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With
Old Man 2007 rotting in the still freshly-upturned earth,
we at the Hipster Book Club would like to take this opportunity
to say kind words over his grave. In true internet criticism
fashion, we felt this was best accomplished through the ancient,
sacred art of the Top Five List. We took all the HBC writers
and editors we could find (after Yennie's New Year's Eve high
stakes "Hide-n-Seek" competition) and had them formulate lists
on a variety of 2007 topics, often related to literature.
We also called up a few of our acquaintances in the literature
and music worlds and asked them to form lists, as well.
Though the responses were abundant, we decided to cut a lot
of the chaff (with sincere apologies to Oprah, Tara Reid,
and Pope Benedict XVI) and just went with the good stuff.
 STEVEN
HALL
Novelist, The
Raw Shark Texts
FIVE
MOST COMMON QUESTIONS ASKED AT RAW SHARK READINGS
1. Where did you get the idea for a conceptual shark?
2. What the hell happens at the end of the book?
3. Do you like cats?
4. Do you really believe in this crazy stuff? (No, guys. It's
a novel. Honestly.)
5. Hey there handsome, do you want to come back to my place?*
*Sadly
this one never actually happens.
NORA FUSSNER
Web Editor, Pindeldyboz.com
TOP
FIVE BOOKS I TOTALLY MEANT TO READ IN 2007
1. Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
2. Brookland by Emily Barton
3. Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
4. The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
5. Anything by Orhan Pamuk
TOP
FIVE BOOKS I ACTUALLY READ IN 2007
1. Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
2. The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders
3. The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett
4. Endless Love by Scott Spencer
5. The Life and Adventures of Tristram Shandy by Laurence
Sterne
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T COOPER
Author, Lipshitz 6, or Two Angry Blondes
TOP
FIVE TELEVISION SHOWS OF 2007 THAT FILLED ME WITH RAGE,
BUT THAT I COULDN'T STOP WATCHING
1. Dr. 90210
2. Jon & Kate Plus 8
3. A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila
4. Hannah Montana
5. The Real Housewives of Orange County
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SAMANTHA STOREY
HBC Writer
TOP
FIVE BOOKS I MEANT TO READ IN 2007
1. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
3. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
4. The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander
5. Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat
 GLEN
DAVID GOLD
Novelist, Carter Beats the Devil
FIVE
BEST NOVELS OF 2007
1. Arrested Development
Adventures of the Bluth Family in Orange County. Hilarious
and heartless and yes, not really a novel, but I was too busy
to read much in 2007 so I watched DVDs instead. The rest of
this list will be novels, really. But you should watch Arrested
Development, even if it didn't come out in 2007, but earlier.
2.
Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O'Malley
The best depiction of being 23 I've ever read. Kind of a combination
of manga, Bollywood, video games and, well, okay, this isn't
a novel either. It's a comic book. But when I sat down to
read books, my head hurt and I couldn't focus, so I read comic
books, which was much more satisfying. I swear the next one
on the list will be a novel.
3. Tree
of Smoke by Denis Johnson
A searing portrait of relationships under duress, with epic
sweep and majestic power, told with language you can cut with
a knife. I think. Because I didn't read it. I hear it's really
good, though. Didn't it win an award? I hear it totally deserved
it.
4. Barry
Bonds hitting 756
Wasn't that cool? I was there. I had to go to one baseball
game with a friend. I haven't been to a ballgame in 30 years,
and this is the one I went to. All of my friends hate me now.
The mood in the stands was confused but also excited because,
hey, 756. Wow. What? Not a novel, you say? Well, were YOU
there? I thought not.
5. That
YouYube video of the lions and the water buffalos in Africa.
Man, that was something. In fact, I must have watched that
thing 100 times.
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MICHAEL
WARD
HBC Writer
TOP
FIVE BOOKS I READ THIS YEAR
1. After Dark by Haruki Murakami
2. Piercing by Ryu Murakami
3. A Free Life by Ha Jin
4. I Have the Right to Destroy Myself by Young-Ha
Kim
5. Inside and Other Short Fiction—Japanese
Women by Japanese Women by Various Authors
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DOROTHY PARKA
HBC Columnist
TOP
FIVE NEWS STORIES OF 2007
1. García Márquez, Vargas Llosa bury the hatchet
No one knows how the feud began between two of the most famous
contemporary South American writers—Colombian writer
Gabriel García Márquez and Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa.
Or if they do, they're not talking. All that's known is that
in 1976, there was a fistfight between the two in a Mexico
City movie theater, resulting in a black eye for García Márquez.
And they never spoke to each other again. This year, Vargas
Llosa agreed to allow an excerpt from a book he wrote about
García Márquez, written before the feud, to be included in
the fortieth anniversary edition of One Hundred Years of
Solitude. If García Márquez ever decides to publish part
two of his autobiography (Living to Tell the Tale is
part one), we may find out what happened in that movie theater.
 2.
The Robert Olen Butler fiasco
I don't know about you, but when a boyfriend dumps me, usually
the first thing I do is buy a pack of cigarettes and a pint
of Ben and Jerry's. It would never cross my mind to send an
e-mail to my co-workers. Yet, for some reason, that's exactly
what Robert Olen Butler (A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain)
did. The e-mail was packed with juicy gossip. It dished not
only that his wife, author Elizabeth Dewberry, was leaving
him for Ted Turner, but that his wife had been sexually abused
by her grandfather, and dating old-enough-to-be-her-dad Ted
was just her way of working out her abuse issues! Butler then
revealed that Ted has a lot of girlfriends all set up in different
houses, and Ms. Dewberry would just be one member of this
creepy harem. Butler got all mad at Gawker.com, for printing
the leaked
email. But really, I think it was the most compelling
thing he has ever written!
3. Book
reviews are dead, and bloggers are vile and stupid
Earlier this year, the Associated Press, along with several
major metropolitan newspapers, decided to cut back or completely
annihilate their book review pages, resulting in hordes of
angry book critics pointing their calloused fingers (you know,
from all that page-turning) at—no, not newspaper editors—bloggers.
Bloggers! If newspapers fire book reviewers, it must be the
bloggers' fault. They're ruining the American literary discourse
with their OMGs and LOLs! And they work from home in their
scaly underwear! Overall, I agree that the level of criticism
is higher in the average full-length book review (newspaper
OR web) than it is in the average blog entry, but I've read
some god-awful printed reviews in small local papers—some
that even contained the sentence, "I recommend this book highly."
And there are quite a few excellent book bloggers. Well, maybe
not quite a few, but a few.
4. McSweeney's
Auction
Right at the start of 2007, AMS, a major book distributor,
announced its bankruptcy, sending shockwaves through the book
publishing industry. At the time, AMS owed hundreds of millions
of dollars to just about every publisher in the US, from the
biggest to the little guys. Since AMS had already shipped
the purchased books from their warehouse to the stores, there
was no way for publishers to recover their money. Small publishers
struggled, and some went out of business. In June, McSweeney's
decided to hold an auction to recoop their losses ($130,000—not
very much) by selling some interesting items and quite a bit
of junk, hoping that McSweeney's fans would buy said junk
and save McSweeney's ass. Previously, in March, McSweeney's
Quarterly Concern sent around a twee letter asking lifetime
subscription people—the ones who shelled out $100 back
in '90s to help out a struggling publishing company in its
infancy—to let McSweeney's reneg on the deal.
5. If
I Did It
After being pulled from production by HarperCollins, possibly
contributing to the firing of über-publisher Judith Regan,
it was purchased and reprinted by small publisher Beaufort
Books with commentary from the Goldman Family and crime reporter
Dominick Dunne, who covered the O.J. trial. With 150,000 copies
in print (that's a lot), who can say that this travesty isn't
a success? Perhaps altruism drove people to buy this book—a
portion of the proceeds goes to the Ron Goldman Foundation
for Justice, an organization I've never heard of before whose
only web presence (as of this time) is a holder page.Naturally,
O.J. Simpson's ghost-written tome got panned, and I don't
know of anyone who bought it, although some people I know
who read it said it was a spectacular exercise using the unreliable
narrator.
PHIL ELVERUM
Musician,
Mount Eerie
TOP
FIVE BOOKS I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF RIGHT NOW
1. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
(the rad new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)
2. Grettir's Saga by Anonymous (the gory old translation
by Denton Fox and Hermann Pálsson)
3. Lapham's Quarterly Vol. 1, Num. 1. Winter 2008 (incredible
new history-oriented magazine/book edited by Lewis H. Lapham,
formerly of Harper’s)
4. Veneer 02 of 18 (ambiguous and amazing book/magazine
edited by my friend/collaborator Aaron Flint Jamison, published
by Marriage Records)
5. Learning to Love You More by Harrell Fletcher and
Miranda July
 FELICIA
LUNA LEMUS
Author, Like Son
TOP
FIVE REASONS QVC BECAME MY G-D IN 2007
1. Joan Rivers Beauty(TM)
Joan Rivers. Beauty. Need I say more?
2. Diamonique(TM)
Jewelry
"Diamonds" are a girl's best friend.
3. Quacker
Factory Embellished Sweaters & Sweatshirts
Want to know why Bush is in office? Just consider the success
of this line of clothing.
4. X
Glove Heat Resistant Hand Protectors w/Silicone Grips, $19.92
5. Lisa
Robertson, QVC Program Host
Miss Tennessee, 1989. She's so sizzling hot, X Glove Heat
Resistant Hand Protectors are required.
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