I did a lot of reading last year, a lot, perhaps because I had a lot of down time. I tend to read before going to sleep, and recovery from surgery and other things means I go to bed early and then fill the time between bed and sleep with books. Books, books, and more books.
To be totally precise, I read books on a Kindle, which allows me to read in the middle of the night in the dark with the back light. Also to read from any position, since all books are the same, light weight when consumed via an e-reader. I am a full e-reader convert.
Anyway, I’ve had means, motive and opportunity, and I read a tonne. Some of it was bad, some of it was good, some of it was memorable, some not. Of the 50 or so books I read last year, here are ten that made me go “yes, that was good and memorable”.
Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver
I used to read Booker Prize winners, but I found the match to my taste was hit-and-miss. The Pullitzer Prize nominees list, on the other hand, has given me piles of great reads. I am still mining it for recommendations, older and older entries.
Anyways, this modern day re-telling of Dicken’s David Copperfield is set in Apallacia, amid the height of the opiod crises. The book is tightly written, has some lovely turns of phrase, and a nice tight narrative push, thanks to the borrowed plot structure. I re-read the Dickens after, because it was so much fun to mark out the character borrowings and plot beats.
Master Slave, Husband Wife, Ilyon Woo
This non-fiction re-telling of an original slavery escape narrative is occasionally verbose, but an excellent entrant into a whole category of writing I did not know existed, the contemporaneous slavery escape narrative. For obvious reasons, abolitionists before the Civil War were keen to promote stories that humanized the people trapped in the south, who might otherwise be theoretical to Northern audiences.
The book re-tells the escape of Ellen and William Craft, and wraps that story in a lot of historical context about the millieu they were escaping from (Georgian slavery) and to (abolitionist circles in the North). The actual text of their story is liberally quoted from, but this is a re-telling. Frederick Douglass appears in their story, which gave me the excuse I have been waiting for a long time to read the next book in this list.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
It took me way too long to finally pick up this book, given that Douglass has showed up as such an important figure in the other historical books I have read: Team of Rivals, Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, And There Was Light.
One goes into books from the 1800s wondering just how punishing the language is going to be. Clauses upon subclauses upon subclauses? None of that here. Douglass writes wonderfully clean prose the modern mind can handle, and tells his story with economy but still enough context to make it powerful. Probably because as a master story teller, he was pitching for an audience much like the modern one – made up of people with little knowledge of the particulars of the slave system, just a broad and overly simple sense of the injustice. After 150 years, still devestating and accessible.
How Much of These Hills Is Gold, C Pam Zhang
The Goodreads crew does not seem to think this book is as good as I do, but what strikes me about it and what makes me slot it into my “years best” is that I remember it so clearly. This is a historical novel of the California gold rush, from the eyes of children born to Chinese immigrants in the gold fields. It’s both an intense family drama, and an meditation on the power of place. It left me with a strongly remembered sense of the land, and the characters. Even though it covers a big swathe of years, the cast of characters remains small and their interactions meaningful. It’s memorable!
(Also, and this is no small thing, I read Into the Distance by Hernan Diaz this year too, which is set in the same time period and has some of the same beats… so maybe these books are a pairing.)
Julia, Sandra Newman
It’s a great time to be reading about authoritarianism! In the same spirit as pairing up Demon Copperhead with David Copperfield, I also paired up a reading of George Orwell’s 1984 with this retelling of the same story from the point of view of Julia, the love interest in Orwell’s book.
Newman takes the opportunity to flesh out Julia as a character and also the world of 1984 a little more, which makes the re-read of the original really fun. I do not think I noticed before just how much Winston Smith is a self-absorbed schmuck, but once you’ve seen it, you cannot unsee it.
The Bee Sting, Paul Murray
A tragedy told from the inter-leaved view points of four members of a family falling apart. Each chapter from a different character, each builds up the point of view narrator and also illuminates the others. Mostly the reveal is who these people are, bit by bit, but the plot also slowly clicks together like a puzzle until that last piece slides in, and oh boy.
An easy engaging read that gets more and more intense, but you cannot look away.
Yellowface, R F Huang
Written by an Asian-American author, about a white author appropriating the story of an Asian-American author, the story is gripping, snarky, and unblinking in its takedown of the publishing industry. Come for the plot, stay for the commentary on modern meme-making and self-promotion, the intersection between who we are and who we present ourselves as. On the internet, nobody knows you are a dog. Or everybody knows you are a dog and hates you for it.
The Librarianist, Patrick deWitt
I don’t think this book made many or any “best of” lists, so it is not clear to me what caused me to read it, but it was a treat. Just a very quiet story about an introverted retired librarian, finding his way as he transitions into retirement, and builds some new connections with his community. Sounds really boring, I know, but I hoovered it up and it still sticks with me. A good read if you need some optimism and calm in your life.
Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe
A history of the Troubles in Ireland, wrapped around the story of a particular murder, long unsolved, that slowly reveals itself over the decades, as the perpetrators come to terms with their part in that violent chapter of history. The Goodreaders really like this one and I agree. I knew the bare minimum of this chapter of world history (what I gleaned from CNN at the time, and from Derry Girls more recently) and this telling makes an easy introduction, covering a wide sweep of time and context.
Notes from the Burning Age, Claire North
Claire North remains a lesser-known science fiction author, despite her low-key hit The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (read it!), but I’m a convert, and this novel reminded me why. The world is a post-climate crisis culture that has achieved some spiritual and technological balance with the ecology, but is wrestling with the return of what we would describe as “business as usual” – the subjugation of the natural world to the needs of humans.
Following an ecological monk, turned spy, from inside the capital of the new humanists, through the other realms of this world is easy because the journey is wrapped in a high-stakes espionage story. Of all the climate stories I have read lately, this one taken from such a long distance in the future speaks to me most. I want to think we will build something new and better, and while I know our human nature can be malign, I also know it can be beautiful.
Trust, Hernan Diaz
Best for last. Told in multiple sections from multiple perspectives in multiple styles, every narrator is unreliable, each in their own way, but the idea that there is a kernel of truth lying beneath it all never goes away (and yet, is never truly revealed). Perhaps a perfect book club novel for that reason. (Not where I got it, it’s another Pullitzer winner.)
Some facts everyone agrees on. There is a very rich and powerful financier. He has a relationship with a woman who he marries who is very important to him. But in what way? Unclear. And man is malign, but in what ways? The usual mercenary ones you might expect of a Wall Street lion? Worse and additional ways? Unclear. The whole thing is a puzzle box, the language, the characters, the events. Read it. Read it again. Read it a third time.
