Bob's Best Books for 2017

**A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is the best book I’ve read this year.  It “immerses us in an elegantly drawn era” and life of Count Alexander Rostov. In 1922, he is sentenced to house arrest in a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin.  With an indomitable spirit, erudition, wisdom and wit, he ‘witnesses’ some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history while living in an attic room and losing none of his aristocratic civility. 

**Rules of Civility by Amor Towles is a first novel almost as good as his A Gentleman in Moscow. Witty and intelligent Katey Kontent’s life is changed by an encounter with a handsome banker in a on New Year's Eve, 1938.  She is quickly catapulted into the upper echelons of New York society, where she befriends a shy multi-millionaire, an Upper East Side ne'er-do-well and a single-minded widow in her search for a better life.  Reminiscent of Scott Fitzgerald, the novel masterfully weaves intricate imagery and themes with surprisingly appealing characters.

*Sing, Unburied, Sing is Jesmyn Ward’s "searing and profound journey, told in the varied voices of 13-year old Jo Jo’s dysfunctional family. Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam (dying of Cancer) and Pop (role model), and the occasional visit of their addict mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Coast of Mississippi with occasional input from his dead uncle and distant white grandfather.  Clearly an important book, but not easy reading.

**The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin, bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife, is historical fiction about the “scandalous, headline-making, and enthralling friendship between literary legend Truman Capote, peerless socialite Babe Paley” and other members of New York’s high society in mid-20^th Century. Like me, you may have missed some of the glamour (and heart-break) of this era.

**Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly is a debut novel inspired by the true story of New York socialite, Caroline Ferriday. The lives of three women intertwine through WWII and converge at the Ravensbruck concentration camp as Caroline becomes increasing involved from her post at the French consulate. Kasia Kuzmerick becomes a courier in the Polish resistance and a subject for medical experiments, while Dr. Herta Oberheuser learns surgery at Ravensbruck. “Smart, thoughtful and just an old-fashioned good read.”

*Our Souls at Night is the last of Kent Haruf’s sparse novels about Holt, CO and a sweet love story about a deep senior friendship growing out of a mutual search to escape loneliness, and leads toa a surprising reprieve of life neither expected. The quiet drama plays out against the backdrop of a gossiping (and at times disapproving) small town with special angst from their grown children with further complications from an extended visit by a sad young grandchild… “A spare yet eloquent, bittersweet yet inspiring story.” (See the movie with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.)

**The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis describes how Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of articles challenging assumptions about the decision-making process, redefined our belief in rationality, and won the Nobel prize in economics.  Not Lewis’ best work, but still engaging, informative and insightful.

**Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice is Bill Browder’s autobiographical story of how he became the world’s largest and most successful investor in the kleptocratic Russian economy before gaining international respect as a human rights advocate. The transformation came when his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested and murdered in prison after uncovering a $230 million fraud committed by Russian government officials. Browder has been leading a campaign to expose Russia’s endemic corruption and human rights abuses. “Red Notice is part John Grisham-like thriller, part business and political memoir." 

*Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari who has received rave reviews from the likes of a former U.S. president, a Nobel laurate and Bill Gates for this book and its predecessor, Sapiens.  Harari is brilliant, witty, insightful…and verbose. The first and last chapters contained amazing analysis of how we have evolved through past epochs and how the 21^st century may evolve “from overcoming death to creating artificial life” and merging with it. Much of the other 350 pages were dense, repetitive, but still impressive.

*Before I Forget by life style maven, B Smith, and her husband, Dan, (with Vanity Fair’s Michael Shnayerson), is B’s unfolding story on coping with early-onset Alzheimer's. Alternating short chapters interweave their individual stories with advice that can help seniors and other readers learn about living with memory loss and other challenges of aging.

*Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Glide to Thriving in the Age of Acceleration by Thomas L. Friedman is a big book with some excellent insights and analysis.  But like the title, the book is too long, a bit confusing and included too much ‘cut and paste’ from interviews, columns and conversations.  Still, there is gold if you have the patience for the search.  Friedman believes that the year 2007 was a major inflection point with the release of the iPhone, together with advances in silicon chips, software, storage, sensors, and networking, creating a new technology platform that opened unbounded opportunities and challenges. Despite his obvious wisdom, Friedman could have benefited from a tough editor. Still, I thought the discussion of “Mother Nature’s Political Party” made the slog worthwhile.