Excerpted selections from, “My Year of Years:
One Writer’s Attempt to Spend an Entire Year Reading Nothing But Books by People Who Spent an Entire Year Doing Something Eccentric,” edited slightly.
                                                  -Mike Wood

            At first my wife was skeptical, even concerned.  “Oh honey!” she said, “Are you sure it’s safe?  Could there be side effects you’re not thinking of?  Could it…could it really hurt your eyes?  Maybe make you a moron?”
            These were her words, but I knew what was really on her mind.  I had spent the past decade working ceaselessly, tirelessly to have published the novel I had spent the decade previous to that one working equally ceaselessly, tirelessly to complete, achingly plumbing the depths of my soul (in both processes) and running up about $80,000 of debt.  Which is not to say there had been no compensation.  I’m more proud than you can possibly imagine – even if, I imagine, you’re having an especially imaginative day – to say there is an incredibly small section in my study dedicated to the display of the contributor’s copies I’ve received (in lieu of actual cash payment) from the four literary journals to have excerpted portions of my opus.  Still, despite this – those excerpts were published to phenomenal acclaim – none of the major houses (of, for that matter, any of the dinky ones) have expressed anything but utter contempt with the idea of taking on and publishing the whole shebang.  As I was told by the senior fiction editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, “What, you don’t really think we’re interested in publishing books because they’re good, do you?  Ha ha, you incredibly naïve person!”
            So my wife might say she was worried about my potentially withering eyes or my becoming a moron (as if she hadn’t conceded that point ages ago) but I knew that what was really making her anxious when I told her my scheme to spend the next year reading nothing but books by people who had spent a year doing something odd was that this would be yet another book that went nowhere – just drove us further into debt – was another masterpiece that would never even make it to the store.
            And so, that’s when I told her not to worry, because I was sure that the exact opposite would happen.
            “You see!” I said, excitedly, and then I went on to tell her how, that very day, down at the arcade where I work (polishing marbles in pinball machines: thankless, heart-rending toil at which I struggle – as with my art – because I know that even if literally nobody in the entire world appreciates it, still, it makes that world (the only one we’ve got) a better, more beautiful place) – it was at the arcade that I noticed these two jerky kids who in their chatter revealed themselves to be interns at Simon & Schuster.  Quickly dropping my polishing rag and even more quickly scribbling my idea onto a conveniently crumpled nearby napkin, I then chucked this down at their feet; forty-five minutes later I’d signed my book deal and an hour and half after that the film rights had been sold.
            And so it began.  The first group I tackled had, appropriately enough, dietary themes.  I say appropriately enough, because, as you well know, it was Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 film (he probably also wrote a book of it or something) Super Size Me that truly propelled the genre of people doing something for some period of time into the public consciousness.  (It was the tipping point.)  But while the product of Spurlock’s jolly determination to eat nothing but that filth called food that is sold by The McDonald’s Corporation for a month had behind it both his charming élan and a good subject matter (the fast food question is a biggie) I’m afraid the same cannot be said for any of those first books I consumed: 2007: A Space Food Odyssey; Eating the Alphabet; Who Says Pâté is Just A Starter?; and, the, in terms of consistency, occasionally similar, Cream Cheese Nation, to name but just a few.
             Now, as you might expect, there were many moments during my “year of years” when I began to get unbelievably sick of what I was doing.  (It was really horrible!)  Moments when, as I struggled to make it through another book like Nothing But Game Shows For Me or What If I Had No Elbows? I felt like some sort of yoked beast, like good old Morgan Spurlock, grimly swallowing, along with a half mouth full of half-upchucked bile, a couple of Chicken McNuggets.  (God, it was terrible!)  I wasn’t even sure, from one moment to the next, if I’d even be able to make it over the hump…or if I thought the struggle was worth it.  And then, as I was wondering this, I thought to myself, Hey hey hey – I’m soul searching!  They always do that in these books, this is great!  Now all I have to do is have some really heated arguments – or maybe even some not so heated ones – with my family about why I’m so insanely pursing this pursuit; maybe meet with a doctor or something, write up a little history…but wait, I already mentioned Spurlock!  Sure it wasn’t really an extended exploration of the…but those sections are always slim…so really, all I gotta do now is read a few more books and work out what charity I’m gonna affiliate myself with and I’m set!
            Added to this revelation was yet another factor slightly brightening my days.  For it was during my final weeks of reading that I discovered a new trend: the trend of this trend of these “year books” being taken up not only by obvious loser hacks looking to cash in on a trend, but established literary luminaries (if some of them more subtly hacks) are tackling the genre as well.  Indeed, none other than the often highly celebrated writer Salman Rushdie has recently penned the delightful The Leopard and the Scorpion: My Year on The Professional Arm Wrestling Circuit.  That Rushdie should have the courage to embark on so remarkable a journey will surprise no one familiar with his bravery in the face of the Ayatollah Khomeini; still, I get the feeling that is Sir Salman had to endure another fatwā or again go head-to-head – better make that arm-to-arm! – with former circus freak (and inmate of San Quentin) one-eyed Randy “The Killer” Girardi, then the Booker Prize winner might have to think twice!  And while amusing photos of the physical alterations brought on by wacky, yearlong decisions are often a highlight of these books, Rushdie’s are especially amusing.  The delicious incremental development of his right arm, from withered elephant’s trunk to freak of nature is truly something to behold.  (That Rushdie has an obvious penchant for appearing topless in these photos can only be considered gravy.)  Here is Rushdie’s masterpiece!
And speaking of physical alterations – though unfortunately there are no photos in his book – John Updike’s A Jew in Massachusetts for Twelve Months, begins with a riveting set piece, in which the aged author (“Here I was, an Abraham who had not even heard the word of God”) undergoes circumcision.  (Ouch!)  Nothing that follows can match the bravado of this opening, though there are, as ever, numerous instances of the author’s matchless elegance of prose; and when, later in his year, Updike confesses to breaking down and crying during a local production of The Merchant of Venice, well, that in itself is more entertaining, not to mention moving, than anything he has written since Rabbit At Rest.  Now, with regard to some of the controversy surrounding A Jew, I feel it my duty to mention the cynical suggestions put forth by some that Updike’s conversion to Judaism resulted not just from a cheap desire to cash in on a trashy trend, but also from an envy felt at the wider acclaim accorded the recent writings of Philip Roth as compared with his own.  But I would offer another possibility.  I wonder if, great explorer that he is, great, constant innovator that Updike continues to be, he was not simply seeking yet another avenue through which to discuss his cock.
            And, if we are to bring up cock talk (and why the hell not?) much of this is to be found (much to be found) in the late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s last work, a posthumously published account of his final year, whoring his way across Southern Africa.  That such a project was embarked upon by the former Soviet dissident will surely surprise some, and the ethicacy of even publishing the volume – based on a diary kept by the Nobel laureate during his last months – has been called into question by many.  But as translator and Solzhenitsyn scholar Professor Samuel L. Jackson (I still have to assume he’s not the actor) in his introduction to Sticking My Cock In Absolutely Anything That Will Let Me Do So For Money In Southern Africa (It’s Not All Exploitation, Believe Me) writes, “Yes, the Solzhenitsyn that emerges in these pages will shock many.  The Solzhenitsyn who, for example, writes, ‘Seriously, this is so much better than being in a gulag.  Really, you have no idea how much better this is than a gulag.  I should have tried this ages ago!’ this Solzhenitsyn will leave many readers, frankly, flabbergasted.  And yes, the author did state explicitly (both in his will and before several members of his family) that he wished the pages burnt.  But, if we listened to what writers said when they were dying then we wouldn’t have the Aeneid, now would we?  And that’d be pretty darn dreadful, doncha think?  Come on, you must admit that’d be a drag.”
            But, still, as potentially out of character as the Solzhenitsyn revealed in Sticking My Cock In Absolutely Anything That Will Let Me Do So For Money In Southern Africa (It’s Not All Exploitation, Believe Me) was, and however tedious I might find the metaphors conjured up by John Updike as he recounted his search for the aficoman, nothing could prepare me for the harrowingnessness of her tale nor the Nora Ephron who was soon to be revealed to me.  For it was Ephron’s courageous decision, despite being in her middle sixties and having only limited acting experience, to enter the world of porn, which would offer for me the most thorough proof that this is, for all it’s faults, a genre that is worth keeping, a genre that needs to live.  I Feel Bad About My Anus is, in fact, the genre at its best.  From her first nervous auditions – fumbling with nightsticks and wine bottles – to her first spit roast, I Feel Bad About My Anus leaves no stone unturned.  “What does it mean to be a woman?”; “What does it mean to be a woman in porn?”; “What does it mean to be a woman in porn who also wrote When Harry Met Sally…?”: these are but a few of the thought-provoking questions tackled in Ephron’s Anus.  (We can only hope the film version, slated for release next spring and staring Sienna Miller, doesn’t gloss over any of its gritty realities.)  And when, as her year ends, Ephron confesses concern over the long-term psychological effects she fears will continue to haunt her, this gave me especial pause.  It made me think of Ephron, emotionally troubled, living in the come down of a life not lived in porn; of John Updike suffering once again with his Presbyterianism; obviously, I wasn’t too worried about good old dead-as-a-doornail Solzhenitsyn, but I knew there were surely enough other damaged authors out there – who knew, perhaps I would become one? – perhaps, already, I was – for me to say, finally, hopefully, “I think I’ve found my charity!”

Michael Wood's 2004 essay on Henry James's testicles was recently anthologized in the Dzanc Books book Best of The Web 2008. Ruth's Big Date, a short movie he wrote, will be released later this year.