Just books. That's it.
Now, to 2011, or as I like to think of it, The Year of Magic. Whether it was two star crossed magicians raised to engage in an epic battle, a mild mannered school teacher who finds a way to go back in time to prevent a presidential assassination, or a group of student at a Hogwarts like academy, these books filled me with wonder, with excitement, and had me thinking about them long after I turned the kindle off.
1) "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
In 2006 Edward Norton starred in a movie called, "The Illusionist" about a magician in turn of the century Vienna. In one sequence he makes an orange tree magically grow and bear fruit. That scene kept replaying in my mind while reading 'The Night Circus' because it would have felt right at home under Morgenstern's big top. Two magicians are raised knowing one day they will meet their rival and be put to a test to see who is the more accomplished. What they don't anticipate is their playing ground is one of their own making; A massive, immersive, and beyond magical circus that suddenly appears from no where, and only opens at nightfall. To give away what the author has created under the various tents would spoil the fun of discovery, but she has offered a bounty for the imagination. And what the magicians, or their mentors really don't foresee is that the rivals will fall desperately in love. For me this book did what any good entertainment should: It swept me up in this mysterious, romantic, and fantastical world and made me regret having to leave it.
http://www.amazon.com/Night-Circus-Erin-Morgenstern/dp/0385534639/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325223823&sr=8-1
2)"Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter" by Tom Franklin
Years ago Tom Franklin wrote a terrific novel called, 'Hell at the Breech", but am so thrilled to say this is even better. Set in rural Mississippi much of the book revolves around the unlikely friendship between a young white boy, Larry Ott who comes from a working class family, and an African American boy, Silas, or '32' as he is later referred to, being raised by his single Mother. Silas and Larry are now grown men, and Silas has returned to the town he had left long ago to a be a constable. Quickly, Larry and Silas's lives reconnect following a horrible act of violence that lands Larry in the hospital fighting for his life. But also at play is the mystery surrounding Larry as he is the primary suspect in the disappearance of a girl from the town, which only seems more suspect since as a young man he went out one night with a pretty popular girl from school who never returned home. Franklin has written not only a wonderful character piece, but a terrific mystery as well, that feels vaguely reminiscent of Dennis Lehane.
http://www.amazon.com/Crooked-Letter-Novel-P-S/dp/0060594675/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325224053&sr=1-1
3) "The Magicians" & "The Magician King" by Lev Grossman
A wonderful adult fantasy that takes what feels like familiar premises and mashes them altogether. Imagine if a young college bound man ended up getting into a prestigious university much like Hogwarts of the Potter world. His life there among the mystical academics feel reminiscent in flavor of Donna Tartt's, 'Secret History', and upon graduation he discovers that the wonderful storybook world he grew up reading, a kind of Narnia like place, is actually real, and it's up to he and his friends to enter it to save the ailing kingdom. In theory you'd think, 'I've seen this all before', but Grossman manages to make the familiar feels fresh, and the magical feel real. He also pulls off making the sequel even better than the first.
http://www.amazon.com/Magicians-Novel-Lev-Grossman/dp/0452296293/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325224251&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Magician-King-Novel-Lev-Grossman/dp/0670022314/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
4) "Bossypants" by Tina Fey
It's so worth reading simply because she's always come off as the best friend you'd love to have, and frankly this is as close as most of us will ever come to sitting in a room and picking her brain about "30 Rock", "SNL" or that dead on Palin impersonation.
http://www.amazon.com/Bossypants-Tina-Fey/dp/0316056863/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325224479&sr=1-1-spell
5) "The Savage City" by TJ English
I couldn't put this book down. At times it's hard to believe this story of corrupt cops, racial injustice, and the evolution of the the Black Panthers actually happened. That a nineteen year old African American who was only trying to help the police could be brought into a station house and coerced into admitting to multiple crimes including the brutal murder of two caucasian women and sentenced for it is appalling, What made English's book so gripping was the diverse assembly of people assembled, whose lives still hold such relevance today. Serpico, Xavier Holland, Malcom X, as well as Afeni and Assata Shakur, the Mother and Step Aunt to the late rapper Tupac. This book, with it's unflinching look at racism in all it's ugly glory, should be required reading.
http://www.amazon.com/Savage-City-Race-Murder-Generation/dp/0061824550/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325224793&sr=1-1
6) "The Fates Will Find Their Way" by Hannah Pittard
"there's so much that we didn't-that we don't-know that it's frightening, that it's distancing and isolating and sad." That quote from the book pretty much sums up the core of the reading experience to me. A group of male friends attempt to find out what happened when one their own, sixteen year old Nora Lindell, disappears. The marvel of the book is how she takes a simple premise and turns it on it's head, by not giving the reader a literal and straightforward solution.Instead she presents a variety of options of what might have happened as imagined by this collective group of boys as they mature over the years into men, while examining where their own lives have led them.
http://www.amazon.com/Fates-Will-Find-Their-Way/dp/B005OHT8PM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325224952&sr=1-1
7) "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Laini Taylor
If you're anything like me you are so tired of hearing, seeing, reading about,and generally being assaulted by the immortal couple of the century, Bella and Edward.
Thank God there is finally a book that can knock those silly blood suckers off their perch and claim the crown for the Romeo and Juliet type star crossed lovers of the magical kind. Young art student Karou, attends a prestigious school in Prague. She fills notebook after notebook of fantastic mythical creatures, with torsos of humans, and heads of animals or serpents. To her friends they're the invention of a brilliant imagination. To Karou, they are her family and alternate life she hides from everyone else. Having no real idea of where she came from or who her parents were, she was raised by a mysterious creature named Brimstone, whom she runs errands for collecting teeth. Yes, teeth. One day on such an errand she comes face to face with an angel, and her life, well, how could it ever really be the same? Laini Taylor does an amazing job of parsing out just enough information to keep you spellbound, while Karou begins to figure out her past while at the same time falling perilously in love with the beautiful and powerful Akiva. Sophisticated, sexy, and intelligent, this book more than deserves the crossover appeal into adult fantasy literature along with those eclipsed kids that everyone seems so ga ga about.(and side, note, definitely don't judge this book by it's awful cover)
http://www.amazon.com/Daughter-Smoke-Bone-Laini-Taylor/dp/0316134023/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325225694&sr=1-1
8) "11/22/63" by Stephen King
I feel like Stephen King gets a bad rap by a lot of readers for the assumption that he's nothing more than an overpaid horror writer who churns out books about telekenetic girls killing everyone at their prom, killer clowns hanging out in the sewer and rapid dogs. Okay, yes, and they wouldn't be wrong on any of those character counts. But there's something about this latest novel that I would recommend it to anyone no matter how snobby their taste. It's that good. You just have to give over to one magical caveat of the novel: That a mild mannered schoolteacher is shown by a dying friend a portal to go back fifty years in time. When you return to the present, no matter how long you've been gone, only two minutes have passed. What you do over there can obviously change the future. Finally, if you happen to go back again, everything resets, and you're right back in that same place fifty years ago. With me? Here's the kicker: He goes back to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating Kennedy. It's long, I'm not gonna lie, but man oh man is it good. Talk about imagination! I guarantee it's one of the most original plot lines you're bound to read, and one of my top three books this year. If you've never read him, give over and give this one a try.
http://www.amazon.com/11-22-63-Stephen-King/dp/1451627289/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325307687&sr=1-1
9) "The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenedis
A little confession here. I didn't actually 'read' this book. I was sent an audio copy by Amazon, and since I had wanted to read it anyway, and hadn't listened to a book since I drove across the country from New York to LA nearly twenty five years ago, I thought, what the hell. I admit this because in no way do I want to lessen how much I enjoyed the actual written word of Jeffrey Eugenides new book, but have to say a large part of my overall enjoyment of this was due to actor/writer David Pittu's phenomenal reading. There's a wonderful neutrality to so much of his reading only interrupted by when a character speaks. And when the characters do speak, Pittu manages to give each of them a distinct and unique voice, crossing races and genders. If I was a writer, I'd want him to read my book. Just masterful. The story itself is so incredibly clever and smart, with Eugenides creating a very modern answer to the marriage plot, (the central theme of so many of the great English novels the likes of Austin, and Henry James where our lovers courtship is hindered by certain events on the way to their ultimate nuptial bliss), that our heroine Madeline Hanna is writing her thesis paper on. The setting is college academia in the eighties, and Madeline's tortured lover comes in the guise of Leonard Bankhead, a charismatic, brilliant, and mentally weary soul who sucks her in despite the much more suitable and pining friend Mitchell Grammaticus. It's a very modern take on the marriage plot, and a biting look at academia, religion, social class, and depression, as well as being terribly funny, smart and thoroughly enjoyable.
http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Plot-Novel-Jeffrey-Eugenides/dp/0374203059/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325303557&sr=8-1
10) "State of Wonder" by Anne Patchett
Patchett creates her own 'Heart of Darkness" as a young pharmaceutical researcher goes deep in the heart of the Amazon to find out what really happened to her lab partner who has supposedly died of malaria. At the same time, she's supposed to report back to her company the progress made by a doctor who is working with a native tribe and developing a fertility drug, and who has seemingly gone completely off the map. Patchett does a commendable job of creating such a dense, lush, and dangerous topography.- Ophidiophobics in particular will be crawling deep into their seats during one tense section. A terrific read.
7) "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Laini Taylor
If you're anything like me you are so tired of hearing, seeing, reading about,and generally being assaulted by the immortal couple of the century, Bella and Edward.
Thank God there is finally a book that can knock those silly blood suckers off their perch and claim the crown for the Romeo and Juliet type star crossed lovers of the magical kind. Young art student Karou, attends a prestigious school in Prague. She fills notebook after notebook of fantastic mythical creatures, with torsos of humans, and heads of animals or serpents. To her friends they're the invention of a brilliant imagination. To Karou, they are her family and alternate life she hides from everyone else. Having no real idea of where she came from or who her parents were, she was raised by a mysterious creature named Brimstone, whom she runs errands for collecting teeth. Yes, teeth. One day on such an errand she comes face to face with an angel, and her life, well, how could it ever really be the same? Laini Taylor does an amazing job of parsing out just enough information to keep you spellbound, while Karou begins to figure out her past while at the same time falling perilously in love with the beautiful and powerful Akiva. Sophisticated, sexy, and intelligent, this book more than deserves the crossover appeal into adult fantasy literature along with those eclipsed kids that everyone seems so ga ga about.(and side, note, definitely don't judge this book by it's awful cover)
http://www.amazon.com/Daughter-Smoke-Bone-Laini-Taylor/dp/0316134023/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325225694&sr=1-1
8) "11/22/63" by Stephen King
I feel like Stephen King gets a bad rap by a lot of readers for the assumption that he's nothing more than an overpaid horror writer who churns out books about telekenetic girls killing everyone at their prom, killer clowns hanging out in the sewer and rapid dogs. Okay, yes, and they wouldn't be wrong on any of those character counts. But there's something about this latest novel that I would recommend it to anyone no matter how snobby their taste. It's that good. You just have to give over to one magical caveat of the novel: That a mild mannered schoolteacher is shown by a dying friend a portal to go back fifty years in time. When you return to the present, no matter how long you've been gone, only two minutes have passed. What you do over there can obviously change the future. Finally, if you happen to go back again, everything resets, and you're right back in that same place fifty years ago. With me? Here's the kicker: He goes back to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating Kennedy. It's long, I'm not gonna lie, but man oh man is it good. Talk about imagination! I guarantee it's one of the most original plot lines you're bound to read, and one of my top three books this year. If you've never read him, give over and give this one a try.
http://www.amazon.com/11-22-63-Stephen-King/dp/1451627289/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325307687&sr=1-1
9) "The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenedis
A little confession here. I didn't actually 'read' this book. I was sent an audio copy by Amazon, and since I had wanted to read it anyway, and hadn't listened to a book since I drove across the country from New York to LA nearly twenty five years ago, I thought, what the hell. I admit this because in no way do I want to lessen how much I enjoyed the actual written word of Jeffrey Eugenides new book, but have to say a large part of my overall enjoyment of this was due to actor/writer David Pittu's phenomenal reading. There's a wonderful neutrality to so much of his reading only interrupted by when a character speaks. And when the characters do speak, Pittu manages to give each of them a distinct and unique voice, crossing races and genders. If I was a writer, I'd want him to read my book. Just masterful. The story itself is so incredibly clever and smart, with Eugenides creating a very modern answer to the marriage plot, (the central theme of so many of the great English novels the likes of Austin, and Henry James where our lovers courtship is hindered by certain events on the way to their ultimate nuptial bliss), that our heroine Madeline Hanna is writing her thesis paper on. The setting is college academia in the eighties, and Madeline's tortured lover comes in the guise of Leonard Bankhead, a charismatic, brilliant, and mentally weary soul who sucks her in despite the much more suitable and pining friend Mitchell Grammaticus. It's a very modern take on the marriage plot, and a biting look at academia, religion, social class, and depression, as well as being terribly funny, smart and thoroughly enjoyable.
http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Plot-Novel-Jeffrey-Eugenides/dp/0374203059/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325303557&sr=8-1
10) "State of Wonder" by Anne Patchett
Patchett creates her own 'Heart of Darkness" as a young pharmaceutical researcher goes deep in the heart of the Amazon to find out what really happened to her lab partner who has supposedly died of malaria. At the same time, she's supposed to report back to her company the progress made by a doctor who is working with a native tribe and developing a fertility drug, and who has seemingly gone completely off the map. Patchett does a commendable job of creating such a dense, lush, and dangerous topography.- Ophidiophobics in particular will be crawling deep into their seats during one tense section. A terrific read.
http://www.amazon.com/State-Wonder-Ann-Patchett/dp/0062049801/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325304401&sr=1-1
11) "Rich Boy" by Sharon Pomerantz
A sprawling saga of a young Jewish boy growing up in a blue collar section of Philadelphia who rises through the business and social echelon to reach the pinnacle of the American dream. But with success comes compromise, and moving through three distinct women in Robert Vishniak's life, our protagonist learns where true value lies. A rich, (no pun intended), engaging, and terrific first book by an author to watch.
http://www.amazon.com/Rich-Boy-Sharon-Pomerantz/dp/B0055X6IT4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325306434&sr=1-1
12) "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson
At once both epic and intimate at the same time, Wilkerson's book is a phenomenal recounting of the great migration of African Americans from the Jim Crow south to the promise of a better life in the North. Following three different people who leave their lives behind to start again in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles respectively, Wilkerson not only paints with broad stokes the sociological, and cultural impact on the country's make up a whole as cities in the North radically change with the influx of migrating African Americans, but by so closely recounting Ida, George, and Robert's very personal recollections, she creates a poignant and moving intimacy. One segment in particular of Robert Pershing Foster driving all night to reach California and being turned away at multiple hotels along the way is both maddening and horrifying at the same time. An excellent read.
http://www.amazon.com/Warmth-Other-Suns-Americas-Migration/dp/0679763880/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325306084&sr=1-1
Also of Note:
If you haven't read Michael Scott's wonderful Alchemist series, his latest, "The Warlock" continues to entertain, and the final book in the six book series comes out this upcoming year.
and Michael Connelly's, "The Reversal", proving again why he's one of the most prolific and talented modern crime writers today.
Finally, two books I can't wait for in the New Year:
John Irving's 13th novel, "In One Person", about a bisexual man reflecting on his life from the 1950's through the AIDS epidemic.
and "The Twelve" by Justin Cronin, the second installment of the widely read, 'The Passage"
Happy Reading in 2012 everyone!
Brett
