Now today we're having a "DC Snowday" which is when everything is cancelled and shut down not because it's actually snowing, but because they're pretty sure it might snow, possibly, sometime soon (it's 11:30 here and the snow just started). One way or another, Tim and I got the day off and I'm making Pasta e Fagioli (i.e., pasta fazool), so, Thanks DC, for your wonderful overreaction to all things weather-related.
As promised, here are my top ten favorite books from last year, in no particular order.
Nova by Samuel R. Delany
I love science fiction, but with a strong qualifier: I love science fiction movies and television, but have never been a huge Science Fiction reader. Science Fiction novels just aren't as enthralling to me as seeing it on the screen. (Terrible, right?) Nova, however, is one of the more brilliant books I've read in the past few years, in any genre. I'm not sure why it's not more famous (it was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1969, at least). The plot is standard fare: the captain of a star ship puts together a ragtag crew of misfits to embark on a seemingly hopeless quest across the universe that is both personal and political. The writing, however, is intensely beautiful and the imagery is bold. The story resonates with mythology: something I'm a huge sucker for. Given that Samuel Delaney was born in Harlem about 20 years after the Harlem Renaissance, this should all be no big surprise. Basically, I turned the last page and felt like I'd just eaten a rich and satisfying piece of cake, which is exactly how the best books should make you feel.
True Grit by Charles Portis
Just listen to the first paragraph of the book:
People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange them, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.
Here is what happened.
TELL ME that that doesn't make you want to read the rest of the book. You can't. This wonderful little book is told from the POV of Mattie, who has bigger cojones than any character in any Western I've ever read. She is fearless and driven and completely no-nonsense and I'm totally in love with her. The writing is tight and strong and fast-paced and when you reach the end, you feel inclined to flip back to the first page and read it all over again. This book is a pleasure if for no other reason than the amazing way that Mattie verbally eviscerates the drunken, stupid, slovenly men she's forced to rely on for help. Just amazing.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
This book was on all the best seller lists last year for a very good reason: it's both funny and touching, without being cheesy. This is a novel about a family, a mother, a father, and their daughter. When the mother, Bernadette, disappears, 15-year-old Bee begins putting together the pieces of the puzzle. The whole book is great, but some of the individual scenes alone are enough to make it a worth-while read, including one particularly satisfying scene taking place at a PTO-like event organized by Bernadette's arch nemesis. This is what happens with beautiful, creative people with genius IQs are left to their own devices and it's fantastic.
The Dangerous Animals Club by Stephen Tobolowsky
If you don't know Stephen Tobolowsky's name, I'm 100% certain that you would recognize his face. He has 226 acting credits on IMDB. Though I know and love him most as Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day. This was a surprising memoir for me; it was more literary than your typical "celebrity" memoir and more well-rounded. It made me nostalgic for things I didn't even know existed. It reminded me of something Stephen King might write, if he had been an actor instead of a writer, maybe because King and Tobolowsky are only a few years apart in age? Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of stories from Tobolowsky's life, even if the two of us seem to have very little in common.
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
Those of you from the South will, I think, find this one particularly resonant. Also those of you who got degrees in literature from a Liberal Arts school with a strong gender studies leaning. These stories are magical and lovely and sad and mystifying all at once. 'Nuff said.
Joyland by Stephen King
I just can't help it. I just love Stephen King (when he's on his A-game) with every fiber of the marrow in my bones down to the very bottom of my soul. This book isn't particularly deep or unusual, but it's just satisfying and wonderful and I read the entire thing in one sitting. Joyland is a pulp-fiction murder mystery set in an old amusement park and peopled with your typical amusement-park type characters and it has everything you might want and expect from that sort of book, in addition to having a very satisfying coming-of-age story that makes you feel the way the movie Stand by Me makes you feel. Loved every page of it. (I liked this one better than Dr. Sleep, in case you wondered.)
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
After reading Gone Girl, I picked up Gillian Flynn's other two books with a swiftness and found that both of them were also page-turners. While I (and everyone else, apparently) enjoyed Gone Girl (and that twist!) I think this is actually my favorite of the three books. I think what I enjoyed about it is that while there are lots of books in the world about relationships between men and women, there are not as many about relationships between mothers and daughters, or even just women and girls' relationships to one another--and especially not many so gritty and disturbing. My relationship with my mother is NOTHING like the pair in this book and so it was like watching an epic train wreck and not being able to look away.
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
I might go so far as to say this was my favorite book of 2013. I am totally fascinated by/terrified of North Korea and I think that this is the first piece of fiction I've ever read about it. This book is masterfully written (it won the Pulitzer), gripping, imaginative, haunting... etc. etc.etc. on and on ad infinitum. I have no way of knowing if the North Korea described in this book is accurate or not, but it doesn't matter. The places and people and culture described in this novel are moving and disturbing all the same.
Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson
Another memoir, this time by the Bloggess herself. I'm fairly certain almost everyone I know has already read this, so I'm not going to go on about it too much. Jenny Lawson writes about her absurd life with a delicious awareness of said absurdity and of her own (sometimes amusing, sometimes debilitating) fatal flaws, and everyone in the world is the better for it. Period.
The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
One of the rare instances when the book and the film stand on (almost) equal footing. I would not go so far as to say this book is excellent, but it is surprisingly good. One of the reasons it stood out for me was that, despite being written and published in the 80's, its point of view is ahead of its time. I like to read the older novels that famous movies are based on, sometimes to my own detriment. This year I attempted to read The Exorcist and was so disgusted by its cheesy, sexist, overly hysterical vapidness that I put it down 30 pages in. Written when it was, it would have been easy for The Silence of the Lambs to be just as sexist and narrow-minded, but I can't stress enough how happy I was to find that wasn't the case. The main character of the book is a female FBI agent who has to deal with sexism and stupidity all around her, and who does it fiercely. Her best friend is another female FBI agent, who is African American. The victim is the daughter of a powerful female senator. The villain is a man who wants to be a woman, but this is very important: the book goes out of its way to emphasize that that is not what makes him a deviant. He's "deviant" because he kills people, not because he's transgendered. He's an anomaly. I could go on and on about this forever. I wish I'd read this in college because I would have written an INSANE paper about it.
Honorable Mention:
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman: a modern fairy tale.
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach: a hilarious book about the human digestive tract.
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: a refreshing teen romance.
Habibi by Craig Thompson: a stunning graphic novel about the depths of love.
Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer--America's Deadliest Serial Murderer by Ann Rule: a classic in the True Crime genre, only to be read if you don't mind worrying that everyone around you is a serial killer for three months afterward.
Dishonorable mention: AKA, I read them so you don't have to:
Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates: Obviously, I like disturbing books, but I got absolutely NO enjoyment out of reading this awful book.
The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg: A depressing book about obesity with zero reward or redemption.
Him Her Him Again the End of Him by Patricia Marx: so promising, to little payoff.
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld: PLEASE STOP COMPLAINING. I HATE YOU.
