“While few who write or read one-day novels will require such verisimilitude, they all understand the preciousness of every passing minute,” he continues. “More importantly, though, they all recognize that it is very easy, and very common, for each and every one of us to live out an entire lifetime of emotion, reflection and experience in a single day – or less.” Click through to check out Browner’s picks, and feel free to add to his list in the comments.

The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker

Oh man — this novel will definitely divide people into those who enjoy reading multiple pages about why single, small items are placed in opaque bags in this day and age, or how plastic straws are inferior to paper ones, and those who simply don’t. Baker takes the time to wax philosophical in this novel about a man who rides an escalator back to his job after lunch. That’s it. It’s about the thoughts he has about his life as he returns to his mundane job, but if you go with it, you are guaranteed to be sucked into the narrative.

Before we began casting our nets, we set a few parameters for ourselves. First, no young adult novels. If we’d gathered YA, it would dominate the list. Yes, we love Where The Red Fern Grows, but we had to draw the line somewhere. Second, no books where an animal’s death serves as the emotional linchpin (we’re looking at you, Marley & Me). What we ended up with were 10 of the most emotionally wrecking books that we absolutely love. Did we miss your favorite? Please tell us in the comments.

A Widow’s Story by Joyce Carol Oates

“I do it so it feels real,” Sylvia Plath once wrote, “I do it so it feels like hell.” That’s the best way to describe Joyce Carol Oates’ widowhood memoir A Widow’s Story. Upon the passing of her husband, Raymond Smith, Oates immediately descends into a state of simultaneous hyper-awareness and detachment, a state in which every whisper, every passing breeze, every found artifact within her home seems to indicate that she, herself, should force herself to follow suit. For an author who projects such a powerful sense of self into every one of her works (see: Foxfire), catching a glimpse of Oates this vulnerable, this broken, is disarming. The reader works through the loss at the same pace Oates herself does; which is to say that by the end, we’re still there.

Our favorite bit: “The worst you can call it is a form of primate behavior.” Click through to view the letter in its entirety.

Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville
One of the most vexing novellas ever written, Bartleby swirls with the odd tension of inaction. It’s like an epic staring contest between the young, eponymous protagonist and the gloominess he sees in life ahead. Find a well lit booth at a quiet bar for this reading… and bring money for several drinks.

Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2010 Longlist
Peter Carey – Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)
Emma Donoghue – Room (Pan MacMillan – Picador)
Helen Dunmore – The Betrayal (Penguin – Fig Tree)
Damon Galgut – In a Strange Room (Grove Atlantic – Atlantic Books)
Howard Jacobson – The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)
Andrea Levy – The Long Song (Headline Publishing Group – Headline Review)
Tom McCarthy – C (Random House – Jonathan Cape)
David Mitchell – The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (Hodder & Stoughton – Sceptre)
Lisa Moore – February (Random House – Chatto & Windus)
Paul Murray – Skippy Dies (Penguin – Hamish Hamilton)
Rose Tremain – Trespass (Random House – Chatto & Windus)
Christos Tsiolkas – The Slap (Grove Atlantic – Tuskar Rock)
Alan Warner – The Stars in the Bright Sky (Random House – Jonathan Cape)

Bonus link: Hear Hip-Hop’s 25 Greatest Drinking Songs

Be sure to leave your own suggestions in the comments.

1. Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bolaño (January 12)
According to The Millions, Mr. Bolaño has up to four books coming out this year, but we decided to go with this one because it’s about a Peruvian poet with a chronic case of the hiccups. Which makes it a rather fitting lead in to the following…

2. The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris (January 18)
If you loved his National Book Award-nominated debut, Then We Came to the End, be warned: his sophomore effort is much darker, though equally satisfying. The plot centers on a man who suffers from an unnamed disorder that makes him walk uncontrollably — which obviously begins to take a toll on his personal and professional life. Of note: The book has already been optioned by Miramax.

3. Reality Hunger by David Shields (February 23)
In his blurb for David Shields’ “manifesto,” Charles Baxter compares his style to that of Wilde, Flaubert, and Baudelaire. Jonathan Lethem had this to say: “I’ve just finished reading Reality Hunger and I’m lit up by it — astonished, intoxicated, ecstatic, overwhelmed.” While we haven’t read the galley that’s sitting on our desk yet, any work that explores “the bending of form and genre, the lure and blur of the real” sounds aces to us.

4. The Ask by Sam Lipsyte (March 2)
If you haven’t read his work before, then we’ll fill you in: Sam Lipsyte’s writing is smart, dark, and hilarious. His fourth book tells the story of Milo Burke, a development officer at a third-rate New York university who gets fired for telling off a spoiled undergrad. There’s only one way he can get his job back: He must oversee an old college buddy’s large donation. If this one doesn’t make you laugh out loud, then you have no soul.

5. Noir by Robert Coover (March 4)
We often find postmodernists’ work hard to describe, so here’s the synopsis from Amazon: “You are Philip M. Noir, Private Investigator. A mysterious young widow hires you to find her husband’s killer–if he was killed. Then your client is killed and her body disappears–if she was your client. Your search for clues takes you through all levels of the city, from classy lounges to lowlife dives, from jazz bars to a rich sex kitten’s bedroom, from yachts to the morgue.” More confused? Read an excerpt on Vice.

6. Solar by Ian McEwan (March 30)
If you love this Booker Prize-winning novelist’s output as much as we do, then you’ve probably already got his latest on your radar. Like 2005′s Saturday, Solar‘s storyline is decidedly hot topical; it focuses on a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose work is concerned with climate change. You can read an early excerpt here, courtesy of The New Yorker.

7. Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel (April 13)
The follow-up novel from the Canadian author who wrote Life of Pi, which won the Man Booker Prize back in 2002. While as far as we know, there’s no tiger in this one (which deals with the Holocaust), there is a howler monkey named Virgil and a donkey named Beatrice.

8. The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis (May 11)
According to the Guardian, Amis’ latest “will explore his belief that the apparent freedom of the sexual revolution actually placed huge pressure on women, with his late sister Sally one of its victims.” The story is set in 1970, and follows a group six men and women summering in an Italian castle.He’s worried that it’s going to get him in trouble with feminists. We can’t wait to weigh in.

9. The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (May 18)
We were big fans of Orringer’s 2003 short-story collection, How to Breathe Underwater, and her debut novel promises to be just as rich and layered. Here’s what Michael Chabon had to say: “To bring an entire lost world… to vivid life between the covers of a novel is an accomplishment; to invest that world, and everyone who inhabits it, with a soul, as Julie Orringer does in The Invisible Bridge, takes something more like genius.”

10. Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis (June 15)
This is the sequel to Less Than Zero and begins like so: “They had made a movie about us.” What’s not to love?

And in the meantime Obama reads some poems: While GEORGE BUSH nominates cowboys for THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT OF THE ARTS, we’re giddy that BARACK OBAMA reads poetry. Or at least carries it around. He was spotted last week carrying a volume of Nobel winner DEREK WALCOTT’s collected works. Maybe he needed a break from reading comics. [UPI]

Deep Impac: The longlist for the IMPAC DUBLIN PRIZE — aka the most lucrative literary prize for any literature in English — has been announced. And a long list it is: 147 authors are vying for the 100,000 Euro prize, with top contenders including KHALID HOSSEINI, MICHAEL ONDAATJE, MICHAEL CHABON, JUNOT DIAZ and IAN MCEWAN. The winner will be announced in June, but for now if we read… a book a day, we can get through the list! [Guardian]

Le rocks the boat: NAM LE has won the 2008 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE (a bi-yearly competition for young writers in fiction, poetry and drama) for his debut book THE BOAT. Deemed a “phenomenal literary talent,” the Vietnamese writer explores abstract issues like heritage, culture and history in this collection of short stories — all to the tune of prestige and a hefty check of $140,000. [ABC]

Rahimi wins French Booker: Afghan writer ATIQ RAHIMI has been named the winner of the PRIX GONCOURT, one of the most prestigious French literary awards. His novel, SYNGUE SABOUR (“Stone of Patience”) tells a story about the oppression found in Afghan life. He has also written EARTH AND ASHES, a post-9/11 novel set in Afghanistan that was made into a film. [NYT]

Black and Van Sant worked together on the much-hyped MILK, a biopic about California’s first openly gay elected official that stars SEAN PENN. It opens November 26th. [Reuters]

Adiga in agent controversy after winning Booker: After winning the MAN BOOKER PRIZE earlier this month, ARAVIND ADIGA severed ties with his literary agent, WILLIAM MORRIS AGENCY, for no apparent reason this week. Sınce Tuesday, however, the author of THE WHITE TIGER now has British agent DAVID GODWIN fighting for him, who represented other Indian greats like ARUNDHATI ROY and KIRAN DESAI. [Calcutta Telegraph]

Updike has no mercy for Morrison: JOHN UPDIKE published a scathing review of TONI MORRISON’s new novel, A MERCY, in this week’s NEW YORKER. Known for critical sound and fury (hating on William Faulkner, for example), Updike’s opinions themselves are now getting criticized by the press.  [Gawker]

Kindle joins Oprah’s book club: OPRAH endorsed the AMAZON KINDLE last week on her Web site, which means the gadget is bound to see a spike in sales. Good news for the authors whose books are available through the device. Oprah’s own Kindle includes books by DAVID WROBLEWSKI, SUZANNE SOMERS and WENDY CHANT. [Information Week]

McEwan debuts London opera: IAN MCEWAN’S opera FOR YOU premiered yesterday in London. The Booker Prize-winning novelist focused the opera on themes of sex, obsession and adultery, saying that they suited the medium. He collaborated with composer MICHAEL BERKELEY, a long-time friend. [BBC]

- Iza Wojciechowska