I tore through a lot of books these last six months (26), on my way to what will surely be my perennial failure at a lofty "book a week" goal. In my defense, I did pretty well at the "keep my kids from destroying each other/the world" goal, so we take our victories as they come. If you only give one of the book from this list a shot, it should be Sing, Unburied, Sing; Exit West; or The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. However, if you're up for some writing that pushes comfort levels and nuance over ideological purity a bit, The Good Lord Bird was a pleasant surprise.
Julie of the Wolves – Jean Craighead George
This was one of the foundation books of my childhood. George's beloved YA book (before YA was a thing) about a solitary Inuit girl caught between traditional and modern worlds is expansive and literary, with a not-subtle focus on the agency and emotions of a self-sufficient young woman. I read this with my older daughter (admittedly, I did leave out the attempted rape scene at the start, and translated the archaic "Eskimo" into "Inuit" on the fly) who I hope loved it. I never know what to do about reading more challenging books with her...I don't want to take away her own discovery by reading them too early, but I also want a bulwark against the mindless learning to read series lining our shelves as well.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness - Arundhati Roy
Roy's The God of Small Things had been one of those books that sat on my shelf for the better part of a decade before I got to it. I'm glad I did, and I'm glad I followed up with Ministry. The interwoven tales of outcasts and nontraditional characters has Roy's trademark dense imagery and subtly complex dialogue against a vibrant and violent background of India's cultural and political clashes. It's a big story writ in small details, that allows itself the nuances of human existence...humor, tragedy, self-deception, hope, all jangled together.
Bossypants - Tina Fey
This was a "I don't have any audiobooks queued up, let's see what's available last minute at the library" selection for a long road. Almost the identical set of circumstances that led me to read Amy Pohler's Yes Please. And with similar results. Both are intermittently funny sort-of-memoirs, but neither as funny as the women who wrote them have capacity for. It was ultimately forgettable and disjointed.
Sweet Land Stories - E.L. Doctorow
I've been trying to read more Doctorow, having really liked Book of Daniel and some other works. Sweet is a collection of short stories that really didn't land for me. There wasn't a really coherent theme, and the stories themselves, while I remember them being mildly enjoyable, don't stand out at all. I had a vaguely positive reaction to it at the time.
Darwin's Ghosts - Rebecca Stott
It's always been incredible to me how opponents of the scientific theory of Evolution focus with such intensity and antipathy on Darwin. Admittedly, Origins was a watershed moment in our understanding of the natural world, but evolution and natural selection as concepts did not start (and absolutely didn't end) with Darwin. The "Were you there? Derp derp derp" crowd somehow thinks poking holes in Darwin's understanding somehow invalidates everything that comes after (let alone Darwin's work itself). Stott's book does a fantastic job of dispelling the lone-evolutionary-gunman conception by delving into Darwin's precursors and the context in which ideas about the natural world evolved. She uses Darwin's own list of references as a starting point, but also considers who didn't make his cut, and why. It's a fascinating look at not only how ideas about natural systems and our place in them have changed, but how that specific topic relates to our evolving systems of knowledge, and the controls we attempt to place on them.
Exit West - Moshin Hamid
Hamid's novel of refugees is a powerful vision without an on the nose polemic. With a foot in the current era, and another in the magical realism of unexplained portals as the vehicles for refugee escape, Hamid builds poignant literary constructs around the real world drama playing out concurrently. The novel follows a young couple escaping a repressive regime. With the time-compression of the refugee journey into the symbolic portals, Hamid allows for the exploration of the human experience that prompts their flight, as well as the alien experience of starting over in a new landscape, and the constant uncertainty that surrounds it all. The NYT book review made a great comparison to the bending of the physics of transit overlying an examination of the bending of moral physics that's so evident in the current debates but also has a timeless quality. Exit lives up to the well-deserved hype.
The English Major - Jim Harrison
I have a love-hate relationship with Harrison, or, I guess, a love-sometimes-creeped-out-by relationship. He's one of my favorite contemporary American writers, with classics like Legends of the Fall and others demonstrating a sweepingly epic and austere style, and Brown Dog, a genius for capturing the characters and character of a place in dense, messy human form. However, once in a while (his Detective Sunderson novels mostly) his characters devolve so far into human failings that the uncomfort level outweighs the literary mastery. English Major is a nice balance between the two, a road trip by a divorcee full of messy nuance, that plays out against a general commentary on the nature of the landscape. It's elevated enough to be enjoyable enough, but still full of Harrison's trademark fallible characters and squishy, real, humanness.
Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss
Wise Man's Fear is the sequel to The Name of the Wind an ambitious effort in world-and-character-building by Rothfuss focused on a rouge-ish young protagonist making his way through a magical training academy on his way to revenge for his family's deaths at the hands of otherworldly denizens. Yeah...so it's hard to do sword-and-sorcery type stuff without tripping over a dozen tropes before the end of the first chapter (the resemblance between this and other works like Piers Anthony's -inferior- Apprentice Adept series is noted), but Rothfuss has a deftness and ingenuity that makes his world work. If for no other reason I like this archetypal rags-to-prominence story because it allows it's protagonist to fail, and not in an epic self-sacrificing way, but in the little small human failures of pride, ambition, uncertainty, etc. I look forward to seeing the conclusion of Qvothe's story if Rothfuss ever gets his butt in gear with the third novel.
Get in Trouble - Kelly Link
Link is another new author for me and I picked up Get in Trouble mostly because of the sheer weight of review and accolades (including generous praise from longtime favorites Michael Chabon and Neil Gaiman). The hype was right on target here, as this collection of short stories is weird, funny, and engaging. Chabon's robust characters and Gaiman's beautiful weirdness are exactly the combination of styles I would ascribe to the book, so it's fitting they lent their names in praise. The fully realized teens in some of the story are such a great (and if there is justice, intentional) counterpoint to the vapid YA supernatural teen genre. I will be reading me some more Link.
After the Quake - Haruki Murakami
Murakami is a constant favorite, and I'm regretting slowly running out of his works to read. While I always feel I'm missing a little bit of the cultural context of Japan needed to really get elements of his novels, they usually touch deeply on something universal enough to human experience to make them relatable across that boundary. This collection of short stories takes various looks at the intangible, personal shock waves of a 1995 earthquake in Kobe on his characters. The quake is a guiding theme in exploring their own deeper personal turbulences, from the tragic to the absurd (giant crime-fighting frog!).
Good Birders Don't Wear White - Lisa White
Ostensibly a collection of anecdotal strategies, tips, stories, etc. from birders, it was mostly a skim read. There were a couple of well written bits, but most of it was basic level tips, somewhat lame attempts at humor, and just dry writing. Enough said.
The Son - Phillip Meyer
A Texas take on the classic generational empire novel, Son was enjoyable, but seemed caught between whether it wanted to accent traditional western elements, or more literary character development. It didn't ever really successfully meld the two for me. The story of Texas oil and cattle families was a fun read, with some nice changes to the typical trope, but it felt a little washed out for such an ambitious scale. I also never really got the sense of place that crowds into similar novels like Annie Proulx's Barkskins. That being said, any disappointment was only that a really good novel missed some chances to be great, still leaving a decent read in its wake.
Sharpe's Tiger - Bernard Cornwell
I grew up watching a lot of PBS (being one of 3 channels we got in the North Country at the time), so I got to live through a lot of truly fantastic period piece shows (varying runs of Masterpiece Theater, Robin of Sherwood, etc.) One of my favorites at the time was the Sharpe's Rifles series, most of which focused on and around the British involvement in the Peninsular War and other period conflicts. I had never read any of the source materials, so I gave it a shot. In general the series (see subsequent entries in this list) is certainly not the pinnacle of literature, but its focus on the rise and ambition of its namesake antihero (in a very real sense of the word) echoes similar (albeit slightly better) historical series like Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels. It's high adventure, and damsels in distress, and war, but without the pompous fawning over the British Empire of Kipling and his contemporaries. The ground-level view of the machine of British imperialism may still have some banners of over-glorification strapped to it, but this is a grittier, more nuanced context that matches its not-so-selfless protagonist.
Sharpe's Triumph - Bernard Cornwell
Same as the last entry, with 20% more of everything. 'Splosions! Also, is there a more British name than "Bernard Cornwell"?
Hero of the Empire - Candice Millard
While I was slogging through India with Sharpe on the prior two entries, I came across this interesting historical bit on a supposedly key excerpt from the life of young Winston Churchhill. The account of his service in South Africa, capture, and "daring escape", was passingly interesting, but any soft of lessons drawn from that experience on his future career seem tacked on as an afterthought. The bulk of the book is on that one part of his life, with very little buildup or follow-through. It felt like a single, somewhat poorly scripted episode of Young Indiana Jones (remember that, kids of the 80s?). If you want a good bio on Churchhill, my guess is this is not the place to start.
The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky - N.K. Jemisin
Last year I read The Fifth Season on a friend's recommendation, and enjoyed its weird sciencey-fictiony-geology-based-apocalyptic bent. Gate and Sky are the other two books in the series. Generally I am not a fan of the current obsession with trilogies (especially among the YA set), but this series was worth the read. The world-building is masterful, with an interesting take on magic-but-not-magic-but-maybe-magic? as a function of connection with primal geologic forces. While it could have devolved from there, Jemisin spends a lot of time fleshing out the culture, politics, and minutia of her weird, traumatized societies. While not antiheroes, per se, her protagonists are flawed, no one gets an unblemished happy ending, etc. There were a couple looseish ends, but the sheer ambition of the novel makes up for it. Not going to win the Mann Booker prize (though it did score the Hugo and Nebula awards..), but very engaging and unique in a very derivative genre. Definitely not sparkly-vampire-werewolf-whatever fare.
Future Home of the Living God – Louise Erdrich
I am a longtime fan of Erdrich, so your mileage may vary on this one. A marked distancing of her existing body of contemporary Native American fiction, Future Home is a near-future fictional commentary on rising moral extremism. Much like The Handmaid's Tale, the focus is on the subjugation of women as breeding machines, though the details differ a bit. It was rightfully criticized as being a little too derivative of Tale, but I liked that it began pre-dystopia, and Erdrich's characteristic artful and subtle prose really capture the slow slide of a democracy into fascism and then dark theocracy. It loses points for originality, but blows Tale out of the water in terms of style and prose.
Manhattan Beach - Jennifer Egan
After reading A visit from the Goon Squad last year and being mostly underwhelmed, and uncertain how it rated the accolades it received, Manhattan Beach was a pleasant surprise. The Depression/WWII era novel follows several interelated characters involved in the war effort, organized crime, etc. Some of the characters are a little two-dimensional, but the interactions and unique human moments Egan manages to squeeze out of them made for a good read. Still nowhere near the accolades for Goon Squad but a much more enjoyable read.
The Slow Regard of Quiet Things - Patrick Rothfuss
Unfortunately, Rothfuss's Kingkiller series (see The Wise Man's Fear above) remains without a third novel. Slow Regard was a short interlude that followed a secondary character doing...basically nothing. Literally, it was mostly a day in the neurotic life of sort of deal. The whole book was just a delving into the character's damage, but not in a meaningful or even explanatory way. I get that it was a personal book for Rothfuss, what he wanted to write, but it just came off as inconsequential. The upside was that the audiobook was narrated by Rothfuss himself.
The Good Lord Bird - James McBride
McBride's best work so far is a fictional account of the abolitionist John Brown's campaign against slavery, from the viewpoint of a young African American boy, who spends the better part of the story in drag as part of Brown's ragtag army. The novel is subversive without being polemic, casting shade at any number of historical idols. Brown gets a complex treatment both tilting at windmills but also a madman who more embodies true principle, however insane, then traditional heroes like Frederick Douglass (who gets practically skewered). McBride doesn't shy away from satire at the expense of all sides, with a greater message that seems to revolve around the very human, fallible, and self-deceiving nature of humanity as it plays out in social struggle.
Sharpe's Rifles - Bernard Cornwell
Another of the Sharpe's series described above. Enjoyable, but I still think I like the TV series better.
Hellboy Omnibus - Mike Mignola
Before Hellboy became a series of movies, cartoons, etc. of varying quality, it was an oddly beautiful series of graphic novels. Mignola has a flair for austere, understated storytelling which may seem odd to say of an epic involving a cigar chomping demon who spends no small amount of time punching things. His story starts, it progresses, and it comes to its inevitable end. Mignola creates a modern hero archetype even as he draws from a deep well of mythos. I counted this because the saga really is what a graphic novel should be...a self-contained, finite story that is best suited for a visual form.
The Wind Through the Keyhole - Stephen King
A side-quest in the chronology of the Dark Tower series, Keyhole follows young Roland Deschain on a diversion shortly after the events of Wizard and Glass. It was an enjoyable mini-adventure, but really didn't add anything to the primary story, and felt a little tacked on. However, I enjoyed the young Roland parts of the story far more than the old Roland parts, so I didn't mind an extended reverie in the past.
Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jesmyn Ward
This was easily one of my favorite books of the past six months. Sing is an artfully told story of family struggle as a lens on contemporary racial struggle, but without a heavy hand. At heart it's a literary boiler room, telling an increasingly claustrophobic tale of a mixed race couple, their children, and their community, all in decay and free-fall. Jesmyn adds a touch of magical realism with ghosts as a plot device, but it's handled deftly and doesn't deter from the power of her characters. It interweaves seamlessly with the more abstract ghosts of the characters pasts and traumas. An exceptional read.
Hiroshima - John Hersey
I don't know how I managed not to read this post-war examination of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It seems like the sort of book that gets over-prescribed to freshman English classes or college Sociology intro sessions. Hiroshima is a critical evaluation of the impacts of the bombing told through the eyes of 6 survivors. From the incredible scenes of carnage to the chilling tiny details, the power of the book is in translating an event that happened on a scale we can't fathom into real, tangible people. What amazed me is that the book originally debuted in 1946, in a world still steeped in propaganda. I can't imagine what an incredible blow to the zeitgeist it must have been for the average reader at the time.
