FICTION
**The Goldfinch by
Donna Tartt has been widely praised as one of the best books of 2013. I agree
but, at 784 pages, I think it could have been even better with a bit more
disciplined editing. It starts with a bang—an explosion at the Met that kills
Theo’s mother and casts him adrift to become his own person. With long passages of grief, dissolution, and
criminality, it is engaging throughout and filled with much wisdom, insight
and beautiful prose (and some that tries too hard) as Theo moves
from Park Avenue to Las Vegas to
Greenwich Village to Amsterdam and back
to NYC in search of himself and eventually finds a deeply flawed person he can accept.
**The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a
screen-ready blend of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night” and “Big
Bang Theory.” Don Tillman is a brilliant but socially challenged
professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time to choose a wife—since married people tend to live
longer. In the evidence-based manner with which Don approaches everything, he
designs the Wife Project to find a perfect partner: via a sixteen-page,
scientifically valid survey that ‘proves’ Rosie would be a terrible
choice. Still he finds her fun and
exciting. Already available in 35 languages, Rosie is “funny, touching, and hard to put down.”
**The Boy Who Could
See Demons by Carolyn Jess Cooke is reminiscent of “The Sixth Sense” with psychotherapist Dr. Anya Molokova who has personal
reasons for specializing in childhood schizophrenia. Her patient is 10-year-old
Alex Connolly who sees demons. His demon’s name is Ruen, and Alex has been
seeing him since he was 5. Ruen tells Alex things that the boy couldn’t
possibly know on his own. Ruen insists he’s Alex’s friend but, as we soon
learn, he wants Alex to kill someone. Anya’s growing attachment worries her
colleagues at a child and adolescent treatment center in Belfast. None of them
realizes how much she is troubled by the anniversary of her daughter’s suicide
and her mother’s long battle with mental illness.
**The Universe vs.
Alex Woods by Gavis Extence is the tale of the
son of a fortune teller, who was struck by a meteorite when he was ten years
old, befriends a grumpy old widower and proves his friendship by getting
stopped by border customs with a large bag of marijuana and an urn full of
ashes. It is beautifully written, wise and funny—a blend of Mark Hadden (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night)
and Kurt Vonnegut (the deity of a
church/reading group started by Mark).
**The Dinner by
Herman Koch is a dark, suspenseful novel of love and hate and how they often overlap.
At a fashionable, pretentious Amsterdam restaurant, two couples move from small
talk to the wrenching shared challenge of their teenage sons' senseless act of
violence that has triggered a police investigation and will force the parents
to make the most difficult decision of their lives. During the course of a
single meal we see the extent to which each family will go to protect their
children. “Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable
narrator,” The Dinner has doubtless been the topic of countless dinner
party debates in 26 countries.
**Golden Boy by
Abigal Tarttelin is “a harrowing coming of age with a deeply compassionate portrait
of a family in crisis.” Max is an almost perfect sixteen year old. He is
handsome, smart, athletic and kind. He is also an “intersex” adolescent trying to
figure out how to navigate a world that doesn’t understand (or know about) his
situation. “Golden Boy hits all
the deepest, biggest novelistic notes—family, identity, tragedy and
hope…Tarttelin has proven herself to be
a writer of extraordinary empathy and incredible wisdom.”
**Kind of Kin by
Arilla Askey is totally deserving of an enthusiastic NYT review
(nytimes.com/2013/01/27/books/review/. When
Oklahoma passes a tough "illegals" law, Robert John Brown is sent to prison for hiding
migrant workers. Brown's daughter Sweet
Georgia is left to manage a family (including a troublesome son and an orphaned
nephew) that is coming apart at the seams as her marriage collapses under the
stress. Askey’s treatment of poverty, politics religion, immigration and family
(dis)functionality is masterful, heart-breaking and laugh-out-loud funny at the
same time.
**The Revised
Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison was described by the NYTimes as “a story that
offers a profound look into what it takes to truly care for another person.”
After losing virtually everything meaningful in his life, Benjamin trains to be
a caregiver, but his first client, a fiercely independent teen with muscular
dystrophy, gives him more than he bargained for and soon the two embark on a
road trip to visit the boy's ailing father.
**Flight Behavior by
Barbara Kingsolver is “is a brilliant and suspenseful novel set in present day
Appalachia; a breathtaking parable of catastrophe and denial.” The story
introduces a young wife and mother on a failing farm in rural Tennessee who
experiences something she cannot explain and how that discovery energizes
diverse factions—religious leaders, climate scientists, environmentalists,
politicians to address issues of poverty, consumerism, illusion and fear. “Flight
Behavior is arguably Kingsolver's must thrilling and accessible
novel to date” and the first great fiction I read in 2013.
NON-FICTION
*This Town : Two Parties And A Funeral--Plus,
Plenty Of Valet Parking--in
America's Gilded Capital by Mark Leibovich, New York Times political
feature correspondent, examines the power
wars and exploitative practices of Washington, D.C. With scathing insight and humor, Leibovich
reveals how political and journalistic careers are made and broken while news
events, scandals, and even funerals are used as networking opportunities. Leibovich manages to skewer both parties, all
branches of government, lobbyists and modern journalism.
*Wilson by A. Scott Berg’s new 800-page biography
spares no detail, but is probably the definitive story of the 28th president,
both as an icon and a talented but flawed human being. Berg captures his
southern childhood, his rise through academe and his brief tenure as governor
of New Jersey before defeating the incumbent
President Taft and past president Teddy Roosevelt. The Allied success in
WWI prompted Wilson to travel to Europe for the peace conference; the first
sitting president to leave the country. He was the first president to be
welcomed as a rock star, and was determined negotiate a charter for a League of Nations. But when
the Senate refused to ratify the treaty, Wilson suffered a stroke and spent the
last months of his presidency in seclusion, with his wife, Edith, effectively
running the executive office.
*The Killer Angels by
Pulitzer prize winner, Michael Shaara,
has been described as the “best novel ever written about the Civil War.” Incisive portraits of Lee,
Longstreet, Meade, and other Civil War leaders are interwoven with rich
historical detail to provide a fictional recreation of the pivotal battle at
Gettysburg--four of the most bloody and courageous days of our nation's
history. General Robert E. Lee believes this daring and massive move with
seventy thousand men can mortally wound the Union Army, but James Longstreet,
his most brilliant and loyal General stubbornly argues against his plan as two
armies prepare for and fight the most important battle of the War.
*The Future: Six Drivers
of Global Change by Al Gore is an important, impressive jumble of a book.
Gore surveys our planet’s clouded horizon and offers a sober, learned, and
moderately hopeful forecast “in the visionary tradition of Alvin Toffler’s Future
Shock.” The book reflects great breath of knowledge
and research with genuine passion and commitment, but like the former VP
himself, it tends to go on a bit and needed a firmer editorial hand.
