When reviewing the lists of top ten books of 2015 from The New York Times,[1] The Washington Post,[2] The Week,[3] The Guardian[4] or (when the editors get lazy and ask the reader to come up with a list) The Wall Street Journal,[5] I discovered that I did not read a single book on those lists. It is not that I did not read a book this year, but it appears that I did not read what everyone else seems to be reading this year.

The stack of books read during this year include, but are not limited to, the following: Meditations on the Insatiable Soul, poems by Robert Bly; The Moviegoer and Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy; True North, The Farmer’s Daughter, and Julip by Jim Harrison; Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor; Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich; The Dharma Bums and Big Sur by Jack Kerouac; Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Sky Above, Great Wind and One Robe, One Bowl (translations of Ryokan’s poetry); and Rabbit, Run by John Updike.

Notable, these books have at least one thing in common: they were written and published prior to the internet. That is not to say that every book I read last year pre-dates the world wide web. For example, Nick Demske’s self-titled release is a modern poetry volume. But what intrigues me by some of these books is that they could never, ever possibly be published in today’s market.

I started reading one author because a writer I met in Racine encouraged me to explore fiction. One book lead to another which opened the door to a different author which lead to another book. And that lead to a year’s worth of following authors and their books.

Currently, I have at least a dozen books I am reading now that will begin the journey for next year.

NOTES:
[1] The New York Times
[2] The Washington Post
[3] The Week
[4] The Guardian
[5] The Wall Street Journal
[6] This whole reading/book list started with: The best books I should have read before 2013.
[7] And here is the best reads of 2013.
[8] The next year is more of a commonplace book list of best reads of 2014.