1. Introduction to the End of the Year Post
So here we are . On the precipice of a new year, and, as such, a natural time to reflect on the year that was. You don’t have to look far to discover a bevy of year-end reviews: best books, best movies, best television shows, best sporting moments, best music…the list is pretty large. And politics. Oh, boy, let’s not go there. Politics loomed so large in 2017 that I retreated into fiction just to salvage my sanity. It got so bad that I swore off NPR and dove head first into podcasts, as I have documented earlier here. And I’m not going back on that track now. No political writing here, well, at least not yet. So since I invested so much time this year delving into modern fiction, I decided that on this last day of the year I would post the results of my reading work.
To that end, I thought I’d add my take, however small it may be, to the state of my reading this year. What follows is not an exhaustive list on any account except the one that covers my glacial reading experience this year. In fact, it’s an abbreviated list, shrunk to the top six books I read this year. The criteria is simple: these are the six books that I read in 2017 that really made an impact on me in some way. I will try to explain my reasoning as best I can, but, hey, sometimes a book just grabs you and you can’t really articulate why. But I’ll try, anyway.
As a side note, I can’t speak enough about my discovery of podcasts. As I hinted at above, finding these little gems and making them part of my daily/weekly listening regime has opened up a world of reading to me. Ones I especially like, and give credit to my reading resurgence, are: The Book Riot Podcast, The Book Show (from WAMC Public Radio- Joe Donahue is a wonderful, smart interviewer), Recommended (from Book Riot), Lit Up (it’s a guilty pleasure…I love Angela Ledgerwood with her Aussie accent!), Writing Excuses (for the Sci-Fi/Fantasy lover in me), and First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing (I think Mitzi Rapkin is a sharp interviewer, as well, and tailors her interviews to writers).
2. The Runners-up, as I read them.
Before we delve into the books that I did finish, let’s start with my, “I didn’t finish but boy I can’t wait to because I know they’re really super good” list for 2017:
Little Fires Everywhere, by Celest Ng
I bought this book over the summer and it vied for my attention with Behold the Dreamers. I made it about one hundred pages in before the demands of school and coaching took over, and, once that happened, the book ended up on my nightstand, waiting for me to return to it. That said, I absolutely love this book. I love Ng’s writing, her portrait of suburban life with just the right amount of twist. I also dig the way she portrays how an artistic person deals with the demands of society. Needless to say, I’m anxious to continue this book. Ng has won, for the second time, the Amazon Best Book of the Year award, so that’s saying something.
Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward
I bought this book on a fall trip to the Northshire Book Store in Manchester, Vermont, based on the recommendations of Jeff O’Neal and Rebecca Schinsky on The BookRiot Podcast. They called the book a classic in the making, and my look at the first chapter certainly doesn’t contradict that. I can’t wait to get to this one, as the legacy of race relations in the south continues in my reading life from last year’s reading of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. The tale, complete with ghost voices and multiple narrators, promises to be a deep,meaningful, and exciting read. I’m sure I’ll be talking about this one in the future, so stay tuned.
Behold the Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue
Another BookRiot favorite that I just didn’t get to this summer at the Cape. I tried, but Lincoln in the Bardo just took over. So I’m putting it on my winter reading list. I even bought the $2.99 version for my Kindle, so I can cross platform it if I need to! The story of Cameroonian immigrants in New York has me intrigued, especially as I read so much for school that discusses class differences/issues. A book that travels from Manhattan to the Hamptons? Well, sure, old sport, I’d love one. And let’s stop off and see that Jay Gatsby fella while we’re at it. I’m not sure that this book covers that ground, but I think they all orbit that epicenter, so I’m in. As with Jesmyn Ward’s latest, I’m sure I’ll be chatting this one up as soon as I can get to it.
3. The Best Books of 2017, according to me.
Here’s the list, in really no particular order for the first five.
The Tusk that Did the Damage, by Tania James
I read this book last winter, as it was a Christmas gift, and I was immediately captivated by it. I gave it to my wife, my mother, my kids. James’ command of different perspectives was so interesting and well done. Come on, you get the perspective of a young filmmaker, an Indian poacher, and, yes, a rogue elephant. How cool! I loved the section narrated by Gravedigger, the elephant. You get exotic locales, animal conservation, and rumination on the gray areas in which we all live. There are no easy answers in this book, and making you as a reader consider both sides of what appears to be an easy one sider is a pretty nifty trick. A moving book, I highly recommend this read.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#ffd216″ class=”” size=”28″]I think I realized reading this book that Buntin’s fiction and my own writing, which centers around small town life and the limits that that life imposes on people, are kindred spirits.[/perfectpullquote]
Marlena, by Julie Buntin
I read this book in the spring, based on an interview Julie Buntin gave with WAMC’s Joe Donahue, and did not regret spending the time in rural Michigan with these two teenage girls living amid the meth labs and depressed towns they inhabit. This is a story about the friendships we make in our teens and the legacy of those friendships. This is a dark book, no bones about it, but it’s well written and sharply drawn. I think I realized reading this book that Buntin’s fiction and my own writing, which centers around small town life and the limits that that life imposes on people, are kindred spirits. So maybe I’m biased, but it sure is a good read nonetheless. And for a debut novel it’s pretty impressive. I so wanted to get my two adult daughters to eat this one up, but it didn’t happen. They’re tastes are very different- one running more to Hogwarts and the other more to poetry- so I’ll wait. At some point they’ll be ready for this.
Our Souls at Night, by Kent Haruf
There are few writers I have encountered that can pull off so simple a story so well as Kent Haruf. The Plainsong and Eventide author wrote this, his last book, in 2015, and it is simply beautiful. The story of Addie and Louis, two widowed singles living in Holt, Colorado, is both audacious (they sleep together- not for sex but out of loneliness) and melancholy (things don’t always go well with adult children). It’s such a short book, but simple and beautiful- you could almost read it in a single sitting, and you probably should. The Netflix original movie came out this fall starring Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, and it’s really good, too. But do yourself a favor and linger in the prose of Kent Haruf before you watch it.
Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire
This book came from a recommendation from Brandon Sanderson’s Writing Excuses podcast, and what a gem it is! The premise, one that makes me question why I don’t get ideas like this, is that all of the kids who get sucked into fantasy worlds, think Narnia, eventually come back to our world needing therapy. And to get that therapy, they are sought out by Eleanor West to attend her school, a place that provides the help these kids- mostly girls- need to re-acclimatize to our world. Roll in a murder mystery and this novella makes for an awesome quick read that, according to NPR, is “a mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy ? a jewel of a book that deserves to be shelved with Lewis Carroll’s and C. S. Lewis’ classics.” Oh, and it won the Nebula, Hugo, Alex, and World Fantasy Awards, to name just a few.
A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
This was a last minute addition to the list, as I got it for Christmas last week and have plowed thought it in less than seven days. I read this in preparation for reading her newest book, Manhattan Beach, which sounds cool, and is on my list for 2018. But this book, the 2011 Pulitzer-Prize winner for fiction, has engendered so much praise that I felt compelled to see what all the fuss is all about. I also wanted to see why the mystique around this writer is so immense. And wow, what a surprise! This book is so good. It’s metafiction at its finest. Each chapter carries the thread away from the character who was the main focus of the previous chapter, thereby filling out the web of connections for each of these people. It’s fascinating and challenging and technically so outstanding (the chapters vary in narrative perspective and style) that I just kind of got swept away by it. And with the punk scene of the 1980’s as a core, well, it’s kind of chronologically in my wheelhouse. If you like nonlinear fiction that is smart, funny, and thought provoking, do yourself a favor and read this novel. You won’t regret it.
4. The Best Book of 2017
And now, my number one best read of the year:
Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders
This book. Wow. What hasn’t been said about this book? Winner of the Man Booker prize in 2017, this book, told in snippets from ghosts who inhabit the same graveyard as newly deceased Willie Lincoln, covers so much ground in such a novel way. Saunders, who is by trade a fantastic short story writer, brings his sharp focus and dexterity with characters to bear on this text that chronicles the crisis that surrounds the president’s dead son. This book covers so many voices in such a unique way, that it reads like something new, something fresh, something worth looking at. I absolutely loved this book, reading it on the beach at the Cape, on our sun porch in Harwich, at home on my deck in Latham, before bed, etc. I couldn’t put it down. I’m not sure whether it was the challenge of keeping all of those ghosts straight or discerning what Saunders was up to with his miniature portraits of the dead (their backstories are sad, funny, moving, angering, and all of the range in between), but I know it kept me coming back. And I thought about those voices well after I finished the book, and that’s saying something, because the book really has to grab my interest to stay with me for any length of time after I put it down. And if you need more incentive, apparently the audiobook version is supposed to be really engaging and well done. I haven’t listened, but I would consider it; that’s how much I loved this book.
So there it is, my state of reading for 2017. It was a bit of a reawakening for me, which came about in part due to the current awfulness that exists in Washington. I hope it continues in 2018.
Happy New Year, everyone. Keep reading.
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