BOOKS I READ BELOW, AFTER THE MUSIC STUFF
ALBUMS & EPs
Genevieve Stokes Swimming Lessons
Most of the songs from Genevieve’s EP were favorite singles of mine in 2020. They’re collected here as a whole. Auspicious!
Modest MouseThe Golden Casket
The record is… inspired!? I went back to it again and again, which was a happy surprise. I was left cold by their 2015 record in full! There are so many good songs here, but if you’ve checked out over the years, try this five-song sampler and don’t be cynical: “Fuck Your Acid Trip,” “Transmitting Receiving”, “The Sun Hasn’t Left”, “Leave A Light On”, and “Back to the Middle” (which could have been on The Moon & Antarctica or Good News…).
Growing Pains
The band is, I believe, “undiscovered”. I wish I could be 19-years-old finding Heaven Spots. I’ll have to accept being the dad lurking in the back of the club when I get a chance to see them live.
SINGLE TUNES
Paul Dally “Kimmy Rolla”
Geese “Disco”
Wet Leg “Chaise Longue”
Yard Act “Fixer Upper”
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Cassandra Jenkins: Of course I loved “Hard Drive”, but the bit in “New Bikini” where she goes “Baby, go get in the ocean” is still camping in my head after nearly a year.
Izzy Heltai: Spotify tells me the five songs on Day Plan were my Top Five Most Played songs this year. Here’s the lyric video for the title track, an eternal song for me.
Dijon: The Absolutely videos! Try this one, this one, this one, and especially this one.
Big Red Machine: Robin Pecknold said his lyrics on “Phoenix” were written recalling a conversation with Justin Vernon backstage in Arizona in 2011. I remember the show; the bands’ routings overlapped on a single date in the desert, and they agreed to join forces and co-headline. I found an article in the Phoenix New Times in anticipation of the pairing:
An announcement that either act is playing Comerica Theatre is cause for applause. But both of them? On the same bill? That's cause for a full-on bearded-hipster joygasm.
The last part of that sentence sucks SO BAD, but it was a sick gig. Trey Many, agent for Fleet Foxes, and myself, agent for Bon Iver, will take .02% credit for this massive tune.
Rostam: “From the Back of a Cab” with killer cameos.
Hiss Golden Messenger: “If It Comes in the Morning” runs with “Cracked Windshield”, one of my favorite Hiss lanes.
Kevin Morby: A beautiful cover of Bill Fay’s “I Hear You Calling”.
Bon Iver: “Naeem” at YouTube Theater in LA. My favorite live music moment of 2021.
FULL 2021 READING LIST
HAPPY TO DISCUSS WITH OTHER READERS. I RECALL ROUGHLY 20% OF WHAT’S INSIDE THESE.
FICTION
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster (re-read)
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Convenience Store Girl by Sayaka Murata
A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet
Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri
Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
Godshot by Chelsea Bieker
Parakeet by Marie-Helen Bertino
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan
Hill William by Scott McClanahan
Las Vegas Bootlegger by Noah Cicero
In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Breast and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle (re-read)
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Long Live the Post Horn! by Vigdis Hjorth
Animal by Lisa Taddeo
Car by Harry Crews
The Blue Bourbon Orchestra by Carson Mell (re-read)
Death in her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
Edinburgh by Alexander Chee
If or When I Call by Will Johnson
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Welfare by Steve Anwyll
Second Place by Rachel Cusk
LaserWriter II by Tamara Shopsin
Lean on Pete by Willy Vlautin
The Pessimists by Bethany Ball
Early Work by Andrew Martin
Verge (stories) by Lidia Yuknavitch
POETRY
Today Means Amen by Sierra DuMulder
Mortal Kombat by Caleb Curtiss (unpublished)
Dunce by Mary Ruefle
Walking to Martha’s Vineyard by Franz Wright
Satan Says by Sharon Olds
Actual Air by David Berman (re-read)
Magical Negro by Morgan Parker
The Bones Below by Sierra DeMulder
Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez
MEMOIR / ESSAYS
Hollywood Park by Mikal Jollett
How To Write An Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee (re-read)
Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn
The Crying Book by Heather Christle
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother by Rachel Cusk
BIOGRAPHY
Dark Star: An Oral Biography of Jerry Garcia by Robert Greenfield
Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock by Gregory Allen Thornbury
CRAFT / WRITING / ETC.
Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses
On Writing by Charles Bukowski
Stay Inspired by Brandon Stosuy
The Poet, the Lion, Talking Pictures, El Farolito, a Wedding in St. Roch, the Big Box Store, the Warp in the Mirror, Spring, Midnights, Fire & All by C. D. Wright
CRITICISM
From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe
HISTORY
God’s Forever Family by Larry Eskridge