Month: December 2020

Some of you may be looking for last minute gifts or something to read over the holidays or next year. Here, in no particular order, are some books I particularly enjoyed this past year. I’ve tried to include a brief description of each and I’ve added a link to an outside review for those who want to learn more about a particular book.

There There, by Tommy Orange is a wonderful book. It was one of NYT’s best books of the year in 2018. It’s set in Oakland and the title comes from the famous Gertrude Stein quoted about Oakland. It’s a wonderful, picaresque story about being a native american in the city about ‘Indians pretending to be Indians’ and searching for belonging. HERE’s the NYT review.

City of Girls is by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. It’s an odd love story set in the New York City theater world of the 1940s and told from the perspective of an older woman looking back on her youth with pleasure and a bit of regret. There sex and promiscuity and a lot of fun. I found it an enjoyable read. Here’s the NPR review.

In The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead tells the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in the Jim Crow era of Florida. It’s based on the infamous Dozier School where, at the time he was writing the book, archeology students were digging up and trying to identify the remains of students who had been tortured, raped, mutilated and buried in a secret graveyard. It’s a remarkable book that shines a light on a shameful part of American history. Here is the NYT review.

Squeeze Me, by Carl Hiaasen offers, as you might expect, some wild escapism. Be warned though, if you are wearing a MAGA hat you might not like this one. The story takes place mostly in Palm Beach near the ‘Casa Bellicosa’ where the President, whom the secret service has code-named ‘Mastadon’ spends many a day and night. One of his neighbors, a prominent dowager falls drunk into a pond and is swallowed by a python. The entire book is too funny for words. Here is the NYT review.

Erik Larson is an amazing writer of nonfiction events ranging from hurricanes to ship sinkings to crime. In The Splendid and the Vile he writes intelligently and in amazing detail about Winston Churchill and his family during the blitz. On Churchill’s first day as Prime Minister, Germany invaded Belgium and Holland and Dunkirk was just two weeks away. Despite this and a multitude of personal issues, he held the country together under the most trying circumstances and eventually prevailed. The book is very well written. Read the NPR review HERE.

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips was a finalist for the National Book Award and other awards and one of New York Times ten best. One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls—sisters, eight and eleven—go missing. The search continues over a year in Kamchatka – a place with soaring volcanoes, dense forests, open tundra and where people still herd reindeer and are suspicious of outsiders. It’s a great read and full of interesting characters. Read the review at The Columbia Review HERE.

I do read science fiction from time to time and I enjoy it but most don’t make the cut to be in my top twenty of the year. Exhalation by Ted Chiang certainly does. Chiang doesn’t write novels; he sticks to short stories and this collection of nine stories is his best. NYT made it one of the ten best of the year as did many other publications. Chiang proves that science fiction doesn’t have to be dystopian and these original, provocative and often poignant stories will have you questioning what it means to be human along with many other questions. Read the NPR review HERE.

Half of a Yellow Sun is a wonderful book by a gifted writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The title is an allusion to the flag of the short-lived Biafran republic. The book describes the events that led up to the secession of the Igbo-dominated Biafra from the rest of Nigeria and the war and famine that followed. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene. We experience the hope of independence movements everywhere and see that hope dashed. Read the NYT review HERE.

Educated is another one of the NYT ‘Best Books of the Year’ and winner of many awards. It’s the story of Tara Westover who grew up as one of seven children in a survivalist family in Southern Utah. She received almost nothing in the way of schooling and was subject to violence by her father and brother. Her father was so wary of government that four of her siblings didn’t have birth certificates. Despite all of this she decided to get out into the world and was admitted to Brigham Young University and eventually Cambridge University where she earned her doctorate in history. It’s an amazing story. Read the NYT review HERE.

A Burning, Megha Majumdar’s debut novel is tautly written and reads like a thriller. After a terrorist bombing of a train, Jivan, a young woman, writes a careless post on Facebook complaining about the ineffective police. Of course that targets her and three days later she is arrested and beaten into confessing to the bombing. We see other characters, a teacher who sees his political rise tied to Jivan’s fall and Lovely, an outcast who has the alibi to set Jivan free but speaking up would cost her everything. It’s a fast read and something you won’t forget. Here’s the WaPo review.

In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale‘ we learned how The United States became a theocratic totalitarian state where women are treated as nothing but wombs, nonwhites and unbelievers are expelled, resettled or disposed of and race and class are used to divide the people. ‘The Testaments‘, Margaret Atwood’s stunning sequel set fifteen years later we learn that there are spies in Gilead, determined to bring it down. We also delve more deeply into its founding and possible end as the lives of three radically different women converge with explosive results. It’s a great read. Here’s the NYT review.

Bernadine Evaristo was co-winner of the Booker Prize last year (along with Margaret Atwood, above) for her novel Girl, Woman, Other. It’s a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain. The story begins just hours before the debut of a play at the National Theatre in London, and it ends 450 pages later as the audience spills into the lobby. But during that brief window of time, Evaristo spins out a whole world. Novella-length chapters draw us deep into the lives of 12 women of various backgrounds and experiences. From a nonbinary social media influencer to a 93-year-old woman living on a farm in Northern England, these unforgettable characters also intersect in shared aspects of their identities, from age to race to sexuality to class. It’s witty and emotional and we hear voices that are often sidelined. I strongly recommend it. Here’s the WaPo review.

I recently wrote about The Association of Small Bombs in this blog. I liked it a lot. The book, by Karan Mahajan, was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of many other prizes. When Mahajan was young, Kashmiri extremists set off a bomb in a market hear his home. In this book, separatists set off a bomb in a small market in Delhi killing, among others, two brothers and injuring their friend. We learn about how the survivors go on and we learn about the internal life of those who placed the bomb and why. It’s a fascinating and wonderfully written exploration and story. Here is the WaPo review.

Strangers and Cousins, by Leah Hager Cohen, is an enjoyable story about what happens when a large and chaotic family hosts an even larger and more chaotic wedding. It’s loud and funny and there are, of course, conflicts of all kinds but at the end problems find a way to be resolved and familial love perseveres. It was a WaPo ten best novel and it really is a lot of fun to read. Here is the NYT review.

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste is a wonderful book to read. They language is lyrical and sometimes you want to read a sentence or a paragraph again just because of the feel of the words. It’s set in the first real conflict of World War II; Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. At its heart is orphaned maid Hirut, who finds herself tumbling into a new world of thefts and violations, of betrayals and overwhelming rage. Hirut is a compelling hero. Fighting the Italian invaders and raging against the continued violation at the hands of her commander she finally, in the middle of a battle, loses her fear of death and runs toward the Italian army tapping her own chest and saying, ‘Boom’. There is no comedy or humor in this book but it is wonderful and you should read it. Here is the NPR review.

American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson is a kind of literary thriller. It certainly starts with a bang. On page 1 the narrator hears a noise in her bedroom and she grabs her handgun just before an armed man enters her room. She ends up with a few bruises, he ends up dead. It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes even though she admires Sankara. In the year that follows, Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him, and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, a sister, and a good American. It’s darkly funny and very good. Here’s the NPR review.

I hope this will give you some ideas. I selected these from many more that I read this past year. Please comment and let me know what you’ve been reading that you really like.