A Bookworm's Pick: Top 2011 Reads

Everyone's doing it, and I'm a big fan of the bandwagon, so what follows is my (first ever, I might note!) attempt to pick out my top 2011 reads. Note that these are my top ten new reads - all were published in 2011 (unless I made a mistake, in which case, let me amend that sentence to read "Most were published in 2011."). I'm comfortable posting this now because I know that in the next three weeks, I will be reading books with publication dates in 2012, or be working on those shelves and shelves of TBR books that are mocking me from the shelves.

13, rue Thérèse by Elena Mauli Shapiro: This unexpected little gem showed up at my door early this year from the publisher, and proved an absolute delight to read. Very French, very fun, very thoughful. Very recommended. Includes some steamy bedroom scenes, as an added bonus. 

The Magician King by Lev Grossman: I fell head-over-heels in love with The Magicians in January, and eagerly anticipated its sequel. Luckily, Grossman did not disappoint. A healthy dose of teenage angst, and post-college life angst, and magic, and back story made for the perfect follow-up to what others have called "Harry Potter for grown-ups," and what I call "Harry Potter if he was a loner stoner who went to magic college and did a lot of drugs and fell in love and discovered Narnia." But I also hate the fact that we constantly compare all fantasy books to Harry Potter, and believe that both The Magicians and The Magician King stand wonderfully on their own two feet.

Among Others by Jo Walton: This one was a gift from my husband, who read about its release on io9, and promptly pre-ordered me a copy, believing it would be right up my alley. It was. It still is. Walton perfectly captures the magic of books and of belief in magic, and Among Others proves as much a fantasy novel in its own right as it is a love letter to fantasy books. Read with pen in hand, because there are multiple quotes you'll want to recall later on, and the books mentioned will have the holds shelf on your local library exploding before you're done.

Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell: I love anything and everything by Sarah Vowell, including things she writes on subjects about which I previously had no interest. Case in point: this book. I can't profess to have cared much about Hawaiian history until I heard Vowell was writing about it, but Unfamiliar Fishes was a worthwhile jaunt into the history of a collection of islands that sort of accidentally on purpose happen to be a state. Vowell has a special knack for making me feel educated and entertained at the same time, and that's saying something.

     

11/22/63 by Stephen King: I haven't even finished this yet, and I'm saving it a spot on my list. King is a master at storytelling, I'm learning (this is my first King novel, I confess in shame), and I am totally, completely hooked on this story. If I keep writing, I'm just going to descend into downright gushing. So. Read it. I want to talk about it with you, I promise. Time-travelling, after all, is a brain teaser.

Among the Missing by Morag Joss: I am probably just as surprised as anyone to find this on my list. The novel's cover suggests... I don't know what it suggests, actually, but it proves to be something other than what you'd think. A probing, intellectual exploration of the emotional turmoil that comes from a collapsed bridge, and what it means to be the one missing, the one left behind, and the one who finds excitement in the terror. This story has stayed with me for months -- hence the inclusion on the top 2011 reads. Because, as I've always said, the kind of book that lingers past its final page is the kind of book worth reading.

Enough About Love by Herve le Tellier: I guess I had a French thing going on this year. Who knew? Le Tellier's book is beautiful, gripping, and, as with so many others on this list, unforgettable. Enough About Love is a very French novel about the power of love, and fidelity, and what it means to fall out of love, and infidelity. Complex but never complicated. Not uplifting, but not quite depressing. Just... thought-provoking.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: This one has caught a lot of flack from other reviewers (and a lot of praise, too!), but I can't help but include it here. Yes, the plot is a bit slow, and there were times when I questioned the development of the characters. But Morgenstern's perfectly captured world, of a circus, of magic, of love, of mystery, is inescapable, and I'm a sucker for description, and imagery, and magic, magic, magic. Done well, that is, which it is here.

Christmas Spirit

"It is required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death." - A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Paper or...?

At the grocery store, or at my grocery store at least, they have stopped asking me if I prefer paper or plastic. We default to plastic unless I remember to say something before the groceries start their interminable beep, beep, beep across the register. I never remember.

Which is really too bad, because I do prefer paper. While plastic grocery bags are good for one thing (bagging kitty litter), paper grocery bags are multi-functional. And recyclable. In the world of groceries, as in so many other places, paper is just... better. And yet we fail to give it its due.

Take planners as another example. The most 21st-century of us can decide between our do-it-all, know-it-all phones for calendar purposes, or our tablets (I don't actually have one of those), or our computers. Most computers come with some kind of calendar program, and if not, there is always the all-knowing, all-seeing Google.

I have both a know-it-all phone (which I like) and an all-knowing Google account (which I love), but I am successful in using neither to keep track of my life. When I finally upgraded to my current phone from my dumbphone, I decided to make an effort to consolidate: I stopped carrying around my annual Moleskine planner. I always had the double-spread weekly view, with one page showing the days of the week and the other a blank lined page for my listmaking activities. Now I have iCal. And Evernote. I have synced my work calendar with my personal calendar (a depressing thought, actually), and my work to-dos have their own notebook within the Evernote app, while my personal to-dos have yet another, and so on.

And I hate it. I have been doing this for over six months because this is the generation we live in, this generation of consolidating, of tools that can do anything and everything, of combining our work lives and our personal lives. But I cannot catalog my life on a screen. I cannot relate to it, I do not complete my lists, and I never check for appointments before making a new one.

I am now actively searching for a new paper planner for 2012, one in which I can scribble notes to myself, and make weekend honey-do lists, and keep a copy of my 26 by 26 list on hand. I will continue to use my smartphone for work, where I live in a world of technology and ever-changing schedules, calendars, and due dates, but for me, and my own life, I will remain on paper until they stop printing paper planners.

My To-Read List Is Mocking Me

I own hundreds of books.

On top of that, there are hundreds -- or actually, probably thousands -- of books I want to read. Goodreads alone tells me that I have marked nearly 300 titles as to-read, and I'm not a particularly thorough user of this to-read functionality. Plus what about the 189 books I have read and reviewed on Goodreads that I might want to re-read? And what about the hundreds of books I have read and not reviewed on Goodreads (that happens, too) that I might want to re-read?

I could do extensive math problems to prove that I will never be able to read them all. If I read fifty books a year, and live for another 50 years (I hope), that means I have another 2,500 books in my lifetime. If I stop adding to my to-read list right this very instant, I might stand a shot of finishing them all. Maybe. Possibly. But probably not.

I'm sure you can relate. This is the classic conundrum of bookworms everywhere: there are so very many books, and such precious little time.

I could, theoretically, try to slow the growth of my to-read list to a point where it is more in line with my actual reading speed. I could be choosier about my books. I could commit to not adding a new book to my collection until I have read an existing one in it (actually, I kind of like that idea). But I don't. I continue to see books around me, whether it be on blogs, in print, or on shelves of bookstores, libraries, and others' houses, and I continue to add to the non-existent list.

Take, for example, Pinched: How the Great Recession Has Narrowed Our Futures and What We Can Do About It. I'd really like to read this book. So much so that I checked it out from the library. And renewed it three times. And returned it. And then checked it out again. And renewed it. And returned it. But I never actually read it. The same, or similar, can be said of Understanding Comics. The Art of Fielding has been mocking me on my shelf since its release. So has Marilyn Robinson's Home -- which came out in 2008.

I have grand ideals of reading more, reading wider, reading broader. Reading current events, so that I understand what the hell is happening in this crazy, mixed up, bizarre-o world. Reading books about happiness, and slowing down, and living fully, so that I can make sense of this crazy, mixed up, bizarre-o world. Reading fiction that takes me to a place I've never been. Or a place I'd never even have imagined. Or a new time period. Or all of the above.

I keep expanding my list against all odds because I believe in the power of books to help me understand, cope with, and explore the world. To enrich my life, and to make me see things differently. Perhaps even better. Even the un-read books that grace my shelves are a part of this, reminding me every day of the possibilities that surround me.

Audiobook Review: The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories, by Don DeLillo

You know those times when you're craving the literary high-life, but lack the ability to commit to something as dense as War and Peace? The days that you want some thought-provoking, snobbish sounding literature to move you, but you don't have the time - or the attention span - to tackle something too daunting? I find that this is where short story collections fit the bill, and Don DeLillo's first collection, The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories, is no exception.

All nine of DeLillo's stories, written between 1979 and 2011, take everyday events and reveal the unsettling sense of dread that lines even the most mundane of actions. In "Creation," a couple heads to the airport to catch a flight home from the West Indies, only to find that they did not check in often enough, their plane is oversold, no seats until the next day, must stay another night and wait for the next flight out. It is a simple case of the agony of long-distance travel, and all of the hassles of flying, but in DeLillo's hands, this morphs into an exotic, neverending saga of abandonment and uncertainty. In "The Ivory Acrobat," a woman must struggle with the anxieties of everyday in a Greece riddled with earthquakes and aftershocks. What does it matter what we eat for breakfast if our entire kitchen may fail to exist at the end of the day? What power do we have to stop Mother Nature?

This underlying theme of dread and anxiety does not make for particularly uplifting reading (or, in the case of the audiobook, listening), but DeLillo's fine writing coupled with superb narration by a cast of voices is gripping in a way that won't let you stop once you start. DeLillo captures the world around us - or the imagined world of our possible futures - with such precision and detail that it is impossible not to believe him, or his narrators, and think about how our own lives might look when cast under such a detailed eye. What anxieties run through our everyday that seem mundane, but truly impact the outcome of each of our days? Our months? Our entire lives?

The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories is a short collection, amounting to just six hours on audio, and easily digested, but has the one-two punch impact that short stories often carry. The collection functioned as the perfect dose of short story literature, an ideal introduction to DeLillo (though, having read of his other works, I might not be the best reader to make that particular call), and the kind of book that I believe will live with me for a while. And those, I find, are the best kinds.

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A note on the audio: The narrators chosen for each of these nine stories vary from one to the next, but each proves perfect for their selections. The narration is clear and concise, and easy to understand. My only complaint would be the length of the tracks, which I believe is a trait of S&S audiobooks - I'm not into 20-minute tracks, which makes it hard to skip back if needed, or move a disc, say, from the car to the house without losing the place.

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Note: Thanks to the publisher, Simon and Schuster Audio, for providing me with an audio copy of this title to review.

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The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories | Don DeLillo | Simon & Schuster Audio | 9781442348233 | $29.99 Audio CD | 6 CDs; 6 hrs, 16 min | November 2011 | Buy from an independent bookstore near you

Book Review: War Room by Michael Holley

In which I read my first ever sports book - and love it! This review was originally published in the November 18, 2011 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. Reprinted here with permission. If you don't already receive bi-weekly issues of Shelf Awareness in your inbox, fix that by registering here.

Most football fans are aware that Bill Belichick does things a little differently--the head coach of the New England Patriots is known for his one-word press conferences and sleeveless hoodies. Behind this seemingly uncommunicative character, however, lies a man passionate about football and the art of team-building. In War Room, sportswriter Michael Holley (Patriot Reign) gives readers a glimpse of his character and the legacy he has begun to create.

As early as 1991, while working with the Cleveland Browns, Belichick had a revolutionary vision for scouting players. As he advanced in his career, he refined a system of scouting and drafting unlike any other, aided by two young protégés, Thomas Dimitroff and Scott Pioli (now head coaches of the Atlanta Falcons and Kansas City Chiefs, respectively). War Room explores the details of that scouting system, as well as the lives, relationships and careers of the three men, all of whom live and breathe football, football, football.

Though War Room tends to be overburdened by facts, names and dates that can prove challenging to a novice football fan, the passion for the sport evident in Holley's writing, mirroring that of his subjects, is a saving grace. In understanding the heart of the game--the team, and the art of building it--fans at every level of intensity will come to appreciate the careful thought and execution it takes to create the teams we root for year after year. And next year, we’ll all have a bit more strategy for our fantasy drafts.

Give Bookish Thanks

This year, I am thankful for our bookish community. For finding a place online -- or rather, several places -- that share in my love for books, reading, and the printed word. I am thankful that there are teams of intelligent, passionate people who aim to make the world of the printed word jive with the era of the backlit screen.

I am thankful there are people who are able to dedicate themselves full-time to these tasks of sharing and loving and promoting books, whether it be in a publishing house, at a bookstore, or by creating a small company that promotes books online. I am thankful that there are others who are willing to spend their free time, their me-time, doing the same. I am thankful that through the combined efforts of authors, editors, agents, publishers, bookstores, bloggers, publications, and so many more, I have a house full of books waiting to be read, a world of stories I have yet to discover.

I don't care who makes money doing this, or who complains too much, or who reads what books when, or who gets reviewed where. What I really care about is that we are all passionate about one thing: books. And together, we can be thankful that that passion still exists, in all forms, despite all of the things that threaten it.

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I'm off visiting family, stuffing my face, and sticking my nose in a book or six for the rest of the week. Back on Monday. Safe travels, and happy Thanksgiving!