Year-end lists – Page 9

January 1, 2014

2013 in Books. Let’s Start with #15

As has become an annual tradition, I will be counting down my top books read in 2013. I didn’t do quite as well as last year in the number of books read: only 24 in 2013. I am particularly appalled because a couple of my friends have reported reading over 200 books in 2013. What? How does that even happen? That’s an average of a book every day and 3/4! I suspect there’s some skimming going on. Anyway, despite only having read 24 books in 2013, I’ve still got a very health Top 15 to report on. That’s right, fifteen books I would definitely recommend.

Of the also rans, I will mention The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld, which is definitely worth checking out when it is released in early 2014, and is beautifully written, but didn’t quite make the cut. My Beautiful Failure, Janet Ruth Young’s third novel for teens is a terrific sequel of sorts to her outstanding debut novel, The Opposite of Music. (Janet’s previous novel, The Babysitter Murders, was my #12 book read in 2011.) Marta Acosta’s The She-Hulk Diaries was lots of fun for a novel based on a comic book character. Sadly, despite a couple of great stories, overall I didn’t really enjoy Tom Perotta’s latest collection, Nine Inches. And my biggest disappointment of the year was Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, which I enjoyed, but not as much as I was hoping I would. And now for #15…

#15 – The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell

Marnie and Nelly are sisters whose parents are neglectful drug addicts. But that’s all over now. As the book begins, Marnie and Nelly are burying their parents whose self-destructive tendencies have brought them to the end of their lives. The girls face nearly insurmountable odds just to grow up, but with the help of next-door neighbor Lennie, and a couple of other surprising sources, they will struggle to endure with surprising results. Lisa O’Donnell has crafted a dark coming-of-age story that shows the strength of siblings beaten down by the harsh cruelties of life and created a couple of unique voices in fiction.

January 14, 2013

Favorite Books Read in 2012 – the Complete List

And now, here is my complete list of my favorite books read in 2012.

Day for Night by Frederick Reiken
May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes
Wonders of the Invisible World by Patricia A. McKillip
Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Blunt
Among Others by Jo Walton
Coral Glynn by Peter Cameron
The Paternity Test by Michael Lowenthal
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Dear Life: Stories by Alice Munro
All This Talk of Love by Christopher Castellani
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen
Elza’s Kitchen by Marc Fitten
Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow

Two more books got a special mention:

The First Time I Heard… Kate Bush, ed. by Scott Heim
Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul and Rock and Roll by Ann & Nancy Wilson with Charles R. Cross

Then there were ten other books that I considered for my list of favorite books read in 2012, that for whatever reason, just didn’t make the cut. I would say they are all good books and well worth reading. These are listed in alphabetical order.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray
Canada by Richard Ford
The Collective by Don Lee
Falling Backwards: A Memoir by Jann Arden
Fantastic Four: Season One by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and David Marquez
The First Warm Evening of the Year by Jamie Saul
Live by Night by Dennis Lehane
The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Eviston
Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Finally, five or six more books I read that just didn’t make the cut at all. Not that they were bad, but they just weren’t in the league of the other books I’d read. There were really only a couple of books that I either actively didn’t like, or that disappointed me. I will not be listing these books here. Ask me privately if you want to know what they were.

January 13, 2013

Favorite Books Read in 2012 – #1

My favorite book read in 2012 was published in 2010, and recommended to me by my dear friend Daniel Goldin, owner of Boswell Book Company, an independent bookstore in Milwaukee. Daniel is one of the best recommenders of books around, and he has a very active blog. When Daniel mentioned Day for Night, I jotted it down on my list of books to be read, but by the time I was looking for something to read and stumbled over that title, I couldn’t remember anything he said about it. Still, trusting Daniel’s book recommendations, coupled with the fact that the author lived in the Boston area, I decided to give it a try. I was blown away. So superb, and a debut too! I am eagerly awaiting Frederick Reiken’s next novel.

#1 – Day for Night by Frederick Reiken

Near the end of Frederick Reiken’s powerful novel Day for Night, one character says of another, “… if I thought hard enough, I’d come to understand her purpose.” With Reiken’s novel, I feel the opposite. The harder you ponder and try to make all the many story threads come together, the more elusive it all becomes. Yet when you take a step back and don’t try so hard to figure it out, it all flows and comes together like elegant artwork or music. In Day for Night, each of the ten chapters is told from the point-of-view of a different character. They are structured like individual short stories, yet all the stories are linked in some way, and they all build a larger tapestry. With topics as far ranging as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, marine biology, the Nazi’s persecution of the Jews, and environmental sensitivity syndrome, and a cast of characters that span continents and generations, Day for Night has mystery, romance, history, adventure… even a little science fiction when looked at from a certain angle. It’s the kind of tale that sticks with you for hours or days after you’ve read it, and haunts you in the best of all possible ways. I loved it.

January 12, 2013

Favorite Books Read in 2012 – #2

A new book by A.M. Homes is always an event in the Colford household. Homes is one of the few authors that both Scot and I love and read together. Homes is the author of six novels, two short story collections, a memoir, a travel memoir. She adapted her own novel for teens, Jack, as a teleplay. Her celebrated collection of short stories, The Safety of Objects was adapted to the screen by Rose Troche. Her latest novel is a twisted literary odyssey that is, while being in the runner-up position for best book I read in 2012, is definitely my favorite book published in 2012 that I read.

#2 – May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes

A.M. Homes has created something astounding with May We Be Forgiven. This modern tale of redemption followed Harold Silver, a man on the outside looking in, who is forced to stop watching and start participating, when his older brother George comes unwound and becomes responsible for a series of deaths. Harold suddenly finds himself responsible for the care of George’s two children, his home, his pets, and getting his own life back on track. But before he can do any of that, he must descend into the surreal, rhythms of a life that buffets him around from one unsettling experience to the next. I loved this book. It starts off with a series of shocking events, then peels back the facade of the upper middle-class to expose some pretty bizarre, and sometimes ugly behavior. Readers will be left alternately disturbed and chuckling by Homes’ straight-forward writing style married to her startling circumstances. Characters frequently misunderstand each other to comic or tragic effect. But somewhere along the way, with sublime subtlety, Homes starts to turn things around, and allow George to piece his life back together. As the title may suggest, this is a powerful, and beautifully rendered story of forgiveness.

January 10, 2013

Favorite Books Read in 2012 – #’s 3 & 4

A debut novel and a collection of previously printed short stories — not what I was expecting for my third and fourth favorite books read in 2012!

#4 – Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

Carol Rifka Brunt has crafted a beautifully, sad, coming-of-age tale about fourteen-year-old June Elbus, her older sister Greta, and her Uncle Finn. Set in the early 1980’s, June’s world is rocked when her beloved Uncle dies of complications from AIDS. Recent changes in her relationship with Greta have made June believe that Finn was truly the only person to understand her. Enter the mysterious Toby, much maligned by the rest of her family, June finds in Toby a potential kindred spirit and someone from whom she can at the very least, learn more about Finn’s life.

Brunt masterfully negotiates the twists and turns of adolescence, while adding an additional layer of adult, emotional trauma in a story that is both powerful and incredibly moving. It also demonstrates just how far we’ve come as a society since the early 80’s, with regard to AIDS. Yet at the same time, some of the themes Brunt explores would still be scandalous in today’s world, which is a shame. This is a terrific debut novel, and I highly recommend it.

#3 – Wonders of the Invisible World by Patricia A. McKillip

I was thrilled when I found out there was a new Patricia McKillip book recently released; then mildly disappointed when I found out it was a collection of previously published short stories. Not that I had read any of the stories yet, but generally, I enjoy McKillip’s novels more than her short stories.

Much to my surprise, the stories in Wonders of the Invisible World were truly wonders, and rose to the heights of some of McKillip’s best writing. This gifted artist paints literary landscapes across my heart and mind whether the setting be Puritan New England, a mysterious village in the woods, or an underwater realm. She snaps characters to life with the turn of a phrase, a phrase that seems familiar in the fantasy context, yet is at once strikingly original.

There is a lot of water imagery in this collection, which delighted me. I can’t recall many of her novels featuring the magic of water, and she writes it beautifully. I would love to see an entire novel devoted to the characters and setting of ‘Knight of the Well,’ or ‘The Kelpie.’

McKillip doesn’t just stick with fantasy in this collection either, but dips her hand into science fiction, as with the time travelling researcher in the title story, ‘Wonders of the Invisible World.’

It was nice to see some of McKillip’s less seen humor creep into several of these stories. While her creation and depiction of fantasy realms is the strongest weapon in her literary arsenal, this collection shows off the prodigious talent in her juxtaposition of fantasy with the modern world. And as is now to be expected, her stellar command of language shines through in this magnificent collection.