Best Books of 2011

As I scroll through my reading from the past year, I’m having a hard time picking my favorite books.  Each time I think that I’ve settled on my favorite novel or my favorite book of non-fiction or my favorite collection of short stories, I see another title that I loved.  So—instead of choosing among them—I’m going to include a longer list of my favorite books from 2011.  (Not all of these books were published in the last year, but they’re books that I read in the last year.)

Favorite classics worth revisiting:

The Aeneid by Virgil (newly translated by Stanley Lombardo)

Dubliners by James Joyce

Favorite young adult novels:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Favorite short story collections:

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon

Favorite non-fiction books:

American Uprising by Daniel Rasmussen

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

Favorite novels:

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Room by Emma Donoghue

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Here’s hoping for more great books in 2012!

 

A Thriller in the Halls of NASA

Ben Mezrich’s Sex on the Moon is a riveting, can’t-put-it-down, wanna-read-it-in-one-sitting book.  It tells the story of Thad Roberts, a NASA intern who steals a small collection of moon rocks (potentially worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on the black market) from a secure government facility.

This fast-paced heist story could well become the source of another major movie.  (Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires was the source material for last year’s Oscar-nominated The Social Network.)

But here’s my concern about the book:  A well-researched non-fiction book (including a narrative non-fiction book, such as Lost in Shangri-La or The Devil in the White City or Seabiscuit) has 25 or 50 pages of citations and notes at the end, a meticulous record of the sources consulted and interviews conducted by the author in creating the text.  Sex on the Moon has one page of acknowledgements.  What does that mean about the facts in Mezrich’s book?  I’m not sure, but I feel that I have to ask the question.

 

Up the River

Because I loved Bonnie Jo Campbell’s most recent collection of short stories, American Salvage, I was excited by the release of her novel Once Upon a River.

Sixteen-year-old Margo Crane lives with her mother and father in rural Michigan, across a small river from her father’s extended family.  Growing up in this environment, Margo learns to hunt, fish, swim, and row at the feet of her beloved grandfather.  Within the first 25 pages of the novel, though, Margo’s idyllic existence is shattered. She soon finds herself on the run and at the mercy of a series of shady men.

The opening episodes of the novel—and the character of Margo Crane—represent a reworking of one of the short stories in American Salvage.  This made the start of the book really fascinating to me, as it was interesting to watch an author return to and redevelop an earlier idea.

As I kept reading, though, I realized that maybe I like Margo better as a character in a short story.  Yes, I liked Once Upon a River, but I didn’t love it the way I love Campbell’s shorter works.  Eventually, I think the book just became too much of the same—too much of abusive men, too much of solitary stays along the river, too much of skinning wild animals—for me.  (In the final third of the novel, Margo does finally form a relationship with a good man, a curmudgeon who—in some ways—fills the void left by her dead grandfather.)

Why does our literary culture demand that authors write novels?  Why can’t we just appreciate the perfect short story?

 

Some Kind of Wonderful

I have fond memories of reading Ann Patchett’s beautiful novel Bel Canto (I still use a small excerpt in one of my classes), so I was excited to hear about her latest book, State of Wonder.

The novel opens when Dr. Marina Singh, a medical researcher for a large pharmaceutical firm, receives a short letter from Brazil, a letter informing her that her research partner has died in the jungle of the Amazon.  What was this mild-mannered researcher doing in the Amazon?  He was sent there by the company to check on Dr. Anneck Swenson, who had been working for years in the remote jungle of Brazil to develop a fertility drug.

At the request of her boss, Marina reluctantly agrees to travel to Brazil to learn more about her partner’s death and to prod Dr. Swenson into finishing her work (something that, from the perspective of the company funding her research, is taking much too long). 

It takes Marina the first half of the novel to find Dr. Swenson (who was Marina’s professor and mentor during medical school) in the depths of the jungle.  But that doesn’t mean that the first part of the novel drags; when Marina arrives in Brazil, for example, she meets a couple employed by Dr. Swenson to keep outsiders—including representatives from the drug company—from locating her remote lab.

When Marina finally locates Dr. Swenson (and forces her way to the jungle lab), State of Wonder becomes even more fascinating.  From the flora and fauna of the jungle (at once beautiful and terrible) to the tribe of natives befriended by the team of researchers to the stern and uncompromising character of Dr. Swenson herself, Patchett creates a rich, textured novel that keeps unfolding in unexpected ways.

State of Wonder combines realistically complex characters, a well-paced plot, and plenty of ethical issues to consider.  Patchett’s book shows hints of Heart of Darkness and hints of Barbara Kingsolver, but ultimately it is entirely her own.  Days after finishing, I keep returning to this book in my mind (and looking for someone to discuss it with!), which is always the sign of a good read.