Top Books of 2006

As many of you know, I've been sending out an annual restrospective of the books I've read and what I've liked for the past few years. This year, I've been keeping a blog of the books I read and reviewing each one. Starting now, I'll be keeping the blog up to date (sort of) throughout the year, so you can always see what I've read recently and what I've thought of it.

Best Wishes for a great 2007. As always, please send along your recent favorites, either posted here or emailed to me.

This year was a strange one for me for books. I read a lot that I liked at the beginning, and many at the end, and very little between March and October that I liked. Nevertheless, here goes:

Best Book: Plainsong - Ken Haruf
Runner Up: All the Names - Jose Saramago

My other favorites, in the order read:
Family History - Dani Shapiro
Moo - Jane Smiley
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street - Hilary Mantel
Oh The Glory of it all - Sean Wilsey
More, Now, Again Elizabeth Wurtzl
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian - Marina Lewycka
The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M.G. Vassanji
Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland
Truth and Beauty - Ann Patchett
Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safron Foer
Lighthousekeeping - Jeanette Winterson
Queen of the South - Arturo Perez-Reverte
The Virgin of the Small Plains - Nancy Pickard
Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - Dai Sijie
The Bookseller of Kabul - Asne Seierstad

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

This is a Norwegian journalist's depiction of her three-month stay with an Afghan family in Kabul after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. She does not appear as a character in the story, but events in five or six family members' lives are followed. I thought it was a great window into a country we've heard so much about here in America. I would have liked to hear a little less about how poorly the women were treated and a little more about other issues facing Afghanistan today. However, as a female journalist living with the family, she clearly found the women's issues to be quite disturbing. In any case, recommended.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

This was a tidy and satisfying novel/novella. It was a shorter book, reminding me of When the Emperor was Divine and Lighthousekeeping. (Perfect after the Mandela volume.) This story followed two children of political prisoners during the Mao regime in China. During their re-education in rural China they meet many interesting townspeople and travel around the area. Banned books play a central role in the story as well, making it a must for bibliophiles like myself. Recommended.

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

This book was Nelson Mandela's autobiography. I really enjoyed it, although at times the 600+ pages was a bit daunting. His book does a great job of describing his personal development as an activist, while secondarily charting the politics going on around him. A child of the late 1970's, I was completely unfamiliar with his entire story and found it inspiring and him strangely humble. Recommended.

The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard

This was a book I definitely enjoyed and did not like putting down. The writing style was similar to Jodi Picoult's although the book fit better into the suspense-mystery genre. By interspersing the past and present, Pickard brings the reader up to speed on the past as the characters themselves are figuring out long-term secrets. The characters were people I rooted for or hated. While probably not a classic this book was certainly good enough to recommend.

Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McAll Smith

Alexander McCall Smith is one of those authors whose books I turn to when I am wandering aimlessly though the library unsure of what to pick. Usually I find his books to be clever and sweet, almost fables. This installment of the Ladies #1 Detective Agency series had the same characters with the same honest concerns, but the cases that Mme Ramotswe solved did not have that same fable feel to them that I love so much. I think I might try some of the other series he has written as a change.

Women and Desire; Beyond Wanting to be Wanted by Polly Young-Eisendrath

The author of this book is a Jungian psychologist so I found pieces of this book a little hard to swallow and too psychoanalytic for me. That aside, I found many of the observations in this book around compliance, latent desires, and desire for competence very familiar. Thought not as accesible to Knapp's Appetites (yes, I did read it again this year) it was worthwhile. Perhaps what I learned the most from the book was in the forward, where Young-Eisendreth explains her change from asking her female patiens, "What do YOU want," to "What do you WANT."

City of God by Paulo Lins

I have been looking forward to reading this book for literally 10 years. Recommended to me by Adriana in college, I kept looking for it in English. It was not translated until this year, after a movie was made from it. I guess I was expecting this description of life in a famous Brazilian slum to read like a Jonathan Kozol book (e.g., Amazing Grace). It was more of a non-linear dream-like description of the violence, drugs, and power struggles throughout three generations of the slum. Paulo Lins himself grew up in this environment, then embedded himself for ten years to write this book. A challenging read.

Queen of the South by Arturo Perez-Reverte

I bought this book several years ago from a sale table at Trident before a vacation but never got to it. Recently I plucked it off the shelf before a business trip because I didn't have time to get to the library. Good thing I did--I really enjoyed this story of the girlfriend of a drug-smuggler who is left to survive on her own in Mexico after his death. It reminded me a little of Count of Monte Cristo in that the book depicts her rise to power and plays on themes of revenge. I also respect the amount of research that Perez-Revente obviously must have put into the writing of the book. Recommended.

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

This book was about a strange collection of people who meet each other on the roof of a building as they are all planning to commit suicide on New Years Eve. Told with Hornby's typical satirical voice and cartoonish situations, this book was quick-moving with crisp dialogue. I enjoyed this book but not as much as his other books. I am beginning to think that he is writing books to be screenplays.

Parched by Heather King

This book was not what I expected. Unlike many other memoirs about addiction, King focuses on an honest description of the addiction, rather than of the recovery. It was amazing to read the degree to which a middle-class woman was living in complete dregs and not even noticing because of the addiction. I would have liked to hear about how she achieved sobriety.

Plainsong by Ken Haruf

This book came to my attention because Lisa O. thought that I had recommended it to her. Well, thank you to whomever started the chain of recommendations because this was a wonderful book. The story was about a handful of main characters in a simple town and how their lives intertwine over time. I am saving the sequel for a special occasion, but it is hard not to run out and buy it right away. Recommended.

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

I was not a huge fan of Secret Life of Bees but I decided to try this book anyway because everyone else really liked Secret Life and maybe it was just the subject matter that turned me off to that book. Turns out that I did like the Mermaid Chair more. It still played with ideas of a woman deity but to a lesser extent. The description of the interactions between the characters were compelling and the unlikely or fantasy aspects of the book were reasonably believable. I appreciated how well-developed the main character was.

Secret Girl by Molly Bruce Jacobs

In the epilogue of this book, Jacobs makes reference to a devastating family tragedy that occurs after the book was finished, and after Googling her story about losing her son to hyenas during an African safari. Since then. it has been difficult to separate that story from the one she tells in her book. The book is about her sister who has hydrocephalus and is sent to live in an institution. Molly is not told about her sister until their teen years, and it is several years after that before she decides to meet her sister. Jacobs both critiques her parents and the mental health system while telling the story of her adult relationship with her sister.

Digging to America by AnneTyler

I don’t always relate to Anne Tyler’s books but this one about adoption was very accessible. Maybe this is because I’ve been reading her books for fifteen years and am now getting closer to the ages of her main characters. In any case, this story followed two very different families who each adopt a child from Korea. One family is Iranian-American and the other is WASPy American and the friendship between the families that arises is one that brings questions of identity and American pride into focus.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins

This book the autobiography of a man who worked for a Haliburton-esque consulting/construction company in the 1980s. He tells his story of brokering famous deals in the Middle East and Central America. I think that calling this a "Confession" is accurate, as it is hard to believe anything in the book other than that the author feels guilty. His stories seem exaggerated and the danger he expresses being in seems like paranoia. A must-read for conspiracy theorists, this book is skippable by anyone who is looking for a real description of the United States' economic responsibility within world events. Gold star to anyone who recommends a good alternative that covers the same material.

My Latest Grievence by Elinor Lipman

I usually find Elinor Lipman's books to be clever and kind of fun. I did not really think that this book was either but I finished reading it to the end because I was curious about the characters. This story follows a young woman growing up as the daughter of incredibly rational parents who are dorm-parents on a college campus. She is shocked to find out that her father was formerly married and even more curious when his ex-wife moves to the college.

Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson

This was a special, unusual book recommended to me by Jenne. The story is about a young woman who becomes apprenticed to a lighthousekeeper, someone who takes care of a lighthouse. Part of the job of a lighthousekeeper is to tell stories for the sailors who visit the lighthouse so the young woman hears the stories told by the older keeper. As the story progresses the characters in the main storyline and the story-within-a-story both get more interesting. The young lighthousekeeper ultimately begins to weave her own by the end of the book. Recommended.

Man of my Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld

After Prep, I had high hopes for this next book by Sittenfeld. Unfortunately, this one was not as enjoyable or hearbreaking as her former novel. The plot was about a young woman from a divorced home who struggled with finding love and “the man of [her] dreams.” However, the story ended up being more whiny than anything and devoid of any of the social commentary or true feelings that made Prep such a great book.

Before you Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian

I always find Bohjalian’s books to have great settings and surprisingly complex characters in complex situations. This was no exception. This is the story of a family with typical internal struggles whose younger generation makes a mistake with a gun that has loud repercussions. Also addressing issues of animal rights and media-related ethics, this book met my expectations, although not as good as some of his real classics like Midwives or Trans-sister Radio.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer

If you liked Everything is Illuminated, then you can stop reading this blog and go get Foster’s second book. If you did not like EiI (yes, I know many of you did not like this as one of last year’s top picks), then this book is a second chance to try Foer without the linguistic challenge of a Russian narrator. This book is set right after 9/11 and follows a 9-year-old’s quest to figure out some things he finds in his deceased father’s effects. In the same style of Foer’s earlier work, this book uses multiple narrators, answering machine messages, unlikely friends, and letters to tell an unusual story. Recommended to me by Jenne. Reccommended to you by me.

Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind

Having entered Brown the same year as the subject of this book, I must admit to having an affinity for the depictions of freshman year experiences. Even trying to take an objective eye to this book I couldn’t help but like this story of an inner city student succeeding at an Ivy League school. While it seemed at times that Cedric was treated unfairly easily by professors, my liberal sensitivities were awakened by the difference in privilege that I arrived at Brown with compared to Cedric. At the least, the book definitely profiled an individual’s success over his background and raises some good questions about affirmative action.

Until I Find You by John Irving

John Irving needs a therapist, and fast. This book rehashed many of the same issues he has addressed in other books, focusing on gender identity with a significant dose of unabashed child molestation. I found this book to be a couple hundred pages too long as well as unsatisfying. The main character was too detached to be sympathetic and the weird characters and their weird pastimes just too plain weird.

Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

I liked this book; I have a strong stomach. This book is about how cadavers are used, including gross anatomy labs, organ transplant, scientific testing, grave robbing, and 2000 years of history on this. Only one or two parts of the book made me gag, and overall I learned a lot and enjoyed the author's witty prose and human responses to her research.

Joy Comes in the Morning by Jonathan Rosen

Recommended by Mer A. This was not a great book. It was about an alternative female rabbi who becomes romantically entangled with the son of someone she is helping in the hospital. I didn't find the narrator's voice to be authentic, and I didn't think the situations she found herself in were realistic.

Freakanomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

I finished this book feeling like I was either too smart or too dumb to have read it. The authors acknowledge that the book is a collection of not-very-related topics. The central theme is the use of statistics in media, although I think the book is really about teaching skepticism. Unfortunately for the authors, my skepticism is sky-high to begin with, so the alternate ways in which statistics were interpreted in the book were nothing that I could not have dreamt up myself. (Thanks, Dad.)

Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett

This is a book for real bibliophiles like myself. Ann Patchett, author of (among other things) Bel Canto, tells of the friendship between herself and Lucy Grealy, author of Autobiography of a Face. I was surprised at the depth of the passion, mental illness, and obsession that inhabited the relationship between these women. I was lulled into a bit of depression by some of the interactions. And I swalled the book in just one or two night gulps. Hard to put down. I was reminded of the distress that so many artists suffer from; I always think of artists as happy because they are doing what they are passionate about. This book reminded me that often their passions entrap them rather than freeing them.

Villages by John Updike

Boo on me for reading this as my first Updike novel and not choosing one of the Rabbit novels. Boo because this book was basically a three-hundred page orgy with some mid-life crisis thrown in. To my reading, the protagonist did not reach any sort of maturity or awakening over time. It felt pulpy.

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Rosenthal

I read a review of this book when it first came out and kept it in the back of my mind for a while. It's an unusual format, where the author has taken about 200 random facts or memories about herself and given each one a heading, then alphabetized them. The facts and memories were half wonderful and half boring. I found myself smiling at certain ones with familiarity and wondering why she included other ones. There was a bit of an egocentric feel to parts of the book, but it was autobiographical, so I suppose it's to be expected. I think a good English class in high school could read this book then ask students to write their own 10-page Encyclopedia of their life.

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

I decided to read this book because Stephen King (yes, that Stephen King) said it was his favorite mystery of 2005. I thought it would be cool to see what he thought was a good mystery. The book follows three different murder mysteries through the detective trying to solve them. I found the characters both tragic and fun, and the storylines interesting enough to hold my attention. But I can't say that I loved the book. I thought that it was a little lost between being a great character novel and a good detective novel and was therefore neither one at all.

Busting Vegas by Ben Mezrich

Ben Mezrich may have done well to stop writing after Bringing Down the House; neither this book nor the Ugly Americans one in between was as good. This book follows a second set of MIT students through Vegas and other casino-havens as they use non-card-counting methods to beat the house. As in Ugly Americans, too much of the book follows Mezrich's travels to write the book rather than the subjects. The romance in the book seems contrived and too convenient, the characters too stereotypical. The tactics the team use in the casinos are intersting, and it's fun to think about how they got good at these skills. But I didn't find myself excited to pick the book up each night and see what happened.

Seven Kinds of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman

There were aspects of this book that I really liked. Telling an interesting storyline through seven characters' points of view in sequence is not an entirely unique idea, but Perlman puts some interesting spins on it. In some cases, he writes in second person, and in other he uses conversation to explore a character's retelling of the story. That's what's most interesting in the book: the relaying of the different truths each character believes about the events occurring. These differences go far beyond charaters' interpretations of the truth being different; they encompass vast deceits. What I did not like about the book and what arguably (although I'd probably recommend it just for its uniqueness) ruined it for me was that the characters' personalities were not well-differentiated. Certainly their speech patterns were differentiated and they had different socio-economic spaces in life, but they seem to have the strangely similar voices. The other criticism is the final choice of narrator. There were a few obvious choices for who this could be and I think Perlman "jumped the shark" in his off-the-beaten-path choice.

Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland

This was a sweet book, really a collection of novellas. The stories travel farther and farther back in time, following a painting that may or may not be a Vermeer. This painting has changed hands several times and under many unusual circumstances. The writing was good and Vreeland did a masterful job of switching venues and ages easily.

The Ambler Warning by Robert Ludlum

Since Robert Ludlum's passing, I've been dreading the end of his half-done manuscripts, and this was the first book "of his" that I read that felt different. It was a perfectly good airport read, but something about it just wasn't as good as his past books. A cross between Lehane's Shutter Island and Grisham's Broker, the plot was interesting and kept me turning pages. Decent, but don't get your hopes up if you're looking for vintage Ludlum style.

Other People's Children by Joanna Trollope

I never picked a Trollope book off the shelf before, probably because of their Danielle Steele-esque font on the covers. However, this was a good book, and I'd liken Trollope more to Anne Tyler than Danielle Steele. This book told the story of several relationships within an extended family, and the interlocking priorities and difficulties of the characters involved. The stories focused a lot on adults' relationships with step-children, so I'd be interested in reading a Trollope book with a storyline I could relate better to, mostly because she is clearly a good writer with complete characters and interesting plots. Perhaps why I see her as similar to Tyler is just a function of the material being ahead of me in life. Either way, I'd definitely recommend Trollope and this book itself was enjoyable.

The Nature of Air and Water by Regina McBride

Another one recommended by Jenne. This book made me feel like I was sitting in a damp mansion...very good job setting the environment. I thought the plot was good and the main character well-developed although I was a little uncomfortable with some of the characters' decisions. I guess that is one way something can be a good novel: stays in your head like a pebble in your shoe.

Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth

This was actually a collection of short stories along with the novella Goodbye Columbus. I enjoyed GC, mostly as a time-and-place story, with the typical 1960's women who don't talk, but cry. (e.g., '"I can't make it on time," she cried.' It's very Marjorie Morningstar and thus close to my heart.) The story itself is a dull love story but it's all in how Roth tells it. The other short stories were similarly charming, with "Coversion of the Jews" sticking out in my head.

How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers

First, let it be known that I am a huge Dave Eggers fan. Both A Staggering Work... and You Shall Know Our Velocity are favorites of mine, and I enjoy all his commentary and meta-style of writing. I even find Eggers clever-er and therefore more enjoyable than, say, David Foster Wallace. However, this book of short stories was a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps part of what I like about Eggers is the velocity (npi) his books crank up to....the way that you can be reading for 10-15 pages not realizing it is all an aside. Certainly a short story does not allow for this style, and hence my disappointment. That aside, some of the stories still enchanted, and a few will stick in my mind for a while. But, it was not classic Eggers.

History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Recommended by Sara Coe. This was a book-within-a-book book, which kept me on my toes. The story followed a manuscript from war-torn Europe during WWII to modern-day New York. The characters were a little hard to keep track of, with the exception of the incredibly likeable narrator. I did enjoy the secrets that kept getting figured out as the book unfolded, although I was not crazy about how difficult it was to read. Even Time Traveler's Wife was easier to track than this. The author also employed some strange dramatic devices (one word on a page, e.g.) in places that seemed unnecessary.

The Broker by John Grisham

I always forget how much I like John Grisham until I read another of his legal/political books and fall in love again. Bleachers aside, he is a master at what he does, and this was no exception. With a likeable criminal as its main character, The Broker did not disappoint as a page turner and very high quality airport read.

Twins by Marcy Dermansky

This was another book that surprised me with its subtlety. The beginning reads like a teen novel, but as the story of identical twins who grow up through high school continues, their characters become well developed. While some of the characters are a bit shallow (like the lawyer-parents) and some of the plot turns unusually unlikely, the book as a whole tells an interesting story.

The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M.G. Vassanji

Thanks to Christie for this book as a holiday gift. It follows Vic, whose family is from India but living in Kenya, from childhood to adulthood. Colonialism puts him and his family in an interesting place in Kenya, neither black nor white. And this in-between-ness follows him throughout life into a life of government corruption. The characters are wonderful and the story is truly a saga, mixing modern-day chapters with the story of his life prior to that. Recommended.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewycka

This was a great fun read. It tells the story of two sisters who don't get along coping with their aging father's new marriage to a young Ukranian immigrant gold-digger. The characters are funny (particularly the father and his squishy-squashy problems) and the story is quick and charming. There was a book-within-a-book aspect of it I was not crazy about, but other than that I really enjoyed this one. Even better, I have not been satisfied with the ending to a book in a long time, and this one "hit the spot." Recommended.

More, Now, Again by Elizabeth Wurtzel

I was not the only reader dissatisfied with Bitch, Wurtzel's second book. After Prozac Nation, which is an all-time favorite book of mine, I was expecting to love Bitch. When I didn't, I didn't bother to pick up More, Now, Again for a long time. Something compelled me to try it recently, and I'm glad I did. Like Prozac Nation, More, Now, Again invites the reader into Wurtzel's world. This time, it is a world of drug addiction, and it is told without pulling any punches. Her descent into addiction is tragic. And yet her story as a whole seems uplifting and even inspirational. She treats drug addiction with the same honesty, humor, and grit that depression received in her first book. And drug addiction is clearly identifiable as a disease, just as depression was. (The disorganization and structural problems with Bitch are attributable to the drug addiction from which she was suffering while writing Bitch...which explains a lot.) Recommended, if you like Wurtzel.

Oh the Glory of it All by Sean Wilsey

Thanks to Amy for an autographed copy of this book as a gift. Too bad I was on page 50, and finding the story a little far-fetched, and beginning to hate the author's propensity for putting real historical figures in a fictional book before I realized that this was a non-fiction book. Wilsey certainly lived an unusual childhood and troubled adolescence which he rises out of gracefully towards the end of the book. This was a definite page-turner, and I was sad to leave it at home during a business trip with luggage that did not allow for hardcover books! Recommended.

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel

I had enjoyed Mantel's Change of Climate last year and was looking forward this this. It didn't disappoint. It follows the life of a British woman who moves to Saudi Arabia due to her husband's job. Frances adjusts to life in Saudi Arabia, but is continuously disturbed by the misogyny and anti-Western sentiment. She senses that things are not right with her neighbors and begins to find out a big secret about an empty apartment upstairs. This book was very evocative of place and mood. Recommended.

Moo by Jane Smiley

Every once and I while Mer A. and I agree on a book, and this is one of them. What a funny and delightful portrait of a college going through several financial, political, and social crises. The characters were sympathetic and the storylines compelling. Some parts of the book were laugh-out-loud which I self-consciously adore about reading a book. Recommended.

Family History by Dani Shapiro

I thought this would be a fluff book, a quick read. I found it to be more like Prep or a Jodi Picoult novel in that the topic was treated with good writing and a deep investigation of the emotions and motives of the characters. It followed the lives of a family of four, where the teenage daughter experiences such extreme jealousy towards her baby brother that she nearly destroys the family. Well written and a true page-turner. I fell into this category: "One of those books most readers will finish in one sitting . . . because it is so intense you can't take a break." (Linnea Lannon, Detroit Free Press)

All the Names by Jose Saramago

This was a fabulous book. It was about a man who worked in the Registry in an un-named South American city. He leads a very organized and quiet life for years before becoming involved in a mystery involving a woman whose card he comes in contact with. They mystery is interesting, but this magic of this book is the writing style and mood created by the author and by the lead character. Be prepared for a challenge, though: certain paragraphs are longer than a single page, and dialogue is sparse. Recommended. Strangely enough, Elana recommended a different book by Saramago while I was in the middle of this one. I will probably try that one after a break from Saramago.

Hear Me Now by Sophal Leng Stagg

I did not realize this was a children's book when I picked it up; at least, it seems to be written for a young teen audience. It tells the story of a family surviving during the wars in Cambodia. The writing is nothing special, but the author's story is quite compelling and the horrors she survived horrendous. Interesting complement to many of the Holocaust memoirs I've read.