LIST: NY Times Notable Books 2009

The New York Times most notable books for 2009 has been released. Here's the link to the most recent list, and past years. There are another fifty books or so from the nonfiction list, but I didn't retype all of them out! There were a few on the nonfiction side that intrigued me though. I have read 3 of the books this year, bolded, and there are a few others I'd like to read, italicized, but I haven't heard of most of them at all.
Have you read any of these? Any recommendations or warnings?

1. Amatuer Barbarians by Robert Cohen
2. American Rust by Philipp Meyey
3. The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker
4. The Art Student's War by Brad Leithauser
5. Asterios Polyp by David Mazzuchelli
6. Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
7. Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy
8. The Case Book of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd
9. Chronic City by Johnathan Letham
10. The Confessions of Edward Day by Valerie Martin
11. Dearest Creature by Amy Grestler
12. Do Not Deny Me: Stories by Jean Thompson
13. Don't Cry:Stories by Mary Gaitskill
14. Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
15. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
16. Family Album by Penelope Lively
17. Follow Me by Joanna Scott
18. A Gate at the Stairs by Lorri Moore
19. Generosity: An Enhancement by Richard Powers
20. Half- Broke Horses: A True Life Novel by Jeannette Walls
21. How It Ended: New and Collected Stories by Jay McInerney
22. In Other Rooms, In Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
23. Invisible by Paul Auster
24. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer
25. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
26. Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
27. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
28. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
29. Love and Obstacles: Stories by Aleksander Hemon
30. Love and Summer by William Trevor
31. The Museum of Innocence by Orham Pamuk
32. My Father's Tears: And Other Stories by John Updike
33. Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazou Ishiguro
34. Nothing Right: Short Stories by Antonya Nelson
35. Once the Shore: Stories by Paul Yoon
36. One DOA, One on the Way by Mary Robison
37. Sag Harbour by Colson Whitehead
38. A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert
    
39. The Sky Below by Stacey D'Arasmo
40. The Song is You by Arthur Phillips
41. Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
42. Typhoon by Charles Cumming
43. A Village Life by Louise Gluck
44. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
45. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

BOOK: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

What an Animal!; Orbis Terrarum: Norway; Book Awards II (IMPAC 2007); notable books

I never mean for a book to fit into so many challenges, and I didn't even get this book until a couple weeks ago; it just fit in perfectly and lets me finish two challenges off. I picked it after Laura gave it a rave review, and the chance to read a book from Norway was pretty exciting.

It's a quiet and slow, beautiful book, like I would imagine Norway to be. Sixty-seven year old Trond Sander has moved to a cabin in the woods to be alone. He coincidentally ends up living beside an old neighbour, and memories from a summer when Trond was fifteen and Lars was ten come back. They don't come flooding back though, because that implies a out of controlness that Trond is not capable off. There are a few going backs here, as he remembers the summer of fifteen in 1948, and learning about his father's actions in the war from 1945 when the German's were occupying Norway. I confess I found the different time frames somewhat confusing to keep track of.

I liked Trond and at times it seemed like he was going to be the kind of narrator you don't like, but he was kind and a little sad but not regretful of things in his life. It's a good book, not great, for me. I won't be raving about it, but it was solid. The ending was a little lacking, it was a bit of a let down. I thought there would be more of a connection between what had happened in 1948, but it just ended. It took me longer than it should have to read the last 60 pages, a sign that I wasn't involved enough to race to the end. I like a little more plot in most of my stories, but I appreciated the characters and the story told in this one.

BOOK: Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

notable books 2007, Heard it Through the Grapevine

Great suspenseful thriller and winner of the Bram Stoker Award 2007 for a first novel.

Jude Coyne, an aging heavy rocker collects young girlfriends and occult-ish items, so when he sees a ghost for sale on an E-Bay type site, he snaps it up. Bad decision. The book follows the ramifications of their interactions. It's hard to describe a good horror novel, because what makes it so good is the way the author takes you into an unbelievable world so perfectly and gradually that all of a sudden it has happened and you can't put it down and you can't look away and you don't want to know but you have to know. Hill has done this. It's like a great Stephen King novel. The kind where you wish it had been 2oo pages shorter but it was still very good. This is the one that is 200 pages shorter but still as good. Hill takes such a risk of comparison by writing a novel like his father would, but he pulls it off.

I'd recommend this as a book for the RIP III that might happen in the fall. Ghosts and festering wounds and vengeance all lead to a rip-roaring great spooky read. The rave review for the "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" challenge I remember was from kookiejar. Thanks for the suggestion.

BOOK: A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

A Long Way Gone: memoirs of boy soldier by Ishmael Beah

African Reading Challenge: Sierra Leone; in their shoes; notable books challenge

I wanted to make sure that the author's picture was included with this review. His beautiful smile makes such a contrast to the life he has led. I remember seeing Beah on The Daily Show last year and wanting to read his memoirs of his life in Sierra Leone. However, the similarities between this book and The Cellist of Sarajevo are making me crave a much lighter book. Each of these books has been excellent, and worth while and I would recommend them, but the whole civil war with civilians in the crossfire while nobody does anything is beginning to make me ill. The idea that a group can decide it's alright to kill everyone is just so unfair. Where does all this hate come from?

Beah starts the book as an eleven year old interested in rap, walking to his buddy's house with some friends. The rebels start attacking and this group of young boys end up living in the woods, trying to survive. They can't go home and there is no where else for them to go. Villagers are scared of them, the rebels and the army are all trying to kill them. Eventually they end up recruited and saved by the army, but with a price: they are now soldiers. I imagine he glosses over the worst of the atrocities, but there are still terrible descriptions of killing in this book. Just when I wasn't sure if I could read any more, UNICEF and some NGO's step in and get the boy soldiers to rehabilitation camps. Beah tells his story up to his escape from Sierra Leone to the United States.

I'm glad I read this book, I am glad that the UN is working to save these boys, I am glad that Beah survived and has written this book about his amazing life.

BOOK: In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar

In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar

Man Booker challenge (shortlist 2006); African Reading challenge (Libya); Orbis Terrarum challenge; notable book challenge

I usually try not to use the same book for too many challenges, but this one took me so long to read I am going to use it where ever I can. It is a well lauded book; the cover lists all sorts of important awards it was nominated for, but it just didn't resonate with me.

Suleiman narrates his story from his nine year old point of view, which is accurate if you think that nine year olds don't really know what is going on, so neither does the reader. His father is away on business, his mother is 'ill' and requires lots of medicine from the pharmacy. Poor Suleiman can only relate from his perspective, but it left me feeling as confused as a nine year old. The writing was good in that sense. There is also a revolution going on in 1979 Libya, and people are disappearing. Is his father going to be next? Did his father betray they neighbour? There is some Oedipal stuff going on with the love for his mother, and he is trying to be a man but he is simply a kid.

I just didn't get it mostly, but I didn't dislike it. It was one of those books where I know there is more going on, but I couldn't see it. It might make a better discussion book, or if it had Spark notes to go with it so I could read about the symbolism and themes. I don't claim to be very good at seeing the levels in a book. It's so, literary. And lots of people like that in their books, so I don't want to put any one off, but it wasn't enough of a page turner for me. I liked the view of Libya and seeing what life was like in that African country.

If you have also reviewed this book, leave me a link in the comments, so others can see another point of view.

BOOK: The Gathering by Anne Enright

The Gathering by Anne Enright

Man Booker Challenge (winner 2007), notable books challenge

I liked this book. I've read reviews that found this depressing and miserable, but it wasn't that bad. Perhaps it's a cultural thing. My paternal descendants are all Irish, way back, but in the Maritimes, we still claim that heritage regardless of how many hundreds of years ago those poor starving ancestors left Ireland. Part of the reason is that the Irish struck together over here, like the French and the Scottish, so that my father's generation was the first to marry non-Irish. He's from a relatively large family as well, so I am familiar with the large family saga, where you are related to people and know them, while you may not actually know them at all, but having met once, you have that connection, that shared heritage.

The other reason I liked this book was the connection I felt to the narrator. She's a woman about my age (she's 39) and her life is fine, no reason to be unhappy, but she's beginning to question her life and her family. Middle age angsty stuff. Veronica recognizes that she has no reason to be unhappy, but she is spiraling downward after the suicide of her closest brother. She tries to look into her past and her brother's to see where things went wrong with Liam and herself. Her memories are all tossed together with her siblings and they were more realistic described than the minutely detailed memories that occur in some memoirs. For example, she remembers the time she was eight and staying at her grandmother's and she ate a plastic flower. The flower came out it the diaper, but she was eight, so it must have been her little sister who did that, but she thought the story was about her. Lots of real touches like that.

So in conclusion, without going into any more detail, I didn't mind the depressing stuff because I recognize it. Irish stories are often depressing (You've read Angela's Ashes? My dad recognized his childhood, to a lesser degree) and I get it. I liked the writing as well, and can see why this was the winner for the Man Booker last year. There are still some things I found a little vague, so I am looking forward to the discussion with my book group about this book. I think there is a lot to discuss after reading this book.

BOOK: Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

what's in a name challenge, colour category; notable books 2007

1982, Black Swan, England. This novel spends a year in Jason Taylor's life as he navigates the uneasy age of thirteen, and if you've forgotten how horrible thirteen year old are, this book will slam it back to you. Thirteen year old girls are awful, I know from living it, and this book exposed that boys are just as bad. Jason, our narrator has many sides, most notably a poet. Eliot Bolivar is his alias as it wouldn't do to have the other lads aware that Jason writes poetry, he'd be a poof. The language and slang of Worcestershire County in the early 1980s takes a bit to understand, but it works, and Mitchell has captured the voice of his narrator perfectly. It helps that I remember being 14 in 1982, and the Falklands War. I imagine all early teenagers get a world event that helps define their life, that time when you begin to see the whole world and your place in it, and how larger events than your house, your community are important.

And it was the poetry of the writing that I loved in this book. The images and phrases captured my attention. Jason has a way of describing things perfectly, by a simile or even their sound.

A classic LP was playing. Nothing like the rumpty-tump-tump stuff Mr Kempsey plays in Music. Jealous and sweet, this music was, sobbing and gorgeous, muddy and crystal. But if the right words existed the music wouldn't need to.

Themes of secrets run through this, but it isn't obvious how much until the end. The lesson by their teacher about secrets was my favorite passage in the book. Oh, to be able to teach a lesson so well! Secret clubs, phone calls, speech impediments, parents, all powerful secrets. And then there were the bullies. Trying to fit in and wanting the approval of the popular boys makes those kids the prey of bullies. So this is also about courage, and doing the right thing. A lot of stuff happens in this novel, too much to mention, but it will be swilling around in my head for a while.

The writing, and the characters, and the poetry make this an excellent book. A bildungromans. (I had to look that up one day) This made the long list for the Man Booker in 2006, but not the shortlist?

BOOK: House of Meetings by Martin Amis

House of Meetings by Martin Amis

notable books challenge

These aren't called reading challenges for nothing. Some books make you think and really challenge your reading ability. House of Meetings by Martin Amis is from the New York Times Notable Book list of 2007. I haven't read any books by Amis before but I have heard his name.

The summary made it sound like a great plot: two brothers in love with the same woman, the pivotal night of a conjugal visit, ten years in a Soviet slave labour camp, a mysterious letter. It was well written, and well paced, in fact so well written that there were words here I've never seen before, and unfortunately, I don't look words up. It made me feel like I was a kid in grade five trying to read a grade ten reading level novel.

Also unfortunately, I didn't connect with the characters in this novel in any way.

Maybe it is a gender bias, as the other reviews are raves, but I didn't like reading this mean, and self-described violent man's life story. And maybe this is a trend, as I've read reviews of other books, like The Sea by John Banville and Everyman by Philip Roth, which are perhaps similar type books, old man telling his life story, and this just isn't connecting with some female readers. It was the plot of course, but I'm not sure what purpose it would serve to write this memoir to your twenty year old daughter. It felt self indulgent to burden a child with such a horrible story. And much like Tomorrow or On Chesil Beach, the final reveal was such a let down that it made me wonder what the fuss was about.

I'm trying to figure out why I didn't really enjoy this book. I didn't hate it, and there are probably people who would like it. The few books I've read set in Russia have found me having difficulty identifying with the culture. After reading Russka by John Rutherford years ago, I realized that that isolated country is so very different from European/American life, it makes it hard to connect. If you had an interest in Soviet life, this would be worthwhile. There is a lot of psychological character study here, and I do think there is a gender issue. I should be able to read about a man's inner struggle, but I didn't like it. Maybe I'm too soft but I don't want to imagine what happens to the psych after surviving ten years in a slave labour camp. It doesn't make the book bad, but if I am reading and choosing to immerse myself in a book for a few days, I do get to make that choice. It just makes the book not a good fit for me.

BOOK: The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

Chunkster Challenge (545 pages), Themed Reading Challenge (books about books), Young Adult Challenge, Notable Books Challenge


A few comments:

1. I am an ostrich. I bury my head in the sand when I'm scared. I avoid, avoid, avoid to deal with things I don't want to deal with. That's why this book took me as long as it did to read. It was put down and left for several days at a time. As beautiful as the writing was, and it was beautiful, holy cow! As beautiful as it was, I could only read a few chapters at a time. Which surprised me, because I usually devour books when I read them, speeding through like a Tasmanian Devil, staying up too late to finish a page, a chapter, the whole damn book. But I had to protect myself from this book somewhat, because of the intensity of emotion.

2. I think I am done reading Holocaust books. They are awful, depressing, and the uplifting part of any book, that is always there, is only against the background of depravity and horror that I don't like to delve into. Again, the ostrich. I saw A Beautiful Life at the theater, and it was beautiful, but I remember this horrible, frantic feeling, about halfway through as the father and son were heading to the camp: What year is this? Is it 1944? or '45? How much hope can I hope for here? Because we all know how that whole thing turned out, and there aren't many good endings when you are headed for a camp.

3. Marcus Zusak writes the most beautiful, uplifting books. There is a hope on his soul of the beauty capable in humans even in the most horrific of settings. His writing gently caresses you while reading, saying there, there, we'll get through this and you will see what you should see. Have faith in me, and the human race: we are capable of great good.

4. Death may be one of the best characters I've ever read. His perspective on humans, and his gentle caring were the best part of the book. Such a terrific narrator for life in Germany during the Holocaust.

5. I liked the divisions of the book, into ten books with little chapters within. It made it easier for me to read, (see note 1), and when I saw the significance at the end, it was even better. Again, Zusak is an amazing writer.

6. After the end of the book, go back and reread the Prologue. It is probably a good idea with most books, but by the end, the beginning made so much more sense.

7. Do we need a summary? Liesel is sent to live with foster parents in Munich at the beginning of WW2. Hans and Rosa take and love Liesel, as well as a Jewish man, Max, in their basement. Liesel touches a few characters, especially Rudy, her neighbour who dresses up like Jesse Owens and runs, and the Mayor's wife, keeper of the library, around which much of the novel revolves, and Max. Death is always around. Books and words are very important, as they should be.

8. Extra Credit Assignment: Compare Hans and Rosa to Matthew and Marilla in Anne of Green Gables.
Both take in an orphan, damaged, looking for love and support. Matthew and Hans immediately know how to love, unabashedly, the little girl thrust in to their lives. The child has an immediate connection to the Hans and Matthew. This is where the phrase 'kindred spirits' comes from. Marilla and Rosa are brisk, not showing overt displays of love, and it seems unclear what the relationship is between the Marilla/Anne and Rosa/Liesel. However, in both cases, they show their emotions less freely, but with no less passion and devotion. Their love of the girls, and Hans and Matthew, are the most touching moments of the books, because it is more unexpected.

9. War is no good. Both sides lose, everyone loses. Except Death. He does very well in wars.

CHALLENGE: New York Times Notable Books 2006

New York Times Notable Book 2006 Challenge

It is time to close the books on this challenge - I can't see me reading any more of them this year, although I still have two on the shelves: Lisey's Story and Special Topics in Calamity Physics. It is time to face facts: they aren't getting read this year.

I originally signed up at the NYT Notable Book Blog and my intro post stated I hoped to read six. I only joined this challenge half way through the year, in June, so I took a little easier way. I ended up reading 7 books, with two more yelling at me from beside my bed: read me.

Half of a Yellow Sun - Aldichie
The Echo Maker - Richard Powers
The Translator - Leila Aboulela
Arthur and George - Julien Barnes
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Alentejo Blue - Monica Ali
One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson


Wow, when I look at that list, there were some great books listed.

This challenge has morphed into the Notable Books Challenge, encompassing several notable book list from this past year 2007. Here's where I've signed up for another year of recommended books, with wendy (caribousmom), our host. Come by and join the group at the blog; it is more fun to read with others.