Reading Ahead

Inspired by Cody’s lovely six-things list, a great post on The Millions, and those Valentine’s Day chocolate boxes where everybody bites half of everything looking for the caramels, I bring you sampler of six books forthcoming in 2010 that I’m eager to read:

Untitled (metaphors for love) by Stephanie Brooks {via me melodia}

The first three books are by authors whose short story collections I love, and whose debut novels I’ve been awaiting with mega-anticipation:

1) Eric Puchner’s Music Through the Floor is easily the collection I’ve recommended most often in the past five years. If you like great writing, insightful characterization, and variety from story to story, I’m certain you will enjoy this funny, beautiful book. I’ve just started Model Home (February), and here’s my favorite detail so far, from the point-of-view of a teenage son who has just kicked his father out of his own garage during the boy’s band practice:

“The way his dad stared at his Coke, smiling as though he had indigestion, gave Dustin a twinge of guilt. Still smiling, his father hunched up the stairs–the back pocket of his khakis pulled out like a rabbit’s ear–and disappeared inside the house.”

2) Adam Haslett’s, “The Beginnings of Grief,” got stuck in my throat–after reading the third story in You Are Not a Stranger Here, I had to stop for a while, sit with it, before I could finish the book. The collection was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer, and Union Atlantic (February), his debut novel, is getting commensurate attention. I find myself preemptively weary of fiction that takes up our most recent financial crisis, but in Haslett’s hands, I’m not afraid.

3) What unites these three collections is the utter absence of filler–too often I love a collection the same way you might an album with one or two songs so good that they excuse the rest of the album its forgetability. Julie Orringer’s How to Breathe Underwater is chock-full of songs you want to play on repeat, and better yet, they build into a whole still richer than its parts. My to-read pile tends to skew contemporary (both in terms of a book’s setting and its publication date) so I’m happy that Orringer’s The Invisible Bridge will bring a little historical fiction my way this May.

4) In the reverse category–debut novelists releasing first collections this year–I’m most excited for Aryn Kyle’s Boys and Girls Like You and Me (April). Kyle’s gorgeous coming-of-age novel, The God of Animals, knocked my socks off, and I’d be psyched for this collection even if the reviews didn’t include my particular brand of reader-catnip (“[The bad ideas] that bring grief to smart women”? Sign me up!).

5) I look forward to the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories every year, and am especially excited for the release of this year’s installment in April, as it includes stories by two literary luminaries, Natalie Bakopoulos and Preeta Samarasan (disclaimer: I am friends with both of these woman, but don’t let that undermine my recommendation; I try to only befriend extremely talented people so that I might later exploit their successes for my personal gain). On the subject of O. Henry stories I’ve loved, I’m still pining for a collection from Robyn Joy Leff, author of the brilliant “Burn Your Maps,” a story I wish I’d written (especially the dialogue). Robyn Joy Leff, if you have yourself on Google Alert, please know that your public awaits!

6) [Fill in the blank.] If you were hoping for variety from my sampler-box of a list, you might be sorely disappointed–where’s the poetry, the non-fiction, the YA, the sci-fi, the books-in-translation? Help me out in the comments and I’ll save you half a caramel for when next we meet.