Hello readers!
This year I read 68 books – yes, 68. I’ve learned how to read on the train during
my commute, which involves some complex life hacks (like keeping my finger in
the book when switching subway lines) and some reading glasses (yikes!), and it’s
added about an hour of reading a day to my life. What a gift.
Here are my favorites. Each book is linked to my review, as
well as to Amazon (“AMZ”):
Given the political climate and tragic resurgence of racism,
sexism, classism, and every other “ism” there is, I read several books with the
goal of staying angry, and better understanding what is going on. The best of
these were by patriarchy-dismantling women, including Jessica Valenti’s
Sex
Object: A Memoir (
AMZ), Rebecca Solnit’s
Men
Explain Things to Me (
AMZ), and
Roxanne Gay’s
Hunger:
A Memoir of (My) Body (
AMZ). Charles
Blow’s account of his life growing up poor and closeted in rural Louisiana, and
his triumphant reclaiming of his story, was excellent:
Fire
Shut Up in My Bones (
AMZ). I also
enjoyed
Tales
of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation (
AMZ), a compilation of fiction, essays, and
poetry about the state of our country.
In case this presidency does end in apocalypse,
zombie-themed or not, I am prepared, having read
The
Girl with All the Gifts (
AMZ) (zombies,
but also human connection),
Seveneves
(
AMZ) (saga of humanity set in outer space),
and
American
War (
AMZ) (a near-future where the
North and South go to war over energy). They were three excellent
post-apocolyptical stories, coincidentally (?) all with female protagonists.
I read some other less political non-fiction too.
Without
a Map (
AMZ) was a beautiful memoir by a
women raised in a religious family who gives up a baby for adoption. I finally
got to
Eat,
Pray, Love (
AMZ), which I don’t know
why I resisted for so long – if you’re the other person who has not read it, go
for it.
Lab
Girl (
AMZ)was a tough memoir about a
young scientist. I discovered Jenny Rosenstrach and her memoir/cookbook
Dinner:
A Love Story (
AMZ) about family meals
was lovely (and realistic). And on the worst days this year, I turned to Anne
Lamott, most notably her
Grace
(Eventually) (
AMZ) essays, whose
reflections on George Bush seem both quaint and relevant.
The fiction I read was across a wide variety of topics and
themes. In March, I joined the
Book
of the Month Club, and now I eagerly await the 1
st of each month,
when the new selections come out. Many of these wonderful books came from
there.
Some of my favorite fiction this year was about families and
relationships.
The
Unseen World (
AMZ) was probably my
favorite, set in Boston, about a young woman who unravels her father’s life
story after he becomes ill.
All
the Ugly and Wonderful Things (
AMZ)
(Book of the Month Club’s best book of 2016) was both sweet and challenging,
while
Boy,
Snow, Bird (
AMZ) was a clever
retelling of a fairy tale with a racial twist.
The Nix
(
AMZ) purported to be about a young man
who beings to investigate his mother’s anti-Vietnam revolutionary past, but was
really more of a lovely exploration of characters and relationships.
Twelve
Lives of Samuel Hawley (
AMZ) explored
a special father-daughter relationship, and its complex history.
The
Blinds (
AMZ) was a fun ride, which I’m
waiting to see adapted into a mini-series, about a town where criminals and
witnesses live with their memories wiped out, and
Dark
Matter (
AMZ) was a modern, fast-paced adaptation
of the age-old multi-verse theme. Lots of people read
A
Man Called Ove (
AMZ) this year, and I
too fell for his misanthropic antics. And I also enjoyed J.K. Rowling’s
The
Casual Vacancy (
AMZ), a major drama in
a small-town setting.
I also enjoyed some historical fiction. Isabel Allende’s
seminal
The
House of the Spirits (
AMZ) captivated
me with its three-generation saga of a family with just enough magical realism.
I couldn’t put
The
Underground Railroad (
AMZ) down,
rooting for the protagonist so strongly. I finally got around to reading The Glass
Castle author Jeannette Walls’
Half
Broke Horses (
AMZ), technically
fiction, but very much based on the author’s family history in the wild west of
the early 20
th century.
Finally, I delighted in
The
Women in the Castle (
AMZ), about the
relationships formed among the women whose husbands were involved in an
unsuccessful plot to assassinate Hitler, as well as
Kindred
(
AMZ), a beautiful story about a woman who
time-travels to a plantation during slavery, and her relationship with a young
boy there. It’s not nearly as weird as it sounds. It’s more Piercy than Gabaldon.
Well, that’s it for this year. Happy 2018, and as Neil
Gaiman says, “I hope you read some fine books.”
If you do, tell me about them.
Sheryl
PS: To see all the books I read this year, you can visit
my blog or
find me on Goodreads.
I cleaned up my “want to read” list, then the end-of-year booklists came out
again so there goes that, but you can see what may be up next
on
Goodreads too.
Ill Will by Dan Chaon
