DO YOU KNOW

what's wrong with the new Rick Ross song?



Yep. More of this.

Also, the video--the Ross video--makes no sense. Snoop and Slim Charles in a botched something or other? I just don't buy it.

29. Alice Munro "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage"

28. Denis Johnson "Tree of Smoke"

Two great black and white rap videos, old school and new...

27. Susan Choi "A Person of Interest"

26. Jean Valentine "Little Boat"

"IT'S AN HONOR JUST TO BE NOMINATED:"

Junot Diaz has won the Pulitzer Prize.

Which makes me two for two (just in case you were counting) in terms of my-favorite-book-from-the-previous-year-winning-the-Pulitzer.

Poetry and (so I'm told) drama winners are exactly who you expected.

Apparently customers who bought Christine Schutt's "All Souls" also bought one of Jennifer Weiner's novels and the recently released Disney film "Enchanted."

Also: who knew Schutt's new book was out already?

I can't wait.

25. Matthea Harvey "Modern Life"

24. Ann Patchett "Bel Canto"

23. Herman Mellville "Bartleby the Scrivener"

APROPOS OF NOTHING:

TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS

I was worried for a second:
"Remainder" over "Then We Came To the End?"

Is Stephen Curry moonlighting on their (er, his, McCarthy's) team?

But they got it right in the end.

Sorry Thea's bookclub. Congratulations Mr. Diaz.

22. Jhumpha Lahiri "Unaccustomed Earth"

21. Prageeta Sharma "Infamous Landscapes"

20. Chris Martin "American Music"

19. Rebecca Curtis "Twenty Grand and Other Tales of Love and Money"

18. Richard Price "Lush Life"

James Wood on Richard Price's dialouge

17. Jennifer Egan "Look At Me"

16. Cate Marvin "Fragment of the Head of a Queen"

(This is super low quality video [plus they spelled her name wrong on YouTube] but whatever)

15. Charles Brock "Beautiful Children"

14. Daniel Clowes "Ghost World"

13. Elaine Dundy "The Dud Avocado"

12. August Wilson "Gem of the Ocean"

11. Troy Jollimore "Tom Thomson In Purgatory"

10. Dawn Lundy Martin "A Gathering of Matter/A Matter of Gathering"

9. Alice Notley "In the Pines"

8. Dorothea Lasky "Awe"

7. Eileen Myles "Sorry, Tree"

6. Rae Armantrout "Next Life"

5. Sarah Manguso, Dave Eggers, and Deb Olin Unferth "One Hundred and Forty Five Stories in a Small Box"

4. Adrian Tomine "Shortcomings"

3. Graham Foust "Necessary Stranger"

2. Felix Feneon "Novels in Three Lines"

Best christmas present ever.

1. Jim Shepard "Like You'd Understand, Anyway"

(Belated) '07 Wrap up

Once again, instead of a top 10, I will say only that Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" was the best book I read last year. Thanks to the great city of New York and its absurd cost of living and the fact that I had to work way more than I did last year, I did not read nearly as many books as I would have liked. Which is not too say that Diaz's novel wouldn't have taken first place if I'd had time to read, say, "Tree of Smoke."

Other notable books of 2007: Miranda July's "No One Belongs Here More Than You," Lydia Davis' "Varieties of Disturbance," and Joshua Ferris' "Then We Came to the End."

63. Anne Enright "The Gathering"

62. Christian Hawkey "Citizen Of"

61. Jesse Ball "Samedi the Deafness"

60. Tom Perrotta "The Abstinence Teacher"

59. Ann Patchett "Run"

58. Michael Chabon "Wonder Boys"

57. Junot Diaz "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"

56. Tracy K. Smith "Duende"

55. Courtney Queeney "Filibuster to Delay a Kiss"

54. Rick Moody "The Ice Storm"

53. Ian McEwan "On Chesil Beach"

52. Jess Walter "The Zero"

51. Philip Roth "Exit Ghost"

50. George Saunders "The Braindead Megaphone"

George Saunders on David Letterman

49. Joshua Ferris "Then We Came to the End"

48. Noelle Kocot "Poem for the End of Time and Other Poems"

47. Chelsey Minnis "Bad Bad"

46. Nick Flynn "Some Ether"

45. Ariana Reines "The Cow"

44. Eleni Sikelianos "The Monster Lives of Boys and Girls"

43. Vendela Vida "And Now You Can Go"