I was surprised to find that I read 54 books this year, more than usual. Of those 35 were audiobooks and 13 were non-fiction. In looking back over the year I am conscious of how many wonderful books I read.
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng. The story is set in 1910 and 1921 in Malaysia and is told in the style of Somerset Maugham’s stories from that location, and is written by a person whose ethnic group was on the receiving end of the racism of the British. While the casual racism and homophobia of the characters are apparent, they become fully human. The arrival of the character of Somerset Maugham is a bonus.
Long Island by Colm Toibín. This is a follow-up of folks from Brooklyn (in the 1950s) and Nora Webster (the late 1960s) to the early 1970s. I loved the slow accumulation of knowledge of their lives and was especially impressed with the willingness of the characters to lie when they surely know their lies will be revealed.
Knife by Salmon Rushdie. I have read Salmon Rushdie’s two memoirs, but haven’t had the will to take on his fiction. He writes with great warmth and grateful feelings for those who helped him while he was threatened by the fatwa and after this terrible knife injury at Chautauqua. I found that he was pushed out of the limelight by the memories this book evoked of my mother’s catastrophic accident when I was a child.
James by Percival Everett. I skimmed Huckleberry Finn to prepare to read this and it was as unpleasant and racist as I remember it. James is a good antidote. One memorable scene is James singing in a minstrel show in blackface with white makeup around his eyes. Another member of the cast is light-skinned and passes for white who also uses blackface. I am in awe of Everett.
The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham. Listening to this book made me fall in love with Somerset Maugham again. People being very bad, very weak, and very good in Hong Kong, well, he can make a story irresistible and as my friend Molly said, uses language beautifully.
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster. After Paul Auster died, John Self wrote an appreciation of his work for The Times (London, that is) that was available for free for a weekend. As a fan of both Paul Auster and John Self, I was happy to see that. It was a joy to listen to Paul Auster reading the book that John Self said is his best. It was lovely to be in thrall to that masterful writer once again.
The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger. I was drawn to this book when I heard the author, a science writer, deftly describing complicated scientific concepts in an interview. The author talked with scientists who described the surprising feats that plants accomplish to thrive. My favorite is that when tomato plants are being eaten by caterpillars, they can inject a substance into their leaves that makes the caterpillars stop eating the plant and eat each other instead.
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich. You have to love a book with characters as surprising and unpredictable as Winnie, Kismet, and Diz. And then there’s the contrast the author points out: farmers use poison to kill one of the most nutritious plants on earth, lamb’s quarter, to grow sugar beets, one of the least nutritious.
My Friends by Hisham Matar. The factual event of Libya’s regime shooting protestors from inside the embassy in London in 1983 is incorporated in this book about a fictional student who was shot and never lived in his beloved Bengazi again. He struggled to make a life for himself in “a city of shadows, a city made for shadows, for people like me who can be here a lifetime yet remain as invisible as ghosts.” Understanding what it meant to live in fear of that authoritarian regime was chilling.
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange. The author creates characters beginning with a child who survived the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 through the generations to the teenage brothers we met in There There. Through the characters we come to know, he masterfully brings to life the efforts to eliminate the Indian population. This is my favorite book of the year.
Vision by David S. Tatel. A memoir by a retired federal judge who remembers Glen Echo and the trolleys in the DC area, this book was an appealing introspective take on the life of a man who became blind and did not want to admit it. He could ski, travel, and was a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The stories of learning to use a guide dog and the wonderful skills of Vixen were great.