I hit my Goodreads goal this year! 100 books. I am arguably in the top 1% of Generation Z in terms of childhood internet poisoning and attention span damage, so if you’re also wondering, as I wondered a year ago, whether it’s possible to wean yourself slowly off the internet and finally engage in the written word, this is your sign. I give thanks to a) the online book piracy market, b) the timer on my phone for keeping me on track. This has been a year of narrowed tastes, unforeseen disappointments and also unforeseen enjoyment.
Below are my ten favourite books of the year, presented in no particular order.
Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal
I came to this book after watching (and loving) the controversial 1970 film. The source text was no less fun, enlightening and beautiful.
Myra Breckinridge, a transsexual attempting to make her own way in the modern world while actually stranded forever in the psychosexual landscape of ‘40s Hollywood, is objectively one of the best characters ever created - a personification of the camp-nostalgia so popular, both in gay communities and the mainstream, at the time the book was written.
Post-Butler, critics condemn this novel out of jealous fear - because Myra, with her tricky Orlando-esque magical sex change, homosexual inner knowledge and Wildean wit, is imbued with an effervescent likeability unreachable by the self-insecure anime crowd. Every Lana Del Rey fan will be able to relate to Myra. I related to Myra so much that I now have a collection of Parker Tyler film criticism PDFs which I read on my phone after dark. The only people unable to relate to Myra are those who take the concept of an inner and inherently truthful soul so seriously that it mars their ability to enjoy art.
There is no greater evidence that modern trans activism marks a divorce with and betrayal of gay culture. Everyone should read this book.
Marlene Dietrich by her Daughter by Maria Riva
I actually did not realise that this was a Mommie Dearest-esque abuse memoir until about halfway through, because a lot of Riva’s accusations sounded completely innocent to me and actually made me like Marlene Dietrich more than I already did.
Basically as an abuse memoir this is a total failure. As a comprehensive record of Old Hollywood from the 1930s onwards, it is fantastic. The actress-director coupling of Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg, the on-set environment at Paramount, Dietrich’s famous friends and lovers - everything is dealt with in extreme detail through the eyes of a very perceptive child.
Some fun facts from this book: Dietrich invented the clutch bag so she could bring her own bread into restaurants. She wore Bjork’s exact swan costume at a fancy dress party about sixty years before Bjork did and gets no credit for it. She was obsessed with Alexander Fleming, the inventor of penicillin, but was disheartened when he sent her the first strain of penicillin under glass (she wanted a signed photograph!). As a teenager, she had a crush on German silent actress Henny Porten - she would later pretend to have no idea who the woman was.
All in all, the best Old Hollywood book I’ve ever read in terms of detail, scale, interest and just plain juiciness.
Vamps and Tramps by Camille Paglia
One of three Paglia essay collections read this year, chosen arbitrarily because they were all very good (this, Provocations, Sex Art and American Culture). I love Paglia.
What a Carve-Up! by Jonathan Coe
One of three books by Jonathan Coe read this year. The other two were two heavy-handed; this one is perfect. Criticism of the English ruling class (❤️), clownish satire* (❤️), intricate interlocking plots (❤️), a man obsessed by the portrayal of sexuality in an old film (❤️). A genius novel.
The Company She Keeps by Mary McCarthy
Somebody needs to show this book to the Red Scare podcast girls, because it embodies the current female post-left ethos. There is 50s womanhood, psychoanalysis, being a woman around socialist men, extramarital affairs, struggling in the job market etc. McCarthy constantly plays around with narrative to very cool effect.
War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
I was more invested in the scenes of domestic life (and masonry) here than the scenes of actual war, which was absolutely not the point of this novel. This was only because Tolstoy is incredibly adept at crafting emotional attachments which become more and more believable over time. His characters are real. They are funny and likable and span every constraint of the human experience. They are engaged constantly in things larger and smaller than them. Under these conditions, the thousand-plus pages of the book felt genuinely rewarding. (But not the postscript, never the postscript).
Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl
Who let this man write for children? The heights of actually really fun 60s James Bond disturbing masculinity are reached here. He is dark and twisted. Every story is a psychedelic horror of the best kind.
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
I embarrassingly read this because I had not read any Didion prior to her death and wanted to know what everyone else was talking about. I get it now, and feel closer to the tradition of female creative writing now upheld by Rookie contributors and Lana Del Rey. What a cool grasp of time and place, and what beautiful rhythmic patterns, course through this book.
James Acaster’s Classic Scrapes by James Acaster
It was just funny!
No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Yes it’s middlebrow. What of it. Lockwood demonstrates that the internet cannot be incorporated into fiction-writing without blurring the lines, to the extreme, between the real and the surreal. This is an extremely relatable account of the way it feels to be online and then to have the online seep into the real world.
My 2022 book resolutions: more Gore Vidal, more Mary McCarthy, the new Garbo biography, something instructional about screenwriting or short stories etc, Rumer Godden because I read and loved her children’s books as a child, Muriel Spark, Foucault if I can swing it.
*CLOWNISH SATIRE, coincidentally, is an anagram of CHRISTA WINSLOE, the butch lesbian author and playwright responsible for Gestern und Heute/Das Maedchen Manuela/Maedchen in Uniform.
My 10 favourite books read in 2021
ELLA I found you again via tumblr while searching for "Camille Paglia" (I too love her), I saw you posted my ig story where I came out as a Tarantino film bro apologist and I loved what you wrote haha. I'm also shocked at how similar we are. And you love Madonna too?! Stop, we're too alike now. Would love to catch up though I don't think you're on instagram now, are you? Sending love & 1930s Marlene Dietrich vibes your way x