Top Books of 2010

It is hard to believe that 2010 is almost over.  In February, Web and I went to Mexico to attend a wedding.  Shortly after returning, we brought home an adorable, friendly, happy cockapoo puppy ("Lucy") who has been a delight to add to our family.  Over the summer we went to Iceland, then in December celebrated our 10th year together.  I secured a new position at Dell that will start in February and Web continues at his job during the day and his MBA at night.

But enough about me - what about the books?  All in I read 48 books, 10 which were non-fiction, the rest of which were novels. I finally found a reliable book club with interesting people.  Throughout the year, I read a nice mix of new books and items that had been on my list for many years.  I have not moved to an e-reader, and have no plans to give up paper books anytime soon.

This year, I've included some narrative around my favorite reads, rather than just a list.  (Psst: if you like this format, check out The Millions Year in Reading series for some seriously well-thought out recommendations.)

Adding Lucy to our family has been life-changing.  Not growing up with pets other than a curmudgeonly bird, I had no idea what it was like to have another being around all the time.  She is so happy to be doing what we are doing, and so eager to explore and play and meet new people.  I was interested in reading about others' experiences with dogs to figure out what I was feeling about it.  The two novels I liked most were The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and The Art of Racing in the Rain.  Edgar Sawtelle was an intriguing story of a family who bred a very special type of dog, and the coming of age of their mute son.  Reading that was when I discovered that the training methods we were using had a long and universal history.  Similarly, the feelings I had about dogs shared a long history with many, many people - I remember being in a hotel room in Argentina several years ago and feeling very isolated and scared.  After talking to Web for several hours about different scary travel situations we'd been in, we crept downstairs for dinner, only to find a lively dining room full of happy people in a completely lovely and secure hotel.  That's how I felt about getting a dog - "oh, look at this whole universe I've been missing out on that's been going on around me all these years."  

The second dog novel, Racing in the Rain, was wonderful in that it told the story of an aging race car driver through the eyes of his dog.  It could have been corny or ill-contrived, but it was neither.  It felt like a rare glimpse inside of the inner life of a dog - kudos to Garth Stein for his execution of "voice" in this book.  I also loved reading about the rehabilitation of the dogs involved in Michael Vick's fighting ring in The Lost Dogs. Authored by a Sports Illustrated reporter, the book chronicled both the legal and the canine sides of the story. 

Lest you think I've "gone to the dogs" I'll move on from the canine theme.  I have finally found a book club that I like and many of my favorite books this year came from this group.  Some of the books from this group would probably have ended up on my night table anyway: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Little Bee, A Reliable Wife, and The Unit.  I caught Larsson fever just like everyone else and thought Dragon Tattoo was extremely engrossing, and a unique mix of corporate/financial intrigue, mystery, and interpersonal situations.  I have the second book in the series lined up for my next vacation.  Little Bee, while not as special as its mysterious jacket flap description would indicate, was a strong political statement wrapped up in an unusual story.  I adored A Reliable Wife - it was creepy and set in a dark, wintry, 19th century town where a man mail-orders a bride.  Both man and wife discover that the other has an ulterior motive in getting married.  The Unit, which I just finished, was thought-provoking and some of the best science fiction (or as Atwood likes to put it, speculative fiction) that I read all year. The Unit is a compound that childless adults are sent to once it is time for them to begin participating in medical experiments that mark the end of their useful time in society.

What's fun about being in a book club, however, is the books that I would not have otherwise read.  In this case, I really enjoyed two books in particular that others chose: Do They Know I'm Running, and The Book Thief.  Do They Know I'm Running is about a young man whose illegal immigrant uncle is deported to El Salvador, and he goes there to retrieve him and bring him back to the U.S.  The writing and plot was good enough that I was half way through before I realized it was a political statement (kind of like Little Bee).  I don't know why this book didn't get more attention this year.  The Book Thief was probably the most unusual book I read this year - and in some ways was my favorite.  For some reason it was published in the U.S. as a Young Adult book which is indicative only of the simplicity of the language used, not of the plot or the style.  Narrated by Death (yes, that Death), this book follows the story of a young girl sent to live with a foster family during WWII when her mother is arrested as a Communist.  See what I mean?  Not really YA.

As far as non-fiction this year, there's no discernible theme among my favorites.  As they See 'Em was a fun excursion into the world of baseball umpires.  I saved this book to read in April, which was a great choice - I loved reading a section and then seeing some of it in action during a televised game the next day.  I can't remember where I picked up A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome, but that was a good read.  While reading it, I felt like I was touring Roman ruins and had a good tour guide who was bringing the antiquities to life for me.  The memoir I liked best this year was Mennonite in a Little Black Dress.  Janzen's depiction of her return to her childhood home after a failed marriage was both amusing and honest. 

I have a soft spot for dystopian novels (isn't that a phrase you see everywhere) and this years I read a few.  In addition to The Unit, I also enjoyed Stephen King's Under the Dome and Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood.  I could hardly put down Under the Dome while on vacation; it was the story of a small town that gets encased in a clear dome and the logistical and political complexities that ensue.  If I didn't work full-time I'd re-read this 1000-page tome with The Stand By Stephen King and develop some complex theories about the structure of Stephen King's works.  What I liked about Year of the Flood was that Atwood revisited a world she had created in a previous novel, Oryx and Crake.  I might suggest this was a "feminist retelling" of O+C, or just another set of stories from the same point in time, but either way it was as fun to read more about this world as it must have been for her to write it. 

Everyone I knew seemed to be reading Sarah's Key and The Help, neither of which disappointed me.  Sarah's Key was a novel about a young girl's experience during the Holocaust and a modern-day journalist's quest to find out what happened in that little girl's town.  A couple of images and stories in that book really stuck with me.  A true book-lover who recommended Sarah's Key to me passed away this year and I will remember her respect for that book.  The Help, probably second only to Dragon Tattoo in popularity in my informal poll, was a great historical novel too.  It was about the relationships between several women and their maids ("The Help") in 1960's Mississippi.  While seemingly long in pages, the voice and plot made the book go by quickly.

I didn't see any common themes in the final three books I enjoyed this year until I listed them all together.  Turns out, they each explore an imperfect marriage, though in vastly different settings.  Weight of Heaven is about a couple who move to India after losing their young son in an accident.  Not unexpectedly, a change of scenery doesn't solve any of their problems, although the depiction of ex-pats in a developing country and the related ethical challenges was excellently depicted.  In A Country called Home, a young couple choose a life in rural Idaho in the 1960's.  The story of their surviving in that environment, as well as that of their daughter's life in the next generation, are beautifully written in this book.  I'd consider this another "sleeper" book that should have gotten far more press than it did.  Just last week I finished Shadow Tag, about a woman whose marriage is falling apart and  who begins to keep two diaries when she discovers her husband is reading one of them.  Not nearly as epistolary as I expected, this book is a significant anatomy of a broken relationship.

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And that concludes my descriptions of the best books I read this year.  Below is a link to my review of each of the books mentioned here.  I hope you will comment below on your favorite books from this year too - and what you thought of these.

I look forward to a 2011 filled with a new set of books that engross, transport, teach, and delight me...and  wish the same to each of you.

Sheryl

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle  
The Art of Racing in the Rain
The Lost Dogs
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Little Bee
A Reliable Wife 
The Unit
Do They Know I'm Running
The Book Thief
As they See 'Em
A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
Under the Dome  
Year of the Flood
Sarah's Key  
The Help
Weight of Heaven
A Country called Home
Shadow Tag

The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist

My book club chose this book for January from my list of ideas.  Last year I had noticed it on Flashlight Worthy's end of year list.  So far that site has had some great suggestions - including this one.

The Unit is a facility where older childless people go to donate themselves to science.  They live there for a few months to a few years and participate in medical experiments, donate their non-essential organs, and ultimately participate in their "final donation" of their heart and lungs.  The book follows a woman named Dorrit as she arrives at the Unit. 

On the surface, the Unit is not a terrible place - each resident has a private apartment, and there are parks, restaurants, cinemas, and many activities.  But the professional, chipper, and seemingly empathetic staff are committed to a government-sponsored strategy to use the "dispensable" humans who live there as efficiently as possible.  The glimpses we have of the "outside world" through flashbacks also depict a society that has been mandated to respect only a particular type of family and of societal worth. 

I will borrow Margaret Atwood's classification of this as "speculative fiction", as Holmqvist's world is not, strictly speaking, science fiction.  Like Atwood and other authors of the genre, Holmqvist was able to make significant social commentary with this story.  In this case, she comments on our treatment of the elderly, our views on childless adults, and, more broadly, our definitions of family.

It was difficult to think about this book without also thinking of Never Let Me Go; though the styles were quite different, with The Unit being far more transparent and emotional, the themes were very similar.  The other book this made me think of was Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Both books were translated from the Swedish and I couldn't help but wonder if the act of being translated was what made both books somewhat matter-of-fact or if that was an indication of a cultural norm.  It makes me wish I knew any language well enough to read the same story in the original and the translation. 

I liked this book, largely because it was well-plotted and made me think.

Shadow Tag by Louise Erdich

I read Erdrich's Plague of Doves a few years ago and while I thought it was pretty good, I didn't love it.  However, when I read a review of this book in the New York Times Book Review, the plot intrigued me immediately: a woman whose marriage is falling apart realizes that her husband has been reading her diary, so she begins to keep a second, secret, diary for herself.

This was, indeed, quite a book.  Thankfully it was not as epistolary as that description would indicate - while there are some excerpts from both diaries, the book is mostly told in a traditional narrative.  Erdrich could have written this book in several different ways based on this idea, but her choice of execution was excellent in its avoidance of relying on an obvious gimmick.  The only unusual stylistic choice was a lack of quotation marks around conversation, which (intentionally I believe) created a fuzzy boundary between internal and external dialogue.

This book tells the story of the dissolution of a troubled marriage and the impact on all the members of the family.  The husband is a painter who has been supporting the family by selling a variety of pieces of artwork depicting his wife.  Like Plague of Doves, Native American culture is strongly featured, along with many of its current societal challenges, including alcoholism and violence.  Not to say that the situations these characters find themselves in are uniquely Native American - clearly they are not.  But this heritage plays a strong role in character development.

The book is reasonably short and simply written, and yet somehow Erdrich managed to weave a very complex story.  The writing was very good and I was tempted to return to the first page and read it all over again when I was done - not because there were many hidden meanings or a surprise ending, but because I wanted to appreciate for a second time the beauty, delicacy, and pain that Erdrich depicted.

Vida by Patricia Engel

I enjoyed this collection of short stories about a Colombian-American woman.  NPR included this in their list of top books from 2010 about 'outsiders' and I think that is a great category for this book.  The stories follow Sabina from childhood through young adulthood, oddly not chronologically, with varied points of view.  While many of the stories held my attention, the change in perspective was especially unusual and refreshing - particularly the story told in second person.

In some ways this was a predictable read, in that the themes were familiar - first generation American with parents caught between the old country and the new.  Sabina had struggles fitting in at school as a child, difficulties choosing a partner, and complex friendships with others who were similarly in-between.  But something about the book was also unique - perhaps it was the storylines or the character development - and I didn't feel bored or unsurprised.   And the writing was very good - sometimes I would pause while reading a passage or section and reflect on how well Engel captured a particular feeling or idea.

The best part of reading this was remembering how much I enjoy short stories.  I know I reflect on this every time I read a new collection of shorts but I will need to add a couple more to my list for 2011.

Best Book Lists

All the papers and blogs have their Best of 2010 book lists out.  I find this very stressful!  I see my "on deck" list grow and grow and I add more books each year than I read.

NYTimes Notables, LA Times, Wash Post, step aside.  My favorite end-of-year lists this year were from NPR:  http://www.npr.org/series/131336530/best-books-of-2010

Love how they chose to categorize the books and the descriptions are just the right length for me.

Do they Know I'm Running by David Corbett

This novel was last month's selection for my book club.  I would never have chosen it otherwise but I liked it - one of the benefits of being in a book club.  The story is about a young man named Roque whose illegal uncle is deported back to El Salvador.  Roque travels to El Salvador to bring his uncle through Mexico and smuggle him over the U.S. border. 
 Along the way, he meets a young woman named Lupe and an army pal of his cousin's named Samir, both of whom travel with him and his uncle. The trip is not easy, and Roque and his companions meet with much adversity along the way, including gangs, bribery, and violence.  The people they have paid to assist in bringing his uncle back turn out to be extremely dangerous, and even among the four travelers, there are vastly differing values and priorities.  On the other side of the border, his family is facing difficulties as well: his cousins become involved in some criminal activities that are distantly related to Roque's trip, and suddenly find themselves in deeper than they expected. 

I'm surprised this book wasn't more widely acclaimed.  There were a few sections where (as someone in my book club said) I had trouble connecting to the book.  However, I stuck with it, and despite those hiccups, Corbett managed the balance of the elements of the book very well.  The plot moved at a quick pace while each character was given an extensive background and set of motivations.  The scenery and locations from El Salvador through Guatemala and Mexico and into the U.S., were excellently depicted.  The action that occurred in many scenes was well-described without being a play-by-play.  And even the minor characters were detailed enough to keep them fresh in my mind when they were dormant for several chapters.

What Corbett has written, however, is not just a well-balanced novel but a political statement on immigration.  Someone looking to make that statement more strongly ought to option the movie rights because this would translate exceptionally well onto the silver screen.

The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick's Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption by Jim Gorant

This was a well-written book by a Sports Illustrated reported chronicling the story behind the dogs involved in Michael Vick's dogfighting group.  The first half focused on the discovery and investigation of Vick's dogfighting ring.  The second half of the book was about several individual dogs and the process of their being rehabilitated and adopted.  I could hardly put this book down.

The depiction of what dog fights are like and of the conditions in which fighting dogs are kept helped me understand for the first time exactly how terribly dogs are treated in this environment.  One of the methods Gorant used to describe these conditions was through imagining how a couple of the dogs might have felt during their time living at the dogfighting compound.  I thought this was an effective way to personalize (dog-ize?) a difficult topic. 

I really enjoyed reading about the rehabilitation.  Of the 50 dogs rescued from his property, I believe only 3 or 4 had to be put down for health or behavior issues.  While an initial assessment of the situation had experts believing that rescuing 5 dogs would be "good news", the panel of experts actually assigned to evaluate each dog found that most of them were unsocialized and/or scared, but very few were aggressive.  This is contrary to what the ASPCA had previously though about dogs rescued from fighting rings and the story of these dogs' rehabilitation has influenced the ASPCA to change their policy on dogfighting rescue dogs.  The stories of the individuals who worked with the dogs through this period, some of whom are also the people who end up adopting them, were riveting.  Tears came to my eyes often, reading of little victories that reminded me of my own dog's behavior as the dogs adjusted.

The only aspect of the book I did not connect to was the characterization of a few of the investigators.  I thought Gorant was trying to make that an equally compelling storyline but I just wasn't as interested in reading that as I was in reading about the dogs.  That aside, I am really glad I read this book and learned about the dogfighting culture and about the rehabilitation of these wonderful animals.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

Wow.  This was an epic book - hundreds of pages and a remarkable story.  Both Julie on my block and Christian from my book club recommended it to me the same week so I treated myself to it in paperback as a reward for getting a new job (yay me!).  People stopped me on the street to comment on how much they liked it - one gal at Starbucks even said that she was embarrassed to admit that she didn't read anything for a year after this book because nothing could stand up to it.  With all that leading up to it I had high expectations.

Huh.

I can't say I loved it - although I did finish it.  The author is a man who escaped from a New Zealand jail and lived in the underworld in Bombay...and the book is about a man who escaped from a New Zealand jail and lived in the underworld in Bombay.  But he claims that it is fiction so I tried to read it like that.  The book spans many locales - most memorably the slums of Bombay, the Afghanistan countryside, and Bombay jails, all described in extreme detail.  There are many well-developed characters that the narrator depicts also in great detail.  The story doesn't really follow a linear path, and I didn't find the ending to be comprehensive.  But the main character does grow and change, and it was fun reading about his extraordinary experiences.

I guess what I disliked about the book was the author's tone.  In some places, the writing was extraordinarily good: poetic and descriptive.  And there were a few sections where he captured an emotion or thought that I found incredibly beautiful or unusual.  I think that is why other people loved the book so much, because they found the majority of the book that way.  But most of the time I found the narrator to be naive - and unrealistic - and also too willing to see something special in someone that was not expressed to the reader enough.  He seemed to be going through these experiences in a Zen-like trance with pithy observations.

I was disappointed - given the glimpses of "special" that I got in a couple of the passages, I wish that could have been the entire experience I had reading this book.