I hope ya’ll are good and hung over this morning. Me? I’m updating this from the beach–no shit, it’s like 85 degrees out right now. Of course I’m nursing a killer champagne and expensive gin martini hangover, but hey, that’s what I do. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, live by the sword, die by the sword.
Anyway, it’s a new year. Fuck, it’s a new decade. What does that mean? You should get your fat-ass into shape, yes, but also you should work on becoming a better person. What’s the best way to do that? Reading. Seriously, it’s proven that the more you read, the more you get laid. I read like a book a week, legit, and I get laid waaaaaay more than that.
Anyway, I know you’re probably thinking “oh, reading sucks, and I hate learning.” Fuck that, you’re in college, this is your fucking life. Getting drunk and gaining knowledge. It should be every college’s motto. But seriously, you probably hate reading because you read shitty books. No worries, I gotcha covered. Imma outline the 5-best books I read last year, so you can read them this year. Sure, you’ll be a year behind me, but shit, most people are like five. You ever hear that song “Paper Planes?” It was reaaaal popular like last year. That was on my 2007 holiday play list. I’m fucking good.
Anyway, click after the jump to check out what you should be reading on the beach, right now.
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The Girl Who Played with Fire
by Stieg Larsson:
This book is long, complex, and really fucking confusing to read. It is also criticallyacclaimed. These are attributes that should technically make you stay the fuck away from reading it. I generally can’t stand anything that anyone tells me that I 
absolutely have to read! But, no one told me to read this. I didn’t even know that it was part of a series, or that critics were jizzing all over it, or even that Mr. Larsson (now dead) was the second best selling author of 2008. I saw it mentioned real casual in GQ like last year, and figured it looked like it might be a decent read.
Like I said, the book’s long (or at least it is compared to the other things I have on my Kindle*), but I probably finished it in a week of reading between classes and taking shits. If you like detective stories, you’ll like this. If you don’t like detective stories, you’ll like this. Larsson does a pretty good damn job of bringing you into the book and keeping you into the characters (though there are tons of them, and it’s kinda tough to keep track). What I didn’t realize was that this was the second book in a trilogy (though a planned 10-book cycle), so I probably should have read book 1 first. No big deal, I’m fucking smart and can process literature like it’s my job. But you may wanna read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Happy Hour Is for Amateurs
by Philadelphia Lawyer
I’m sure you read Tucker Max’s I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
x has a very prominent blurb on the cover of this book. I dug right in though. And I’m glad I did. Happy Hour is a book that any college student** can relate too. Philadelphia Lawyer basically describes how he managed to slide through college, law school, and even his law career by being smarter than everyone around him. An idol for our generation, no doubt!
But seriously, if you really were into Tucker Max’s stuff, you’ll immediately see the similarities– but Happy Hour takes it a step farther. It’s not just disjointed “I got so shitfaced one night, fucked this midget I met in the bar, and then made her walk home naked” chronicles strung together. There’s a coherent narrative throughout Happy Hour. There’s a message too (don’t do law unless you absolutely no what you are getting into, do something you really love), and as cliched and stupid as that sounds, you’ll probably come out of the book a better person. Or at least want to do a lot more drugs recreationally. Either way is a win.
Netherland
by Joseph O’Neill
This is just a good old fashioned American success story. I think, anyway. I read thisa while ago, but it’s about cricket, and I dig that. Also an entrepreneurial immigrant. 
I dunno how to write this one up so you’ll be dying to read it… hold on, I’m gonna check some online reviews real quick.
Oh, okay. It’s a post-9/11 book. It’s also “the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we’ve had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell.” A lot of people also compare it to the Great Gatsby. Just based on these reviews, it’s something I don’t think you can afford to miss. Check it out***. I liked it a lot, and everyone knows I have the best critical taste of all time. Sign me up for the fucking New York Times review.
Apathy and Other Small Victories
by Paul Neilan
Full disclosure: I didn’t read this book for the first time in 2009. But I did read it at least twice last year, maybe more. It’s fucking hilarious. Like legit one of the funniest things I have ever read. It’s like a novel of one liners, really. Just stupid, stupid, stupid, funny. But not stupid as in mentally retarded funny. Stupid as in “I can’t believe how funny
this book actually is” funny. So rather than tell you what’s in the book, I’m just gonna quote some lines that I’ve found by randomly flipping through the pages:
Opening line: “I was stealing saltshakers again…. In the morning, wherever I woke up, I was covered in salt. I had become beef jerky. Even as a small, small child, I knew it would one day come to this.”
“‘She’s deaf you know.’ But he said it under his breath, discreetly, so she wouldn’t hear.”
“I was kicked out of my reading circle in third grade for laughing at a girl who couldn’t sound out her sentences. Years later she told me that I was singularly responsible for the stutter she’d later developed, and for her intense shyness and low self-esteem. The important thing was that I’d made a difference in her life.”
I know at this point you are dying to read this book.
The Signal: A Novel
by Ron Carlson
This one’s in there for the people who read the same books as old people. Like airport novels and shit. I generally don’t like that shit, but this book I read without knowing what I was getting into. Another GQ recommendation**** that I ran with. I liked it.Down-on-his luck cowboy takes a retreat with his ex-wife, also searches for something, and winds up with a shit ton more on his hands. If it means anything, I read this in China in about two hours. Quick read, so it’s probably a good one for an airplane ride, or chilling out by the beach, which I’m about to do. Jacked and tan baby, jacked and tan. I also recommended it to my dad, and he liked it. So, I guess if you’re a fifty year old, white male, this may also be up your alley.
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* I read books almost exclusively on my Kindle
** Any college student who’s doing college right, that is.
*** I might also be confusing this book with Don DeLilo’s Falling Man: A Novel
**** I read GQ pretty religiously, actually. Gotta be top of being a gentleman and shit. Ladies dig it.
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