Books of 2009
Here you go, faithful readers! A year in the making, I present to you my list of books read in 2009 (despite a goal to hit 50, I hit only 48—I blame first-trimester sleepiness), complete with ratings and brief reviews. (To see the list from 2008, click here.)
A note about the rating system: Some folks have suggested that some ratings seem too high, especially after I critically blast a book’s faults. However, keep in mind that every book on this list was selected by me for SOME reason. I’m not going to devote many hours of reading to something I think I’ll hate. Thus, it’s very difficult for a book to clock in at a rating of 1. Second, sometimes the book has merits that I simply neglect to mention. Third, there’s an “enjoyability” factor (or lack thereof) that’s not always articulated but always present some way in the rating. Finally, it’s not a perfect system—sorry. The books below appear in the order in which I read them. I include the title, author, and genre (and that’s “genre” according to Ashley, not the Library of Congress). And we’re off!
1. The Loop by Nicholas Evans (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 Very much enjoyed this book about wolves and Montana, although Evans slips too easily into typecasting the ranch-owning locals as ignorant rednecks.
2. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 Loosely based on Mrs. Bush, Sittenfeld creates a host of fabulous characters, but totally drops the ball by the time our heroine becomes First Lady. Her voice suddenly doesn’t sound like her voice and the last 140 pages or so read like a long, never-ending internal monologue. However, the first three-quarters of the book are extremely well-written, hence the rating of 4. (But not 5.)
3. Willa Cather and the American Southwest edited by John Swift and Joseph Urgo (literary criticism) Rating: 4 Collection of critical essays on Cather’s three novels that take place (at some point, anyway) in the Southwest (The Professor’s House, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and Song of the Lark). Obviously, read the three Cather novels before tackling this book.
4. The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen (contemporary literature) Rating: 3 Set during WWI and the Spanish Influenza in the middle of a forest in Washington State where a small town quarantines itself off to keep out the flu. Very labored prose and way too much text devoted to analyzing the plot. Extremely tiresome after awhile. I like books set in my home state (helps with the occasional bout of homesickness), but this novel was completely unremarkable, despite Mullen’s painful efforts to make it “deep,” philosophical, and moving.
5. The Book That Changed My Life edited by Roxanne Coady and Joy Johannessen (literary criticism) Rating: 4 71 writers (and this term “writers” is used loosely—some people were merely authors of cookbooks, some were politicians, and so on) wrote very short little essays on the book that changed their life. A cute idea for a book and it inspired a blog entry I wrote on the book that changed my life. It makes you view books and literature and stories as very powerful things—which is why it got the “4” it probably doesn’t deserve. Of course, a good chunk of authors totally misunderstood the book’s aim and instead wrote book reports on their favorite books (i.e., "To Kill a Mockingbird is about racism." So? How did it change your life?) But, eh, the proceeds of the book’s sales go to a literacy charity. Read this in very small increments. Definitely not something you want to read straight through.
6. Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn (mystery) Rating: 4 A mystery set in Victorian England in which Lady Grey’s blah husband is murdered. Enter: Nicholas Brisbane, part-gypsy detective with a knack for playing the violin. Despite how I’ve described it, this novel is remarkably not cheesy and quite entertaining. I plan to read the sequel.
7. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (contemporary literature) Rating: 5 The first 5 of the year—and holy moley. Post-apocalyptic world covered in ash with a man and his son traveling to the coast and along the way hiding from . . . other people. McCarthy uses very sparse language—a tactic that to me usually comes across as an affected, gimmicky effort to be hyper literary. But McCarthy wields it in such an effective way that your imagination fills in all the gaps between the words and scares the crap out of you. But maybe I frighten easily. McCarthy received the Pulitzer for The Road. Totally deserved.
8. Shakespeare’s Wife by Germaine Greer (biography/women’s studies) Rating: 4 Greer’s biography on Ann Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, is groundbreaking in many ways, mainly because Greer aims to expose the bias with which scholars have cast Hathaway—a cold, disapproving, illiterate, whiny wife—and provides a tome of historical evidence to the contrary. Why? “The Shakespeare wallahs have succeeded in creating a Bard in their own likeness, that is to say, incapable of relating to women, and have then vilified the one woman who remained true to him all his life, in order to exonerate him” (p. 356). Although I love that this book exists, I didn’t love reading it—the evidence, though important, is minute and extraordinarily detailed, which doesn’t make for the most scintillating read. However, Greer’s depth of scholarship is impeccable and hugely important for both women’s studies and Shakespearean studies. Greer’s own writing style also adds a unique dimension to the book; she’s feisty and a touch irreverent, except when it comes to Ann: “The idea that [Ann] might be entitled to some of the credit for the preservation her husband’s work is apparently too ridiculous to contemplate, which is why we shall now contemplate it” (p. 345–346). A much-needed, very welcome biography on the elusive Mrs. Shakespeare. But I’m very, very glad to have finally finished it.
9. Peony in Love by Lisa See (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 Set in 16th-century China and paralleling a Chinese opera often performed at that time, the only daughter of an uber wealthy family falls in love and gets all swoony and lovesick and dies. Her spirit then floats around according to myths and rules of the soul that the Chinese followed at the time. It’s very ghostly and beautifully written.
10. Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones by Ann Head (young adult) Rating: 4 A classic young adult book from the 1950s or early 1960s. And a classic plot: Two high school students with everything going for them do the dirty deed and oops! are pregnant—except you don’t see the sex scene and I don’t think the word “pregnant” was used once. The two get married to make it seem like their accident was all planned, and, big surprise, teen marriage is, like, hard. A very solid book and essential for anyone interested in the evolution of the young adult genre.
11. 19th Wife by David Ebershoff (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 This book has two simultaneous plots, each told through countless points of view: 1) The life story of Eliza Young, Brigham Young’s 19th wife in the 1800s, and 2) a modern-day murder mystery (eh, sort of ) in a polygamous, fundamentalist Mormon cult. The last third of the book really dragged and it could have been shorter. I’ll give Ebershoff kudos for capturing a lot of different voices to tell the stories, but such constant voice/gear shifting got old after awhile. The ending also seemed very anticlimactic. Still, it paints a very interesting, multidimensional view of early Mormonism and polygamy. The Mormons aren’t portrayed in the greatest light, but they’re not totally vilified either.
12. The Art of Racing in the Rain (contemporary literature) Rating: 4.5 I admit that I’ve inflated the rating on this book. Is it fabulous literature? No. Did I absolutely love it? YES. This book takes place in Seattle (and is very tied to its setting there) and, most importantly, is narrated entirely by a dog. We watch the drama of his people-family unfold through his eyes, which was a plot like you’d find as a Lifetime movie, so it’s really the dog narration and point of view that carries the book. What was amazing to me was that this dog actually has a voice—but it’s totally believable as a dog’s voice and not cheesy or overdone. Sometimes the parallels to car racing got a little old, but no matter. I loved this dog and I loved this book.
13. Death by the Glass by Nadia Gordon (mystery) Rating: 4 Fun mystery set in Napa Valley. What makes this book is Gordon’s ability to seamlessly integrate Napa gourmet and (of course) wine into the story. Napa itself is very much a lead character. Be warned that you’ll want to sip a cabernet as you read, even if it’s 9:00 a.m. Thus I won’t read anymore of her Napa books until after the baby is born.
14. Mermaids in the Basement by Michael Lee West (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 Renata, after being dumped by her film-director boyfriend, heads “home” to the Alabama coast to sort everything out. Enter: childhood flashbacks and many subplots. The characters are fun and the Southern-ness frickin’ oozes from the pages—which is West’s storytelling brand, of course—but She Flew the Coop (also by West) was a much better book.
15. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (young adult) Rating: 4 Oh, does the world need another review of Twilight? Well, I read it so here goes. After all the insane publicity and hoopla, my expectations were high, but Twilight never totally delivered for me—but I still liked it. Twilight is not the best-written young adult book, no matter how many copies it sells. It just isn’t. Still, a way overlooked aspect of the book’s success is the foray into the budding sexuality and latent desire of the adolescent girl—which I would bet anything is why these books appeal so much to this demographic. Add in the danger and mystery of vampires, and you have the perfect storm for 14-year-old-girl escapist literature. And why not? One could easily argue that the Twilight books are anti-feminist, due mainly to Bella’s cringe-worthy obsession with Edward, but I disagree. Unlike 99% of young adult books, Twilight taps that still-pretty-safe-but-still-pretty-intense desire that adolescent girls have and does so in an exaggerated, paranormal way that’s still kind of believable.
16. Life Balance: Multidisciplinary Theories and Research (health) Rating: n/a A compilation of theories and research on the elusive topic of “Life Balance.” I had to proofread this book for work (plus do the first half of production) and therefore cannot objectively rate or review it.
17. In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant (historical literature) Rating: 3.75 My rating is not totally fair—this was one of those books I read in dribs and drabs, falling asleep after getting through a half page each night, plus I had a zillion things going on at the time, so my attention continually shifted from the plot. The premise of the book is about an Italian Renaissance courtesan and her dwarf-servant who remake themselves and rebuild their lives after Rome is pillaged, moving to Venice. The book’s prose is well-written, but I think plotting and pacing is off—I just couldn’t get into it.
18. Evening by Susan Minot (contemporary literature) Rating: 5 Fabulous book—absolutely loved it. An old woman is dying and keeps flashing back to a particular weekend in her 20s in which her best friend was getting married on the Maine Coast (in the 1950s). There’s love, friendship, tragedy, and (sigh) a wedding, but what makes Evening stand out is Minot’s perfect control of the language. As the old woman moves in and out of consciousness, the writing so perfectly conveys her shifting, fading awareness that I was utterly enthralled and could not stop reading. Five stars, easy.
19. Vamped by Lucienne Diver (young adult) Rating: 3.5 A super popular, super shallow high school girl, Gina, dies, becoming a vampire. And apparently clawing your way out of your coffin and burial plot wreaks havoc on your manicure. She and her fellow high-school-aged vampires seek to overthrow more powerful, tyrannical vampires. Gina’s voice is so, like, forcibly, like, gossip-girly that I, like, got pretty annoyed, like, after awhile. Diver unabashedly panders to the Gossip Girl crowd in a book with a weak plot and forced “youthful” writing. Unfortunately, the writing isn’t ALL bad and there are some pretty decent one-liners and descriptions, so I had to bump the rating up to a 3.5. To be fair.
20. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling (middle level) Rating 4.5 For those of us suffering from Harry Potter withdrawal, Rowling threw us a bone (and I thank her) with the delectable The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which are like Grimm fairy tales—but for wizards and witches. The “scholarly” annotations by Albus Dumbledore are adorable and the whole book is sort of done in a tongue-in-cheek way. Really, it’s just a fun read. I docked a half point because I SO wanted the book to be longer. Greedy me.
21. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (young adult) Rating: 4 A boy receives a box full of tapes that get passed around to 13 people. On the tapes, the voice of a girl who killed herself describes how each of the 13 people contributed to her decision to commit suicide. A clever idea and the severity of the girl’s problems increase at nicely controlled pace. But parts of the book felt very overwritten—I mean, how many physical reactions to hearing the girl’s voice can this kid have in the course of listening to the tapes? We get it. He’s freaked out. Move on! These overwritten parts pulled me out of the cadence of the narrative, which is too bad. Maybe it could’ve been rated a 5.
22. Life of Pi by Yann (contemporary literature) Rating: 4.5 A shipwrecked boy floats around the ocean with a tiger. No, seriously. Bizarre book, but I really enjoyed it.
23. Belly Laughs: The Truth About Pregnancy and Childbirth by Jenny McCarthy (pregnancy) Rating: 4 Not clinical and not condescending. McCarthy details how disgusting the miracle of life can be. And frankly, I appreciated it. I docked a half point for bad editing and another half point because she’s annoyingly vain.
24. Adam the King by Jeffrey Lewis (contemporary literature) Rating: 3.75 Super rich dude builds his mega-home in some touristy town in Maine. Reviews compare it to The Great Gatsby in that the main character is ridiculously wealthy and flawed yet not evil. I don’t know. I couldn’t get into it because the author was so clearly trying to “say something,” and I was of course trying to be the good reader and connect all the dots so I would come away with “correct” political message. I’m just sort of sick of books like that. The writing was swell and the characters were nice and complex, but I really didn’t give a hoot about any of them.
25. The Sweetheart Season by Karen Joy Fowler (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 A nicely written novel about a small post-WWII town where the lack of male options inspires the creation of an all-girls baseball team so they can travel to other towns, thereby hopefully meeting husbands. It gets wordy and 100 pages could have easily been edited out. I wasn’t blown away, but I can see the book’s merits. Also, be warned that this not the paperback version of “A League of Their Own.” Totally different story, tone, and setting.
26. Dragonwyck by Anya Seton (historical fiction) Rating: 4.5 I absolutely adore Seton’s books, but I must limit myself to reading only one of them per year because, well, she’s dead. And won’t be writing any more books. Dragonwyck, written in 1944, is a classic gothic romance that follows innocent farm-girl Miranda Wells into the castle-like Dragonwyck where she falls in love with Nicholas Van Ryn—the dangerous tall dark and handsome “threat” to her virginity that every good gothic novel must contain. Seton walks a line between satirizing the gothic romance genre (sort of like Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, for instance) and sincerely telling a story. But as the reader, you just can’t help but enjoy the whole gaudy ride.
27. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 A Norwegian novel about an old widower who retreats into the woods to live. As with any book centralizing the theme of memory, the novel moves back and forth in time. Very delicately written.
28. The Mayo Clinic Guide to Pregnancy by Roger Harms (pregnancy/health) Rating: 5 I’ve read this book about 342 times now. Okay, I exaggerate, but it’s super clinical and informative, not condescending, and, most importantly, has very useful charts of “when to call the doctor” (adapted for each stage of pregnancy) that prevent you from freaking out about every little twinge or weird feeling. I’ve read it through (more than once) and continue to reference it. I’m hesitant to even travel without it—the book is like a knowledge security blanket that calms you down and keeps you from overreacting. Probably the best $15 I spent all year.
29. Clay’s Quilt by Silas House (contemporary literature) Rating: 4.5 A sweet little Appalachian tale about a young guy in a small Kentucky mining town who, having been orphaned as a 6-year-old, is raised by his relatives in town. He falls in love, of course, to a girl who plays the fiddle and attempts to woo her. Central themes are family, heritage, the importance of place. Dialogue was handled particularly well—sometimes “mountain talk,” or as we called the backwoods/Southern lit genre back at Meridian, “Grit Lit,” was masterfully handled, coming across as sincere and believable rather than condescending and contrived. Glad to have discovered this author and will continue to read his work.
30. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (contemporary literature): Rating 4.5 Classic, quintessential ghost story, originally published in 1959. Jackson brilliantly ratchets up the tension without the guts and gore, which for me makes the perfect creepy, scary book. I heart hauntings and ghosts and spirits, but ax murderers and demon-possessed clowns? Not so much. Totally enjoyed this book.
31. And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander (mystery): Rating 4 A smart, well-written mystery involving a wealthy young widow (of course) and Greek antiquities. I plan to read other books by this author.
32. In Pursuit of the Green Lion by Judith Merkle Riley (historical fiction): Rating 3 I loved Riley’s Vision of Light and expected a similarly good, engaging story, but this sequel that features her tried-and-true heroine, Margaret of Ashbury, is aimless, long, and weird. Too many odd tangents and unlikeable characters in which I just couldn't get invested made this book a bit of a dud. Still, Riley’s mastery of medieval culture has to be given a point or two.
33. Baby Love by Rebecca Walker (autobiography/women’s studies) Rating: 5 I had been saving this book for when there was a baby on the way, and I’m glad I did. This is, flat-out, the best pregnancy book I’ve read. I’m a sucker for Walker’s writing and this is the only book I’ve read to tackle the taboo possibility of feminism plus children. (I wrote a previous blog post on this book.) I loved Baby Love.
34. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 A darker book about an evil carnival that comes to a small town (I pictured Poolesville—is that wrong?). Bradbury has his own distinct writing style, which is fascinating in and of itself.
35. Love Story by Erich Segal (contemporary literature) Rating: 4.5 Published in the 1960s, this adorable but quite insightful book traces the relationship of two college students—one a super wealthy jock, and the other a working-class nerd. Really, really enjoyed it.
36. The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury (young adult) Rating: 4.5 Another Bradbury book, but this one was aimed at a slightly younger audience. A group of boys lose their buddy as they launch trick-or-treating, end up at a haunted house, and then travel across the globe and across time to various Halloween celebrations or rituals. The book harkens back to those old Halloween stories of yore, which adds a fun spookiness to the season, but Bradbury’s use of quirky yet dead-on language takes the book up to another level.
37. Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie (mystery) Rating: 4 My first Agatha Christie mystery and I enjoyed it. Premise: A child is drowned in the apple-bobbing bucket at a children’s Halloween party. And, like every other mystery, we must find killer.
38. Runner’s World Guide to Running and Pregnancy by Chris Lundgren (pregnancy/health) Rating: 4.5 An extremely valuable book for any runner who finds herself knocked up. Granted, I crapped out of running by the end of the first trimester for various reasons, but this book covers everything a girl would need to know to keep plodding along all the way through her ninth month, should she be so loony. Equally applicable to casual and serious runners. (Guess which group I fell into?)
39. The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy by Vicki Iovine (pregnancy/health) Rating: 4.5 This book is truly hilarious. I laughed out loud—uncontrollably—throughout. Iovine is a lively, witty writer and although she didn’t add a whole lot to the knowledge I had gleaned from just about every other pregnancy book, she totally entertained me. I docked a half point because she capitalizes “Girlfriend” throughout the book, giving it (at times) a forced chummy feel.
40. Virgin Earth by Philippa Gregory (historical fiction) Rating: 4 This 600-page book is light years better than Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl—for about the first 300 pages or so. The premise? In the 1600s, an English gardener for the king sails to Virginia to collect plants. He falls in love with a Native American woman. Has wife in England. Travels back and forth—as much as one could do so in the 1600s. Gets tied up in the politics of Jamestown vs. the natives, then gets tied up in the politics at home in England. Gregory clearly gets bogged down with sticking to the long, dry facts of English politics, which makes the book drag for the last 1/3 or so. But the first part is really enjoyable and makes it still worth reading.
41. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (young adult) Rating: 5 BY FAR the best young adult book I read all year. The first in a three-part series, our heroine finds herself in a hoity toity Victorian boarding school, clawing her way through relationships and girl cliques. Oh, and somewhat magical powers—but in a totally non-cheesy way. The supernatural element is all well and good, but Bray’s real talent is developing the relationships among the schoolgirls in completely realistic ways. And goodness, she’s witty. Just a perfect, perfect book.
42. New Moon by Stephanie Myer (young adult) Rating: 3 More happened in the 90-second Volvo commercial I watched that promoted the frickin’ movie of this ridiculous book than in 150 pages I had read that day. Seriously, hardly anything happens for almost 600 pages. The first book in the Twilight series had some good elements. But book two? How has this book taken over the world? It’s so . . . mediocre.
43. Mrs. Jeffries and the Feast of St. Stephen by Emily Brightwell (mystery) Rating: 4 This sweet little Victorian mystery , which is part of the Mrs. Jeffries series, takes place at Christmastime. It’s kind of Sherlock Holmes-y, but Brightwell’s twist on the series is that the inspector’s servants are the ones who really solve the crimes. A good plot with a fairly surprising ending. The main flaw is that there are SO MANY characters—and half the time they’re referred to by their first names, and the other half they’re referred to by their last names. Characters who are so minor they don’t even need names receive a first and a last name. It gets confusing.
44. It Will Come to Me by Emily Fox Gordon (contemporary literature) Rating: 4.5 A quasi-satire of academia at a Southern university that follows an incredibly insecure faculty wife. Gordon develops her characters perfectly. She has a witty writing style and ability to slip in freakishly perfect metaphors and synonyms. Usually I read these little literary devices as forced and insincere, but Gordon just nails them. A very enjoyable, interesting book.
45. A Christmas Promise by Anne Perry (mystery) Rating: 2 Oh, retch. A mystery set in Dickens’s London, more or less. The plot is thin and 85% of the book is written in dialect, which I detest. Middle English is easier to read that the verbiage of these orphan Londoners. The dialogue is contrived, overwritten, and cutesy in a weird way. LAME.
46. Outliers by Malcom Gladwell (sociology/business) Rating: 4 The main thesis of this book is that extraordinary people are more lucky than anything else. An interesting read, although the section on Jewish immigrants dragged. Making up for it was a sizable section on plane crashes, which fascinate (and terrify) me for some reason. Also, the section on Bill Gates is also nicely done—we all know the gist of his bio, but this book puts a fresh spin on it.
47. The Shack by William P. Young (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 This is a tough one to rate or review. The premise is that a man’s young daughter is abducted and murdered. Then the father goes to the shack where the girl died and meets up with, well, God. The author swears the book is a true story of what happened to his friend. I don’t know whether it is or not. Either way, that doesn’t affect its literary merits—which are few, despite the publisher’s note at the end that enthusiastically exclaims this book has a spiffy message AND undeniable “literary merit.” (I literally burst out laughing at those words.) Prior to the meet up with God, the book is written horribly. HORRIBLY. It’s amateurish and ridiculous, and a real publisher would have a) given this author a decent editor, and b) paid the $200 to correct the typos and grammatical errors for future reprints after, oh, say, the first million copies were sold. The book became popular by promoting and selling it at religious revivals, which of course sets off bullshit alerts in my ever-cynical mind. So why a rating of a 4? Pretty high, eh? Well, despite some truly eye-rolling cheesiness, the book had parts I really liked. Undoubtedly, the first third of the book needs a complete rewrite, and the last two thirds needs some tweaking, but the novel has a little something there that does indeed rise above the cheesy or the sentimental. I’m not entirely comfortable with the rating of a 4, but I can’t quite justify anything lower.
48. Growing Up bin Laden by Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden, and Jean Sasson (biography/current events) Rating: 4 This freakishly fascinating biography of Osama bin Laden was written by his first wife and her fourth-born son. I expected a sensationalistic tell-all but the book is very carefully written. (I docked one point off the rating because too much space is devoted to Najwa’s childhood and incredibly dull daily routines.) Najwa, a super-conservative Muslim woman, never speaks poorly of Osama. This is as annoying as it is fascinating. Sasson mentions that Najwa would not discuss certain things, and her reaction to 9/11 HAD to be one of those things. However, she throws us infidels a bone by very sincerely articulating that, as a mother, she could not but mourn for any other mother who lost a child that day. And I believe her. (I also believe that she fears for her life for writing anything in the first place.) Omar, far more critical of the world’s biggest turd, shocked me when he said he never saw Osama raise a hand to any of his four wives or his daughters. For some reason, this bugged me. I want the comfort that evil can be more easily detected, I suppose. (Osama did, however, horribly abuse his sons.) He selected Omar to accompany him to Afghanistan, and Omar gives immense insight on bin Laden’s personality and motivations, his cronies, and his view of Islam. Omar, sickened by his father’s work (yet still perversely trying to please him up until 9/11—which he didn’t know about), provides a rather good example of hope. This boy was raised on an Osama bin Laden religious diet of “kill all Christians and Jews,” but he just doesn’t buy it. He escapes Afghanistan and manages to rescue his mother and two siblings from as well. I found this biography far more useful for understanding jihad and terrorism than any newspaper articles or Sunday morning talk shows.
A note about the rating system: Some folks have suggested that some ratings seem too high, especially after I critically blast a book’s faults. However, keep in mind that every book on this list was selected by me for SOME reason. I’m not going to devote many hours of reading to something I think I’ll hate. Thus, it’s very difficult for a book to clock in at a rating of 1. Second, sometimes the book has merits that I simply neglect to mention. Third, there’s an “enjoyability” factor (or lack thereof) that’s not always articulated but always present some way in the rating. Finally, it’s not a perfect system—sorry. The books below appear in the order in which I read them. I include the title, author, and genre (and that’s “genre” according to Ashley, not the Library of Congress). And we’re off!
1. The Loop by Nicholas Evans (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 Very much enjoyed this book about wolves and Montana, although Evans slips too easily into typecasting the ranch-owning locals as ignorant rednecks.
2. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 Loosely based on Mrs. Bush, Sittenfeld creates a host of fabulous characters, but totally drops the ball by the time our heroine becomes First Lady. Her voice suddenly doesn’t sound like her voice and the last 140 pages or so read like a long, never-ending internal monologue. However, the first three-quarters of the book are extremely well-written, hence the rating of 4. (But not 5.)
3. Willa Cather and the American Southwest edited by John Swift and Joseph Urgo (literary criticism) Rating: 4 Collection of critical essays on Cather’s three novels that take place (at some point, anyway) in the Southwest (The Professor’s House, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and Song of the Lark). Obviously, read the three Cather novels before tackling this book.
4. The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen (contemporary literature) Rating: 3 Set during WWI and the Spanish Influenza in the middle of a forest in Washington State where a small town quarantines itself off to keep out the flu. Very labored prose and way too much text devoted to analyzing the plot. Extremely tiresome after awhile. I like books set in my home state (helps with the occasional bout of homesickness), but this novel was completely unremarkable, despite Mullen’s painful efforts to make it “deep,” philosophical, and moving.
5. The Book That Changed My Life edited by Roxanne Coady and Joy Johannessen (literary criticism) Rating: 4 71 writers (and this term “writers” is used loosely—some people were merely authors of cookbooks, some were politicians, and so on) wrote very short little essays on the book that changed their life. A cute idea for a book and it inspired a blog entry I wrote on the book that changed my life. It makes you view books and literature and stories as very powerful things—which is why it got the “4” it probably doesn’t deserve. Of course, a good chunk of authors totally misunderstood the book’s aim and instead wrote book reports on their favorite books (i.e., "To Kill a Mockingbird is about racism." So? How did it change your life?) But, eh, the proceeds of the book’s sales go to a literacy charity. Read this in very small increments. Definitely not something you want to read straight through.
6. Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn (mystery) Rating: 4 A mystery set in Victorian England in which Lady Grey’s blah husband is murdered. Enter: Nicholas Brisbane, part-gypsy detective with a knack for playing the violin. Despite how I’ve described it, this novel is remarkably not cheesy and quite entertaining. I plan to read the sequel.
7. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (contemporary literature) Rating: 5 The first 5 of the year—and holy moley. Post-apocalyptic world covered in ash with a man and his son traveling to the coast and along the way hiding from . . . other people. McCarthy uses very sparse language—a tactic that to me usually comes across as an affected, gimmicky effort to be hyper literary. But McCarthy wields it in such an effective way that your imagination fills in all the gaps between the words and scares the crap out of you. But maybe I frighten easily. McCarthy received the Pulitzer for The Road. Totally deserved.
8. Shakespeare’s Wife by Germaine Greer (biography/women’s studies) Rating: 4 Greer’s biography on Ann Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, is groundbreaking in many ways, mainly because Greer aims to expose the bias with which scholars have cast Hathaway—a cold, disapproving, illiterate, whiny wife—and provides a tome of historical evidence to the contrary. Why? “The Shakespeare wallahs have succeeded in creating a Bard in their own likeness, that is to say, incapable of relating to women, and have then vilified the one woman who remained true to him all his life, in order to exonerate him” (p. 356). Although I love that this book exists, I didn’t love reading it—the evidence, though important, is minute and extraordinarily detailed, which doesn’t make for the most scintillating read. However, Greer’s depth of scholarship is impeccable and hugely important for both women’s studies and Shakespearean studies. Greer’s own writing style also adds a unique dimension to the book; she’s feisty and a touch irreverent, except when it comes to Ann: “The idea that [Ann] might be entitled to some of the credit for the preservation her husband’s work is apparently too ridiculous to contemplate, which is why we shall now contemplate it” (p. 345–346). A much-needed, very welcome biography on the elusive Mrs. Shakespeare. But I’m very, very glad to have finally finished it.
9. Peony in Love by Lisa See (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 Set in 16th-century China and paralleling a Chinese opera often performed at that time, the only daughter of an uber wealthy family falls in love and gets all swoony and lovesick and dies. Her spirit then floats around according to myths and rules of the soul that the Chinese followed at the time. It’s very ghostly and beautifully written.
10. Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones by Ann Head (young adult) Rating: 4 A classic young adult book from the 1950s or early 1960s. And a classic plot: Two high school students with everything going for them do the dirty deed and oops! are pregnant—except you don’t see the sex scene and I don’t think the word “pregnant” was used once. The two get married to make it seem like their accident was all planned, and, big surprise, teen marriage is, like, hard. A very solid book and essential for anyone interested in the evolution of the young adult genre.
11. 19th Wife by David Ebershoff (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 This book has two simultaneous plots, each told through countless points of view: 1) The life story of Eliza Young, Brigham Young’s 19th wife in the 1800s, and 2) a modern-day murder mystery (eh, sort of ) in a polygamous, fundamentalist Mormon cult. The last third of the book really dragged and it could have been shorter. I’ll give Ebershoff kudos for capturing a lot of different voices to tell the stories, but such constant voice/gear shifting got old after awhile. The ending also seemed very anticlimactic. Still, it paints a very interesting, multidimensional view of early Mormonism and polygamy. The Mormons aren’t portrayed in the greatest light, but they’re not totally vilified either.
12. The Art of Racing in the Rain (contemporary literature) Rating: 4.5 I admit that I’ve inflated the rating on this book. Is it fabulous literature? No. Did I absolutely love it? YES. This book takes place in Seattle (and is very tied to its setting there) and, most importantly, is narrated entirely by a dog. We watch the drama of his people-family unfold through his eyes, which was a plot like you’d find as a Lifetime movie, so it’s really the dog narration and point of view that carries the book. What was amazing to me was that this dog actually has a voice—but it’s totally believable as a dog’s voice and not cheesy or overdone. Sometimes the parallels to car racing got a little old, but no matter. I loved this dog and I loved this book.
13. Death by the Glass by Nadia Gordon (mystery) Rating: 4 Fun mystery set in Napa Valley. What makes this book is Gordon’s ability to seamlessly integrate Napa gourmet and (of course) wine into the story. Napa itself is very much a lead character. Be warned that you’ll want to sip a cabernet as you read, even if it’s 9:00 a.m. Thus I won’t read anymore of her Napa books until after the baby is born.
14. Mermaids in the Basement by Michael Lee West (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 Renata, after being dumped by her film-director boyfriend, heads “home” to the Alabama coast to sort everything out. Enter: childhood flashbacks and many subplots. The characters are fun and the Southern-ness frickin’ oozes from the pages—which is West’s storytelling brand, of course—but She Flew the Coop (also by West) was a much better book.
15. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (young adult) Rating: 4 Oh, does the world need another review of Twilight? Well, I read it so here goes. After all the insane publicity and hoopla, my expectations were high, but Twilight never totally delivered for me—but I still liked it. Twilight is not the best-written young adult book, no matter how many copies it sells. It just isn’t. Still, a way overlooked aspect of the book’s success is the foray into the budding sexuality and latent desire of the adolescent girl—which I would bet anything is why these books appeal so much to this demographic. Add in the danger and mystery of vampires, and you have the perfect storm for 14-year-old-girl escapist literature. And why not? One could easily argue that the Twilight books are anti-feminist, due mainly to Bella’s cringe-worthy obsession with Edward, but I disagree. Unlike 99% of young adult books, Twilight taps that still-pretty-safe-but-still-pretty-intense desire that adolescent girls have and does so in an exaggerated, paranormal way that’s still kind of believable.
16. Life Balance: Multidisciplinary Theories and Research (health) Rating: n/a A compilation of theories and research on the elusive topic of “Life Balance.” I had to proofread this book for work (plus do the first half of production) and therefore cannot objectively rate or review it.
17. In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant (historical literature) Rating: 3.75 My rating is not totally fair—this was one of those books I read in dribs and drabs, falling asleep after getting through a half page each night, plus I had a zillion things going on at the time, so my attention continually shifted from the plot. The premise of the book is about an Italian Renaissance courtesan and her dwarf-servant who remake themselves and rebuild their lives after Rome is pillaged, moving to Venice. The book’s prose is well-written, but I think plotting and pacing is off—I just couldn’t get into it.
18. Evening by Susan Minot (contemporary literature) Rating: 5 Fabulous book—absolutely loved it. An old woman is dying and keeps flashing back to a particular weekend in her 20s in which her best friend was getting married on the Maine Coast (in the 1950s). There’s love, friendship, tragedy, and (sigh) a wedding, but what makes Evening stand out is Minot’s perfect control of the language. As the old woman moves in and out of consciousness, the writing so perfectly conveys her shifting, fading awareness that I was utterly enthralled and could not stop reading. Five stars, easy.
19. Vamped by Lucienne Diver (young adult) Rating: 3.5 A super popular, super shallow high school girl, Gina, dies, becoming a vampire. And apparently clawing your way out of your coffin and burial plot wreaks havoc on your manicure. She and her fellow high-school-aged vampires seek to overthrow more powerful, tyrannical vampires. Gina’s voice is so, like, forcibly, like, gossip-girly that I, like, got pretty annoyed, like, after awhile. Diver unabashedly panders to the Gossip Girl crowd in a book with a weak plot and forced “youthful” writing. Unfortunately, the writing isn’t ALL bad and there are some pretty decent one-liners and descriptions, so I had to bump the rating up to a 3.5. To be fair.
20. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling (middle level) Rating 4.5 For those of us suffering from Harry Potter withdrawal, Rowling threw us a bone (and I thank her) with the delectable The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which are like Grimm fairy tales—but for wizards and witches. The “scholarly” annotations by Albus Dumbledore are adorable and the whole book is sort of done in a tongue-in-cheek way. Really, it’s just a fun read. I docked a half point because I SO wanted the book to be longer. Greedy me.
21. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (young adult) Rating: 4 A boy receives a box full of tapes that get passed around to 13 people. On the tapes, the voice of a girl who killed herself describes how each of the 13 people contributed to her decision to commit suicide. A clever idea and the severity of the girl’s problems increase at nicely controlled pace. But parts of the book felt very overwritten—I mean, how many physical reactions to hearing the girl’s voice can this kid have in the course of listening to the tapes? We get it. He’s freaked out. Move on! These overwritten parts pulled me out of the cadence of the narrative, which is too bad. Maybe it could’ve been rated a 5.
22. Life of Pi by Yann (contemporary literature) Rating: 4.5 A shipwrecked boy floats around the ocean with a tiger. No, seriously. Bizarre book, but I really enjoyed it.
23. Belly Laughs: The Truth About Pregnancy and Childbirth by Jenny McCarthy (pregnancy) Rating: 4 Not clinical and not condescending. McCarthy details how disgusting the miracle of life can be. And frankly, I appreciated it. I docked a half point for bad editing and another half point because she’s annoyingly vain.
24. Adam the King by Jeffrey Lewis (contemporary literature) Rating: 3.75 Super rich dude builds his mega-home in some touristy town in Maine. Reviews compare it to The Great Gatsby in that the main character is ridiculously wealthy and flawed yet not evil. I don’t know. I couldn’t get into it because the author was so clearly trying to “say something,” and I was of course trying to be the good reader and connect all the dots so I would come away with “correct” political message. I’m just sort of sick of books like that. The writing was swell and the characters were nice and complex, but I really didn’t give a hoot about any of them.
25. The Sweetheart Season by Karen Joy Fowler (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 A nicely written novel about a small post-WWII town where the lack of male options inspires the creation of an all-girls baseball team so they can travel to other towns, thereby hopefully meeting husbands. It gets wordy and 100 pages could have easily been edited out. I wasn’t blown away, but I can see the book’s merits. Also, be warned that this not the paperback version of “A League of Their Own.” Totally different story, tone, and setting.
26. Dragonwyck by Anya Seton (historical fiction) Rating: 4.5 I absolutely adore Seton’s books, but I must limit myself to reading only one of them per year because, well, she’s dead. And won’t be writing any more books. Dragonwyck, written in 1944, is a classic gothic romance that follows innocent farm-girl Miranda Wells into the castle-like Dragonwyck where she falls in love with Nicholas Van Ryn—the dangerous tall dark and handsome “threat” to her virginity that every good gothic novel must contain. Seton walks a line between satirizing the gothic romance genre (sort of like Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, for instance) and sincerely telling a story. But as the reader, you just can’t help but enjoy the whole gaudy ride.
27. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 A Norwegian novel about an old widower who retreats into the woods to live. As with any book centralizing the theme of memory, the novel moves back and forth in time. Very delicately written.
28. The Mayo Clinic Guide to Pregnancy by Roger Harms (pregnancy/health) Rating: 5 I’ve read this book about 342 times now. Okay, I exaggerate, but it’s super clinical and informative, not condescending, and, most importantly, has very useful charts of “when to call the doctor” (adapted for each stage of pregnancy) that prevent you from freaking out about every little twinge or weird feeling. I’ve read it through (more than once) and continue to reference it. I’m hesitant to even travel without it—the book is like a knowledge security blanket that calms you down and keeps you from overreacting. Probably the best $15 I spent all year.
29. Clay’s Quilt by Silas House (contemporary literature) Rating: 4.5 A sweet little Appalachian tale about a young guy in a small Kentucky mining town who, having been orphaned as a 6-year-old, is raised by his relatives in town. He falls in love, of course, to a girl who plays the fiddle and attempts to woo her. Central themes are family, heritage, the importance of place. Dialogue was handled particularly well—sometimes “mountain talk,” or as we called the backwoods/Southern lit genre back at Meridian, “Grit Lit,” was masterfully handled, coming across as sincere and believable rather than condescending and contrived. Glad to have discovered this author and will continue to read his work.
30. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (contemporary literature): Rating 4.5 Classic, quintessential ghost story, originally published in 1959. Jackson brilliantly ratchets up the tension without the guts and gore, which for me makes the perfect creepy, scary book. I heart hauntings and ghosts and spirits, but ax murderers and demon-possessed clowns? Not so much. Totally enjoyed this book.
31. And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander (mystery): Rating 4 A smart, well-written mystery involving a wealthy young widow (of course) and Greek antiquities. I plan to read other books by this author.
32. In Pursuit of the Green Lion by Judith Merkle Riley (historical fiction): Rating 3 I loved Riley’s Vision of Light and expected a similarly good, engaging story, but this sequel that features her tried-and-true heroine, Margaret of Ashbury, is aimless, long, and weird. Too many odd tangents and unlikeable characters in which I just couldn't get invested made this book a bit of a dud. Still, Riley’s mastery of medieval culture has to be given a point or two.
33. Baby Love by Rebecca Walker (autobiography/women’s studies) Rating: 5 I had been saving this book for when there was a baby on the way, and I’m glad I did. This is, flat-out, the best pregnancy book I’ve read. I’m a sucker for Walker’s writing and this is the only book I’ve read to tackle the taboo possibility of feminism plus children. (I wrote a previous blog post on this book.) I loved Baby Love.
34. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 A darker book about an evil carnival that comes to a small town (I pictured Poolesville—is that wrong?). Bradbury has his own distinct writing style, which is fascinating in and of itself.
35. Love Story by Erich Segal (contemporary literature) Rating: 4.5 Published in the 1960s, this adorable but quite insightful book traces the relationship of two college students—one a super wealthy jock, and the other a working-class nerd. Really, really enjoyed it.
36. The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury (young adult) Rating: 4.5 Another Bradbury book, but this one was aimed at a slightly younger audience. A group of boys lose their buddy as they launch trick-or-treating, end up at a haunted house, and then travel across the globe and across time to various Halloween celebrations or rituals. The book harkens back to those old Halloween stories of yore, which adds a fun spookiness to the season, but Bradbury’s use of quirky yet dead-on language takes the book up to another level.
37. Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie (mystery) Rating: 4 My first Agatha Christie mystery and I enjoyed it. Premise: A child is drowned in the apple-bobbing bucket at a children’s Halloween party. And, like every other mystery, we must find killer.
38. Runner’s World Guide to Running and Pregnancy by Chris Lundgren (pregnancy/health) Rating: 4.5 An extremely valuable book for any runner who finds herself knocked up. Granted, I crapped out of running by the end of the first trimester for various reasons, but this book covers everything a girl would need to know to keep plodding along all the way through her ninth month, should she be so loony. Equally applicable to casual and serious runners. (Guess which group I fell into?)
39. The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy by Vicki Iovine (pregnancy/health) Rating: 4.5 This book is truly hilarious. I laughed out loud—uncontrollably—throughout. Iovine is a lively, witty writer and although she didn’t add a whole lot to the knowledge I had gleaned from just about every other pregnancy book, she totally entertained me. I docked a half point because she capitalizes “Girlfriend” throughout the book, giving it (at times) a forced chummy feel.
40. Virgin Earth by Philippa Gregory (historical fiction) Rating: 4 This 600-page book is light years better than Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl—for about the first 300 pages or so. The premise? In the 1600s, an English gardener for the king sails to Virginia to collect plants. He falls in love with a Native American woman. Has wife in England. Travels back and forth—as much as one could do so in the 1600s. Gets tied up in the politics of Jamestown vs. the natives, then gets tied up in the politics at home in England. Gregory clearly gets bogged down with sticking to the long, dry facts of English politics, which makes the book drag for the last 1/3 or so. But the first part is really enjoyable and makes it still worth reading.
41. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (young adult) Rating: 5 BY FAR the best young adult book I read all year. The first in a three-part series, our heroine finds herself in a hoity toity Victorian boarding school, clawing her way through relationships and girl cliques. Oh, and somewhat magical powers—but in a totally non-cheesy way. The supernatural element is all well and good, but Bray’s real talent is developing the relationships among the schoolgirls in completely realistic ways. And goodness, she’s witty. Just a perfect, perfect book.
42. New Moon by Stephanie Myer (young adult) Rating: 3 More happened in the 90-second Volvo commercial I watched that promoted the frickin’ movie of this ridiculous book than in 150 pages I had read that day. Seriously, hardly anything happens for almost 600 pages. The first book in the Twilight series had some good elements. But book two? How has this book taken over the world? It’s so . . . mediocre.
43. Mrs. Jeffries and the Feast of St. Stephen by Emily Brightwell (mystery) Rating: 4 This sweet little Victorian mystery , which is part of the Mrs. Jeffries series, takes place at Christmastime. It’s kind of Sherlock Holmes-y, but Brightwell’s twist on the series is that the inspector’s servants are the ones who really solve the crimes. A good plot with a fairly surprising ending. The main flaw is that there are SO MANY characters—and half the time they’re referred to by their first names, and the other half they’re referred to by their last names. Characters who are so minor they don’t even need names receive a first and a last name. It gets confusing.
44. It Will Come to Me by Emily Fox Gordon (contemporary literature) Rating: 4.5 A quasi-satire of academia at a Southern university that follows an incredibly insecure faculty wife. Gordon develops her characters perfectly. She has a witty writing style and ability to slip in freakishly perfect metaphors and synonyms. Usually I read these little literary devices as forced and insincere, but Gordon just nails them. A very enjoyable, interesting book.
45. A Christmas Promise by Anne Perry (mystery) Rating: 2 Oh, retch. A mystery set in Dickens’s London, more or less. The plot is thin and 85% of the book is written in dialect, which I detest. Middle English is easier to read that the verbiage of these orphan Londoners. The dialogue is contrived, overwritten, and cutesy in a weird way. LAME.
46. Outliers by Malcom Gladwell (sociology/business) Rating: 4 The main thesis of this book is that extraordinary people are more lucky than anything else. An interesting read, although the section on Jewish immigrants dragged. Making up for it was a sizable section on plane crashes, which fascinate (and terrify) me for some reason. Also, the section on Bill Gates is also nicely done—we all know the gist of his bio, but this book puts a fresh spin on it.
47. The Shack by William P. Young (contemporary literature) Rating: 4 This is a tough one to rate or review. The premise is that a man’s young daughter is abducted and murdered. Then the father goes to the shack where the girl died and meets up with, well, God. The author swears the book is a true story of what happened to his friend. I don’t know whether it is or not. Either way, that doesn’t affect its literary merits—which are few, despite the publisher’s note at the end that enthusiastically exclaims this book has a spiffy message AND undeniable “literary merit.” (I literally burst out laughing at those words.) Prior to the meet up with God, the book is written horribly. HORRIBLY. It’s amateurish and ridiculous, and a real publisher would have a) given this author a decent editor, and b) paid the $200 to correct the typos and grammatical errors for future reprints after, oh, say, the first million copies were sold. The book became popular by promoting and selling it at religious revivals, which of course sets off bullshit alerts in my ever-cynical mind. So why a rating of a 4? Pretty high, eh? Well, despite some truly eye-rolling cheesiness, the book had parts I really liked. Undoubtedly, the first third of the book needs a complete rewrite, and the last two thirds needs some tweaking, but the novel has a little something there that does indeed rise above the cheesy or the sentimental. I’m not entirely comfortable with the rating of a 4, but I can’t quite justify anything lower.
48. Growing Up bin Laden by Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden, and Jean Sasson (biography/current events) Rating: 4 This freakishly fascinating biography of Osama bin Laden was written by his first wife and her fourth-born son. I expected a sensationalistic tell-all but the book is very carefully written. (I docked one point off the rating because too much space is devoted to Najwa’s childhood and incredibly dull daily routines.) Najwa, a super-conservative Muslim woman, never speaks poorly of Osama. This is as annoying as it is fascinating. Sasson mentions that Najwa would not discuss certain things, and her reaction to 9/11 HAD to be one of those things. However, she throws us infidels a bone by very sincerely articulating that, as a mother, she could not but mourn for any other mother who lost a child that day. And I believe her. (I also believe that she fears for her life for writing anything in the first place.) Omar, far more critical of the world’s biggest turd, shocked me when he said he never saw Osama raise a hand to any of his four wives or his daughters. For some reason, this bugged me. I want the comfort that evil can be more easily detected, I suppose. (Osama did, however, horribly abuse his sons.) He selected Omar to accompany him to Afghanistan, and Omar gives immense insight on bin Laden’s personality and motivations, his cronies, and his view of Islam. Omar, sickened by his father’s work (yet still perversely trying to please him up until 9/11—which he didn’t know about), provides a rather good example of hope. This boy was raised on an Osama bin Laden religious diet of “kill all Christians and Jews,” but he just doesn’t buy it. He escapes Afghanistan and manages to rescue his mother and two siblings from as well. I found this biography far more useful for understanding jihad and terrorism than any newspaper articles or Sunday morning talk shows.
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