Every year end I stew in my own vexation as we’re bombarded by various cultural gatekeepers’ lists of the top/best/sexiest/favorite/hottest/most important books of the year. The meaninglessness of this enterprise occasionally hits critical mass when some media genius becomes enamored with the—for lack of a better word, let’s say idea—of polling people who should know better for the name of a book that will be designated the best of the past 25 years. Yikes!

Anyway, it was in that spirit and additionally my fondness and regard for the efforts of small publishers that I approached a number of these worthies with a question that might illuminate something about the them or the way they look at the book world. Favorite color was out—so I asked, what book would they have liked to publish in the last calendar year? Not a trick question. Or even tough.

So here they are.

Eric Reynolds, Fantagraphics:

That’s a really interesting question. These four books came immediately to mind:

The Art of Harvey Kurtzman by Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle. Like all four of these books, I’d been looking forward to this one for some time in advance of publication. But unlike the others, there was also that side of me that kind of thought, well, I’ve seen everything from Harvey, I already appreciate him as much as I possibly could. I was wrong, the book is a treasure and it has completely made me fall in love with his work all over again.

Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco. Joe Sacco is one of the world’s greatest living cartoonists, and this might be his best book yet. ‘Nuff said!

The Book of Genesis by R. Crumb. Crumb is the world’s greatest living cartoonist, and this is his magnum opus. Even more ‘nuff said!

The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics. Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly are the greatest comics anthologists of all time, and this is one of their best ever. I can’t wait until my one-year-old is able to enjoy it with me.

These are four relatively obvious choices, but they’re four obviously excellent books.

Fred Ramey, Unbridled:

Now there’s a question to ponder…. Let’s fold in (and so get out of the way) that in 2009 the mainstream media struck an attitude with respect to independent publishers, which means wishing, for fiscal reasons, that any one of the year’s most commercially successful novels had been ours would be somewhat, uhm, naïve. (But then I probably wouldn’t mean any such wish, anyway.) And so, I thought I would name Roberto Bolaño’s 2666—would that be the obvious answer? Then I checked; its pub date was actually in November 2008. And so, after much brain-wringing, some contemplative shelf scanning, and precious little research, I choose Rudolph Wurlitzer’s trilogy: Nog, Flats, and Quake.

I had always wanted to bring Wurlitzer back into print myself and so am both joyful and envious that Two Dollar Radio has done just that. In addition to celebrating Wurlitzer’s searing vision and rangy inventiveness, what re-releasing his trilogy asserts is a faith in fiction that lasts, fiction that counts. (Dare I say “faith in the fiction backlist”?) Two Dollar Radio’s re-issuing—in (paperback) print format—the primary works of an otherwise unavailable American literary master is a hopeful act, and I know there are readers who are as grateful for it as I am. It’s not just believing in the author’s worth; it’s believing in readers and in the enterprise of long-view publishing. (Yes, I know the question was, “What one book…?” I don’t know why I find it so hard to follow instructions.)

Eric Obenauf, Two Dollar Radio:

Most of my reading last year came in the form of submissions and editing, so I’m far from an informed source on what was actually published. There was a period in 2007/2008 when we were toying with the idea of publishing some non-fiction at Two Dollar Radio, and I wrote to Erick Lyle, who put out a ‘zine that I loved called ‘Scam’ under the name Iggy Scam. He said that he was already in the process of working on a compilation for Soft Skull, which came out late 2008, called On the Lower Frequencies. I bought a copy last year, though I haven’t read it all. It seems to have worked out for the best, because I enjoy sticking with fiction. Another one that I’m reading now, that came out in paperback in ‘09 is The Mayor’s Tongue, by Nathaniel Rich. I haven’t finished, but so far it seems highly imaginative and well-written.

Erika Goldman, Bellevue Literary Press:

Much to my shock, I can honestly say “I published that book—Tinkers by Paul Harding!” We never could have imagined the enormous response we’ve gotten for it, as deserving as it is. The experience has been tremendously exciting for us, particularly since we haven’t been around that long (our first list was Spring 2007). So I have no envious (publishing) thoughts at the end of 2009.

Judith Gurewich, Other Press

There is one book I would have liked to publish and I lost it to Knopf, and money was not the issue, it seems. It is Trois Femmes Puissantes by the Senegalese author Marie Ndiaye, who won the Prix Goncourt this year. I made an offer before the Goncourt was announced and was prepared to pay whatever it took to get it. This is a wonderful collection of three novellas where the author, who lives in France, went deep into the soul of three protagonists in the grips of their inability to come to terms with the terrible side effects of post-colonialism. The book really hit a chord for the author—she succeeds to create suspenseful stories based on the difficult question of emigration, where traumatic events, hypocrisy, and denial inhabit the lives of three protagonists caught between African disarray and French racism. The author’s prose, which evokes the best French classics, is resolutely modern as the novellas use brilliantly the decoy of an unreliable narrator, reminiscent of the musings of a patient on a couch, where the causes of the traumas are revealed only at the end of each story—mimicking at once the works of psychoanalysis and the best of thrillers. I showed my passion, my determination, and my willingness to invest large sums of money in this project, for I understood fully what it would take to give this book proper visibility in this country. I read the book in French and understood deeply its thrust since I am myself a psychoanalyst and felt very close to the project. But for no avail. I am sad that I missed the opportunity. In January I am publishing The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi, the winner of the Goncourt of 2008. It would have been wonderful to continue this tradition, and I can only console myself that maybe it is not such a failure to lose a book to Knopf.

Dan Wickett, Dzanc Books

Assuming that I should not consider any titles that we published at Dzanc Books, as those would not qualify as we did indeed publish them, I’d have to go with Percival Everett’s I Am Not Sidney Poitier. The reason would simply be I’d love to say that I published a Percival Everett novel. I think he’s one of the best writers of his generation, and anxiously await each new outing from him. While this particular novel may not have been his most focused, I still relish the chance to get to read what I believe Everett is thinking about race, education, fame, or whatever else he’s included this time around.

Martin Riker, Dalkey Archive

It’s an interesting question as it assumes I was able to find time to read anything other than Dalkey Archive books this year, when in fact I’m deeply embarrassed to say I read very little outside the Dalkeysphere, in part because my first child was born and it turns out he actually eats time.

Of the few that I did read, two that stuck with me are an interesting little scholarly study called Friendship and Literature by Ronald Sharp published in the 1980s, and Devin Johnston’s wonderful lyrical essay collection “Creaturely,” both books that I loved but not necessarily books that I would have published. This has less to do with my personal affection for them and more to do with my sense of responsibility as a publishing person toward Dalkey Archive’s “vision,” which even if I can’t put it into words is nonetheless entirely clear to me: Dalkey exists to publish certain books that need to be published, which is not all books that need to be published, but rather this certain group. I would propose that the fun of being a publisher is not deciding what that group of books or “vision” will be, but rather watching as it is revealed to you, finding out with each new book a little bit more about this vision of literature that you can palpably intuit but can only define by pointing at these books and saying, Yes that’s it.

 —Robert Birnbaum, Jan. 11, 2010

There must be some explanation for the fact that it wasn’t until 2008 that someone had the clarity of thought to anthologize their well-considered selection of the best writing on the internet. Possibly it is that whatever cabal decides these things was finally overwhelmed by the torrent of quality prose pouring out of the virtual realm. Or maybe someone unfettered by any proprietary bonds to old media. Which brings me to Dandy Dan Wickett (who was once derided by a small-minded L.A. Times critic for having a day job) of the Emerging Writers Network and his Dzanc Books cadre—who may not have removed the scales from the eyes of the mainstream media (now known to all as MSM) that was done by the circulation and ratings plunge that evidenced a looming irrelevancy—but has exhibited both the multifaceted legitimacy of new media and its vastness as a wellspring of creativity by publishing Best of the Web (Dzanc Books) in 2008 and 2009.

The latest iteration of Best of the Web is guest edited by Lee K. Abbott and aheres to the series mandate to “compile the best fiction, poetry, and nonfiction that online literary journals have to offer in an eclectic collection in the manner of other broad-ranging anthologies.” Additionally, there is a comprehensive appendix containing valuable information about 300 or so online literary venues. That’s worth the price of admission alone.

Of the contributors I recognized, few are household names—Blake Butler, Matthew Derby, Roy Kesey, Terese Svoboda, Todd Hasak-Lowy, Stephen Dixon—the rest are discoveries waiting to be made, which is what commends this wide-eyed effort. —Robert Birnbaum, Nov. 30, 2009

Sometime last year, I commended the George Pelecanos-edited The Best American Mystery Stories 2008, which included a riveting story by Floridian Kyle Minor, “A Day Meant to Do Less.” It turns out Dandy Dan Willett’s fledgling imprint Dzanc Books is publishing Minor’s debut collection, In the Devil’s Territory, which in addition to the above-mentioned story includes five short fictions. One of the marvels of new media is, in this case, you can read parts or the whole book.

What struck me about these stories was largeness of scope—maybe they are that troublesome (to define) literary form, the novella. The title story has a schoolteacher in East Berlin swimming to freedom (thrice, carrying her elderly relatives) with the intention of teaching in West Palm Beach, Fla. “A Day Meant to Do Less,” which got my attention and should get yours, presents a preacher’s elderly mother mistaking him for a long-forgotten cousin she witnessed kill his brother, in the long ago of her youth, and her recounting of her life. Minor can, as the sports people say, get it done—he can flat-out write. My suggestion: Get with it. —Robert Birnbaum, Jan. 12, 2009

Receiving an advance copy of The Best American Mystery Stories 2008—guest-edited this year by George Pelecanos—reminds me that Houghton Mifflin’s onslaught of its franchise The Best American Series anthologies is not far behind. What started in 1915 as simply The Best American Short Stories now has every stripe of superlative excessive collections, including the imaginative and contrived The Best American Nonrequired Reading. But the 21st century is all about exploiting Brand, right? So let me move on. If not the “best” stories, Pelecanos’s 19 selections are certainly quite wonderful, as he is certain to upset purists by including fine writers like Elizabeth Strout, Alice Munro, Thisbe Nissen, James Lee Burke, Robert Ferragamo, Michael Connelly, Chuck Hogan, and Joyce Carol Oates. My favorites are a poignant, flashback-filled story by Kyle Minor (“A Day Meant to Do Less”), Scott Phillips’s well-modulated nostalgia (“The Emerson, 1950”), and Stephen Rhodes’s Wall Street morality tale (“At the Top of His Game”).

For many years, Shannon Ravenel edited the New Stories From the South anthology; she’s turned over the reins to Kathy Pories and yearly guest editors: Alan Gurganis in 2006, Edward P. Jones in 2007, and Z.Z. Packer in 2008. As expected, these anthologies do feature many of the South’s favorite sons and daughters (which, if you are out of touch with that region’s rich literary tradition and culture, is a major public service); in this instance, Packer’s introduction is an intriguing, smart, and provocative essay entitled “The Double Indemnity of the South”:

And as backward as we’ve been portrayed—or as backward as we’ve sometimes portrayed ourselves, slipping behind a curtain of innocent and naïve agrarianism, rural somnolence, and sleepy everlasting vowels—the truth is that every awful and beautiful thing that has happened in America happened in the South first.

Kudos to Dan Wickett and Dzanc Books for finding a need and filling it well with the initial Best of the Web 2008. The volume’s editor, Nathan Leslie, writes:

This anthology does not attempt to capture some very vital aspects of the online experience—no multimedia experience, no interactive texts, no surfing here. We limited ourselves to four genres—poetry, fiction, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction. There are others; this isn’t our attempt to build Rome in a day… Rome will come. It will take time. For now I simply hope you like the anthology we put together. Read, enjoy, savor.

 —Robert Birnbaum, Aug. 21, 2008