My Favorite Titles of 2016--Part One

I read a new record number of books this year--a total of 54, and I thoroughly enjoyed my reading year. I had very, very few duds. And I benefitted from having such a wide variety of reads, which I hope to demonstrate in the next series of posts.

Part One include my "Stellar" reads:

My all-time favorite read of this year receives this accolade largely because it was the right book at the right time. My best reading experience was The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney. At the time, I had been stricken with a vicious sinus infection (last March), and I must say, this book and its characters' foibles and complicated lives made me forget, for hours at a time, most of my misery. Thank you!  Oh, I will definitely read this one again.
Excellent writing and spot-on, smart dialogue, yes. A wonderful escapist read, absolutely. And yes, the adult children who placed their hopes on "the nest," which would make their lives perfect forever after, were egotistical and self-satisfied, but Sweeney rendered them as superbly human. I found them all likeable, despite their predatory instincts. Their lives were, in my opinion, lovingly depicted by Sweeney, while simultaneously maintaining a sharp, satirical eye throughout.

My next two favorite reads were both by the same author--P.D. James. She never disappoints, and each of her novels I look forward to re-reading some day. Original Sin was the first novel by James that I read this year and I gave it 5 stars. The other James novel I hesitated  to call a favorite at the time I read it, but, in retrospect, The Black Tower was so well done, that I have recognized its value all the more several months later, largely because of its power to stay indelible on my mind  The latter was published 20 years before Original Sin. I am an undeniably impassioned P.D. James aficionado, as some of you know.

Equally a favorite as the two P.D. James novels, was The Lewis Man by Peter May. This thriller/crime/mystery is the second volume in May's "Lewis Trilogy," Lewis being the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides in Scotland. The first book in the trilogy, The Black House, is so deep, so profound, so wondrous in creating a landscape, so dark a noirish world, and so incredible an unspeakable crime, that it is one of my most spectacular reads of the past decade. But what makes all this darkness tolerable is the detective, who is the spirit of light, returning to his homeland in the Hebrides.

The Lewis Man continues the saga and the complicated personal life of the prime detective. This novel, too, was exceedingly well done, though probably nothing will ever top The Black House.
And now, I face the fact that there is the third book, The Chess Men, also set on the Isle of Lewis and featuring the same characters, but I'm blocked because I don't want to come to the end. I have noted numerable times in the past that this is a stumbling block for me.
After all, I haven't finished the third volume of Stieg Larsson's trilogy, though it's sitting on my shelf. I think I should read it. I think I can handle that it's the end of the trilogy, but I hate that it's the end of his work.

A Few Words about Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

I read Small Great Things during the final week of 2016, when I felt that lame-duckness I've described in a previous post. I tore into it because I had heard from people I respect that it was well worth my time. And I agree it was. But did I ever find, as I was reading the novel and afterward, that I desperately wanted to discuss it with someone or lots of people who'd read it.

For me, Small Great Things was enormously provocative. It provoked me to disgust at the views and actions of the white supremacist father of a newborn. (I almost had to abandon the novel, but I pushed on due to the advice of people I know to just stick with it.) This proved to be a good thing. I was provoked to anger at the careless speech of the white, so-called liberal attorney, Kennedy who represented the African-American nurse in the newborn unit. (Kennedy actually believed her statement "I'm colorblind." I was provoked by the actions and non-actions of the African-American nurse who had worked for 20 solid years in the newborn unit at a major hospital and who was almost willing to give up the fight. **I believe the novel's provocations were its best feature--it made me confront my own feelings and beliefs and attitudes. And I was left speechless, because I had nobody with whom to talk about it.

Picoult noted in her acknowledgements that she had wanted for decades to write about racism in America. And finally the time had seemed right for her to do it. I think she succeeded in this effort, not so much for writing  a flawless novel about racism, but because she raised countless discussion issues for every white and black American to really think about.

I highly recommend that you and some friends read this novel and discuss it together.

OMG! Lost Comments Just Found--Weeks of Them--Apologies!

Thank you to every reader who has left comments in the past 6 weeks or more!  I did think it unusual that the last comment I had was on November 14th, but then I figured that perhaps readers were very busy with the holidays and life in general, not to mention...other national upsets.

So Blogger, you have "tricked" me, I suppose! Where once I saw my comments and my ability to publish them, there has been nothing at all. So this evening I searched deeper, in a different place, and lo and behold found them.

I am so sorry that I have not replied to all the interesting comments. I will post and reply to each and every commenter. My regrets!!

P.S. Later Saturday evening:  I thoroughly enjoyed spending more than an hour responding to each comment, which I've so gratefully received. If you have some time, please look back to find them. Thanks to all!

Unexpected Absence and New Reads

I'm astonished that I haven't posted an entry since New Year's Day. That long, really? I have a lot of catching up to do. There are so many books I've read that I haven't commented on. And I still haven't written about my favorite reads of 2016! Yikes.

I've been pre-occupied because my mother became extremely ill and passed away a week ago last Thursday night. The good news is that my mother's end of life was short and her doctors and nurses worked so hard to make sure she did not suffer. It seems that the medical community is making this more of a priority these days, even more than they did just eight years ago, for example, when my uncle died. Why, they even have special M.D.s now, whose specialty is "palliative care." So my mother had a palliative care specialist and an internist working together to help her. Both were women and were outstanding--very compassionate. My brother and I are so grateful for the care she received.

So back to my reading life:
Reading is not coming easily to me right now. I'm trying, though.

Under the Influence (2016) by Joyce Maynard is my favorite book of 2017 so far. I read it during the first week in January. It's obvious to me that I now need to read more of Maynard's fiction. This novel is exceptionally well done, and is a fascinating character study, a page-turner, and leaves the reader with so much to think about afterwards. I'm in awe of Maynard's skills and talents. I must read more of her novels.

It's about a woman who had a problem with alcohol and fought to beat it, successfully. So the "Under the Influence" title is not  so much about her former addiction to alcohol as it is her addictive relationship with an extremely wealthy couple of her age who "befriend" her--a relationship that threatens her individuality, her family (a young son), and her sense of place and balance in the world.
Highly recommended!

I'm now reading Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler, a debut novel published in 2016.
Tess, a very young woman (age 21 or so) leaves her home in Ohio for New York City. She has had a neglected upbringing and longs to escape to the city--for something bigger than herself. She manages to get a job at a top restaurant and enters the life of backwaiters, waiters, sous-chefs, the mean and terrible Chef, and the enigmatic owner Howard.
This novel does one thing very well--it portrays the lives and experiences of those working in a top restaurant and the various relationships among the servers and workers who labor there. But at 352 pages, it is much, much too repetitive, an observation which is really a critique of the plot.

I see this novel as a compendium of sights, smells, tastes, and sounds of the restaurant-worker's experience. But I feel that we are left with as little character analysis as might appear in a short story. The story doesn't really move. I keep waiting for things to change, and have read almost all of it now, and I don't think much more is going to happen.

Whenever I cast doubt on a novel, I always hope that some reader will comment and explain why they liked a book and why. Please feel very free. I love to hear reader's opinions!

Roaring into the New Year with Victoria and Ruth Ware

I've been working diligently composing the "My Best Books of 2016" post. Alas, it is only half-completed. So I thought I would write an update stating that I raced through the new novel Victoria by Daisy Goodwin, who is the creator and scriptwriter for the Masterpiece Classics presentation of the young Queen Victoria, to be released during the coming year. I finished it just before midnight New Year's Eve. It's spell-binding.

I realize I know so little about Queen Victoria's family and background. I know more about her marriage to Prince Albert and their children, but her heritage is something I know nothing about. I'd like to read more about her grandfather George III and uncle George IV, as well as all the ins and outs of the monarchy during the years prior to Victoria's reign.

In any case, I do recommend Victoria.

Then I leapt into reading The Woman in Cabin 10  by Ruth Ware. I must say that I find this novel has many more thrills and chills than in A Dark, Dark Wood, which I enjoyed, but did not find as interesting or as fear-inducing as some readers have reported.

Persuasion by Jane Austen (Classics Club)

I definitely enjoyed reading Persuasion and I would heartily recommend it to others. I find that each Austen novel must be appreciated on its own terms, which makes comparisons wearisome, and yes, odious.

I found it a more somber novel than those I count as my favorite Austen works, among them Northanger Abbey (Austen's satire of the gothic genre had me laughing all the way through), Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility. (Thus far I have not read Emma or Mansfield Park.)

The tone was somber and reflective, as in the portrayal of the behavior and character of Anne Elliott, who is neither the favorite daughter nor the married daughter. By her family, she is considered merely an indispensable aide when any one of them require her assistance. No one ever considers her feelings, or even realizes that Anne may have feelings, desires, or dreams of her own. This point is certainly the "autobiographical" aspect that Austen critics and biographers refer to. Even when Jane Austen, toward the end of her life, was feeling sick and asking for respite from the visits of her nieces and nephews and other relations, she really had to hammer the point home. After all, they pondered, "Jane? Sick? She can't really be too sick to help out, can she?" Austen wrote about this very fact, but as an unmarried woman in the family, she had expectations to fulfill that superseded her own needs.

Back to Anne Elliott, to her family and friends, she seems settled in this role of fifth wheel. Each member of her family disregards her at times and, when she is needed, desperately desire her attentions, for which she is not thanked or valued.

As a reader I felt sympathy toward Anne rather than compassion. She never put up a fuss when her family or others were using her. This created tension in me, the reader, as I expect Austen intended. But eventually, and rather serendipitously, Anne finally does reconnect with her true love, a man she was "persuaded" to give up eight and a half years previously. A man who will respect, value, and love her. And so happily, the novel draws to a close.

If you have thoughts about this review of any sort, please do comment. I value your thoughts!

P.S. I also have finished Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult and am zooming through a wonderful novel about the young Queen Victoria, entitled Victoria by Daisy Goodwin. Can I finish this 400-page novel by 12 midnight New Year's Eve? I do hope.

End-of-the-Year Reading Rush

I have a hate-love relationship with the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. I have always felt like a very lame and somewhat down-in-the-dumps duck during this so-called holiday week. The big holiday is over and nothing I want to do to get settled and start moving forward into the New Year is open and available. People are away, having visits with their grandchildren, and every public place is loaded with tourists. This year I must wait for Tuesday, January 3rd to really plunge into the New Year because Monday, January 2nd is the business New Year's holiday.
So I suppose I'll just read on and on until the New Year really begins.

I keep having days that find me reading most of the day. I just finished Persuasion by Jane Austen an hour ago. I was interested to learn that Austen was suffering from an undiagnosed illness during most of the time she was writing it. Critics and biographers say that it is also her most autobiographical novel. ????  I read Persuasion for the Classics Club and my review and additional information will hopefully go online tomorrow.

I am also about to finish Jodi Picoult's Small Great Things. At 467 pages, I thought it might take me until New Year's Eve to finish, but it is a compulsive read and I predict I'll finish it early tomorrow morning. Picoult wrote that she had always wanted to write a novel about racism in the U.S., but she had to wait years to find her subject and her will to do it.  This novel was published this fall, but the buzz about it everywhere has been growing, and not only online. So my thoughts on this are forthcoming as well.

So this leaves me with four days to finish another book or maybe two.
I have Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance  out of the library, and A Woman under The Influence, a novel  by Joyce Maynard will be on hold for me at the library tomorrow.

Hilderbrand's Winter Storms and Jane Austen

Anyone who spends the entire day reading when Christmas is coming in three days is either very tired or a lunatic. I can admit to both. I felt myself a positively wicked person staying in bed all day with Jane Austen's Persuasion and while finishing Elin Hilderbrand's Winter Storms. But nobody knew except my next-door-neighbor, who delivered a New Year's Eve invitation at around half past noon. I went to the door in my nightgown--yes, I did, and confessed to being caught up in a book. His answer was that his wife was still lounging in similar attire! Good for Dottie!

I am indeed sorry to say that I was a bit disappointed by Winter Storms, the final novel in the Quinn Family Christmas Trilogy. I felt this final volume needed many more pages to deal with the weighty, complicated issues at hand: Kelley's worsening brain cancer, his son Bart's last-minute return from Afghanistan after being held hostage for over a year, Ava's choice of a man to spend her life with. The tying-up of all the loose ends could have benefited greatly from more detail--it all felt so, so rushed. The trilogy's issues desperately needed more resolution.

I also was perplexed that unlike the two previous books, Winter Street and Winter Stroll,  Winter Storms devoted only a quarter of the book to the holiday season, unlike the previous two books. Oh, sigh. I really have to slap myself to avoid thinking that I wish I had been the editor. Down, girl!! A nasty habit of mine. But please note: Winter Street is absolutely pitch-perfect, Winter Stroll is lots of fun, and don't omit Winter Storms because of my input.
I still very highly recommend this trilogy for Christmas reading.

And I'm zooming along reading Jane Austen's Persuasion. It's historically interesting as well as great fun. I will leave you with a link to the Jane Austen Society of North America. Lots of great links and information at this fantastic website.

Books to Finish Up in 2016!

Because I had a spectacular reading year until October-November, I'm very keen on seeing what I can do in the 10 remaining days of this year. I had a sudden halt in reading during the time span mentioned, and made little headway during that lull.

Right now there is nothing holding me back from moving in and devouring a few books before 12 midnight on New Year's Eve.

I need to finish The Annotated Christmas Carol, as I've discussed in an earlier post. And I'd love to swallow whole one of my Classics Club novels before New Year's Day. Persuasion by Jane Austen is calling to me loudly, powerfully. So there it is.

Do you have an Austen link to share? Thoughts about Persuasion? Blogs devoted to Jane Austen's works?

Or please do tell the books you're galloping through on the road to January 1st