Top Reads: Spring 2014

Who says "Best of" lists are only for the first of January? My spring was rife with good books, essays, and stories, and I want to share them:

Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
This is a collection of essays about books. Never have I felt so bereft after finishing a work of nonfiction. Fadiman is funny and clever, her words go down easy (a lot like Noel Perrin's), and her obsession with books would only be uninteresting to folks who have never been bothered by a grocery store sign advertising a sale on "vinager." I enjoyed it so much, I was resolved to leave the final essay unread, saved for a rainy day like the last chocolate in a Valentine's box. But I could not help myself. I tucked myself into bed that night, tried to read some fiction whatnot, and finally leapt out from under the sheets and across the chilly house to whisk Ex Libris back under the covers with me.
(If you, also, love Ex Libris, proceed straight to At Large and At Small, more essays by Fadiman. And then don't miss her introduction to the Best American Essays 2003 collection.)

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Speaking of feeling bereft. I couldn't bear the morning after finishing this book. Where was Hazel? Where was Augustus? You're familiar with their story from the recent movie trailers. Teenagers at turns recovering from and dying of cancer, they pack all the humor, bad language, and bizarre circumstance possible into their short time together. Friendship is at the heart of the narrative, and that never fails to move me. Also, Green doesn't sidestep pain or death. I respect that.

"There's No Place Like Home" by Garrison Keillor
In this longform memoir essay, Keillor shows us how seventy-one years lived mostly in the same city can be anything but monotonous. His richness of detail leans more toward the poignant than the usual Lake Woebegone stories we're used to hearing from him, though there's humor, too. Additionally, he finds a way to mention three different drownings at three different points in the essay - speaking of not sidestepping death. Keillor on Death, as well as Home? I'm listening. This is a very worthwhile read. (It's also included in The Keillor Reader, just out in May.)

The Road Home by Eliza Thomas
House building, homemaking, Vermont. A dog. A friend who becomes more-than-a-friend. Eventually, a baby from China. Odd jobs and major life changes at middle age. Thomas finds herself in her early forties, owner of a small cabin in Vermont. The life she builds over the rest of the decade includes her beloved dog, her partner Julian who helps with the house additions, and eventually her adopted daughter. The chapters are short and sweet, mini essays that are sometimes moving, sometimes explanatory and descriptive, sometimes downright funny. I love Vermont, so I may be biased, but I think this is a very good book. I like it for the same reasons I so often enjoy Fadiman, Perrin, and Annie Dillard. I found it in the used book section of a local antique store (the "throw-away section" a friend of mine calls it). May you also be so lucky.

All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot
Is it because he's a number of years into knowing the Yorkshire farmers that I like this book (third in the series) even better than the others? There's more depth of feeling as difficulties and death occur. And there are tales of training for the WWII RAF. Perhaps the backdrop of WWII lends its own weight to the otherwise light and pleasant tales. This one stays on my "favorites" bookshelf.

"Yes" by Brian Doyle
Speaking of the 2003 collection of Best American Essays, here's one of the best from that volume. It isn't available online, so you'll have to hope your library has a copy, or bite the bullet and order one. This essay alone is worth it (well, and also the Fadiman intro). I've never considered time spent reading a Brian Doyle essay to be wasted, and this is my favorite yet. I sink into its language like a hammock and smile as the swells of language rock me back and forth: "to horror and fear and jangled joys I say yes, to rich cheerful chaos that leads me sooner to the grave and happier along that muddy grave road I say yes, to my absolute surprise and with unbidden tears I say yes yes O yes." Raw, interesting, rambling, and hopeful. Yes.

Painting the Arena Red
Since I've jumped on the fanfiction train - tentatively, at least - I have not yet regretted reading any of E. Laine Sparrow's stories. If you're weary of The Hunger Games, leave off. But if you're unabashedly in love with Peeta, this account of his time in the first arena gets his voice just right and makes an even more admirable character of him than before. I've got the inside scoop that this writer has plans for her own original fiction, and I'll make sure not to miss it.

Past Rabbit Hole Top Reads are here:

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

Top Reads 2013

Making a list of the year's top reads - or top anything - is not a unique endeavor. Still, I do it. Some year, I will make a list of the books I tried but couldn't get through. (Wouldn't that be telling?) But as usual, this isn't a list of books actually published in 2013. It's the five most moving volumes that I took off the shelf or out of the mailbox or from a friend's hand. (Actually, each of these five came as either personal recommendation or loan or gift. Isn't that interesting?)

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
Some second books in series fly only by the seat of the first hit's pants; others are actually far better stories than the first installment. And some are better because they have an excellent initial narrative to build upon (in the way that Mary Doria Russell's Children of God is even better than The Sparrow, but is only able to be good because The Sparrow itself was well-done). I read Ender's Game last spring, and it (a futuristic military tale! with aliens! not my usual fare) surprised me by being so tight, empathetic, and engaging. On to Speaker for the Dead, which blew the seed story out of the water in a fantastic way. Resolutions, investigations of larger themes, crazy and weird creativity, and a continuity of deep empathy for characters both wise and unwise. I flew through both these novels before film hype and author controversy came to the media fore. I'm glad I read them in the dark, as it were.

First Person Rural: Essays of a Sometime Farmer by Noel Perrin
I've been reading Perrin off and on for six years, also the number of years since I first met my husband's family. But I had somehow never made it through one of his Person Rural essay collections. On a snowy week in Thetford, Vermont, last March, I made right with the town's "sometime farmer" by buying up more than half his collection at Left Bank Books (a block away from Dartmouth College, where Perrin was an English and Environmental Studies prof). I plowed straight through First, into Second, and simultaneously through A Reader's Delight. Why are Perrin's essays so good? Plain prose, funny stories, mountains, farms, maple syrup, and Vermont. I want to understand where it is my husband's family has put down roots: the Martins' bigger picture. This is a good place to start. It's fun and interesting, too.

"Sojourner" from Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk
This essay is short and it's sweet and it's about floating mangrove trees and the whirling cosmos and where we as humanity (talk about the big picture!) fit in. About Earth:

"It is strange here, not quite warm enough, or too warm, too leafy, or inedible, or windy, or dead. It is not, frankly, the sort of home for people one would have thought of - though I lack the fancy to imagine another (151)." 

I could reread this essay just about every morning, not only for its meaning, but also for its construction, for the beauty and power packed into its seeming simplicity. I admire it as a reader and as a writer. How does Dillard do it?

The Sacred Journey by Frederick Buechner

The first Buechner I ever read was Telling the Truth, and that's another one it would probably do me good to read on a regular basis. Buechner says that the "sheltering word can be spoken only after the word that leaves us without a roof over our heads, the answering word only after the word it answers (35)." Painfully, relievedly, I agree. (So, it seems, does Annie Dillard.) The Sacred Journey is what I would call light memoir (as light as a memoir can be when the author's father commits suicide in act two), with Buechner's steady dose of mercifully unorthodox orthodox Christianity. Also the persistent theme of home, which resonates deeply with me, someone who, try as she desperately might to throw down roots, year after year keeps getting transplanted. I sat disbelievingly in yet another rental house this fall and thought, Home must mean something other than staying in one place for good and all. Perhaps, as Buechner suggests, Home - at least on this earth, in this lifetime - is actually "not a place," but it is people (21). Plus, Buechner's writing is beautiful. Just beautiful.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
Here's where I will try very hard not to apologize for myself or explain away my bad taste. I'm not going to pretend this WWI Detective Fiction series (which has many books already - ten, perhaps? - and maybe more coming) is anything literarily fine. But it is deeply-researched, and it's set in a particularly interesting time and place: late-1920's and early-30's London, with flashbacks to the end of the Great War. Winspear's prose may fall a little flat, but her details are interesting, and I can't stop reading about the world she places us in. Also, it's easy. Perfect for bedtime. Perfect for Winter Break. My favorites so far are the first, third, and fifth installments, the third (Pardonable Lies) standing out as most compelling.

Other Notable Reads from the Year
Dystopian Fiction: 
The City of Ember (enjoyable tale with a satisfying kind of ending)
Allegiant (What did you think of that series ending? Bravery or total bunk?)
Convergent (a FanFic followup that rights most of Allegiant's wrongs)
Essays:
"Final Cut" by Atul Gawande (on autopsies!)
"The Price We Pay" by Adam Mayblum (a survivor's account of 9/11)
"You Owe Me" by Miah Arnold (heavy, on children dying)
Journals:
Dogwood Journal: Volume 12 (esp. the poetry and the essays)
The Sun Magazine Issue 454 (esp. "I Believed" and "And So On")
Spiritual Nonfiction:
Ordinary Losses by Elisa Stanford (Poetry in prose form. Moving and sweet.)

Past Rabbit Hole Top Reads are here.

Wednesday, 8:30 a.m. Clock-In

I have awoken The Lump, a.k.a. Pilot the Dog. It took a considerable bit of convincing, but he's now lying at my feet, being the writing dog I've always wanted him to be. So there is no excuse but to write.

What a sluggish week this is. It's my favorite of the year, the week after Christmas. I revel in the quieting of things (the home, the plans, the emotions, the mind), the new-come solitude, just protracted enough for quiet industriousness punctuated by periodic rest to recover from what came before. Up in the Writing Room, it's nearly over-warm, the heater having been left on, per accident, overnight. The Weepies are singing a wistfully happy tune, and there would be no excuse but to write . . . save that there's a reason.

I must read instead. My fingers tingle to be over the keyboard, tickling the keys into creative action, but the Story dictates "Wait." It demands a solid read-through, a serious check on pacing, characterization, consistency. Six months ago, I would have jumped at the chance to take a break from the arduous task of forcing a few good lines, a page, a scene out of my brain and onto the page. The tables are somehow turned, and now, imagination awakened, new writing is - exuberantly, joyfully, thankfully - all that wants to come.

New scenes are banging on the door, wanting to be let in (or out, so to speak). But this week, they're the gravy. I must eat my vegetables and edit, for the good of the Story. So in just a moment, I'll pull myself away from the computer desk (Pandora left a-singin') for the couch, and will read on, make notes, make new connections, remind myself of old ones, adjust dialogue, and rearrange scenes. Maybe delete a chunk or two. Move something around. Probably get frustrated with the way something isn't coming together yet. In the end, the day's success will feel low on the spectrum, but this - back-looking revision to get a better picture, to realign my mind - is a moving forward in its own, necessary way. (I just checked with The Lump. He'd agree, if he could bear to awaken himself.)

But before I depart the desk for the day, I'll indulge the writing itch and type up a quick list, an account of the stories this past year that've impacted me the most. (Thanks to my brother Ross for conversation earlier in the week inspiring thought of what particular books inspire me.) It's been a year of good reading - intentional, thoughtful reading. Most of the tales I've spent any time digesting have had some connection with what I want to do, have crossed over in some way with where I've considered going myself imaginatively. The rest have worked their own magic in a way I can't ignore, even if they're light years from the work of my own fiction. Many of them inspired me in the smaller details - a particular author's stunning manner of joining word to word (oh Marilynne Robinson, Susanna Clarke, and, of course, Dickens), a particularly riveting understanding of a character, a stunning setting, a certain feel. All and each of them are etched on my brain, still, in such a way that I look back at early summer, remember driving to pick up early bags of fresh produce from the CSA table at the North Main Y, and think, "ah, The Sparrow." Or I emote my way back to this-time-last-year, post-Christmas rest leaning into a two-month slow, savoring progress through Bleak House, not minding if it were to last its way into the spring - the words were just too delicious not to savor.

And so, here they are (serendipitously numbering themselves at ten), the top books that creatively shaped this last year of mine that took on its own new shape:

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
by Susanna Clarke (read December 08-January 09)

This was a re-read, and since this is my list, re-reads count. JS&MN is quick becoming a winter must-read, even if that means skimming just a few chapters here or there. Clarke's first novel, it's a strikingly hilarious and fascinatingly bizarre ride through the lives of Victorian drawing room magicians. Would that I could manipulate characters the way she does. Her smart and consistent tone, her playful bending of the historically-true, and her vivid settings inspire me most.

Bleak House
by Charles Dickens (read January-March 09)

My first foray-by-choice into Dickens (my other experience being a forced ninth-grade read of Great Expectations), I was blown away. As mentioned above, a slow savor, this one. The words so carefully chosen, his language is so his own, so Dickensian. And his characters do the same as Clarke's scenes: they are vivid, imaginatively-striking landscapes unto themselves. Would that I could paint such pictures in my own characters.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
by Michael Pollan (read April-May 09)

This item is, probably obviously, the one non-creatively-inspiring read of the year . . . unless you're thinking in terms of cooking, and then I'll feel free to say that my 2009 kitchen time was creatively-revolutionized this year, starting with a slew of cookbooks and magazines come my way the previous Christmas, and soon followed by a move to a small town with a growing community of local growers. Our eating has shifted, and this book came helpfully, informatively, and inspiringly along just at the time Blacksburg was providing us with new options for eating via a fantastic CSA.

The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak (read May 09)

Read for a book club, this one (for a quick return to my Charlottesville group of reading ladies for a last attendance at their monthly meetings). Though I wouldn't put it on my list of very-favorites or definite-re-reads, it was a challengingly-creative read; the unusual weaving of characters and plot worked together in a way that stuck with me for quite awhile. I still find myself picturing scenes, interactions, from this book's pages . . . and - especially with YA holocaust literature, a category with which, for whatever reason, I've been over-saturated in previous reading years - I consider that the mark of a good read.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
by Mark Haddon (read June 09)

Read it. Read this book. For the humor. For the deep, sympathetic-yet-strong-in-its-non-maudlin understanding of a boy with a disability. Read it to understand a glimmer of the mind and difficult moments of autistic folk. Read it with an eye to the things this very insightful author doesn't say, the deeper and harder layer that lies under the quirky words of this unusual (to say the least) teenaged protagonist. Read it to appreciate other people and even yourself a little bit better, and to maybe gain a bit of a broader and deeper sight for the world around you.

Children of God
by Mary Doria Russell (read July 09)

Sequel to Russell's The Sparrow, which I read - painfully - several months earlier. The Sparrow was so dark, so troubling, that I had to put it down for a week mid-read before I could pick it up and finish it again. So Lord knows what moved me to pick up the next book so soon afterward. I'm glad I did, though. Russell takes her story-telling to a higher level in this follow-up story: the spectrum of characters is broader, the plot more complex, the timeline interwoven with character growth in a far more mature way that resulted in my trying to force this book on any and everyone around me, just so I'd have someone to discuss it with. Problem is, you've got to read the first book to appreciate it, and just try pushing two sci-fi novels on your friends: "They're really good! Well the second one is, but read them both, okay? I know it's about Jesuit priests discovering life on another planet, but please?? For me?" Truly, though I felt The Sparrow was driven along by the cheap thrill of pending shock, the characters unindividual in that they all seemed like the same individual, Children of God broke into a new, completely contrasting stratosphere of deepened character development and heightened storytelling. Where I felt Russell was toying with my emotions and responses in the previous book, in this one, she played fair, and played well. I'd like to be able to weave so complex a work just as compellingly, in just as fair a manner, for and to my reader. Not to mention the thought-provoking spiritual and ethical questions she raises for her reader to mull over and discuss . . . if another reader can be found to discuss them with.

People of the Book
by Geraldine Brooks (read July 09)

A bit pop-ish and a bit more mainstream than would usually make it onto a top-read list of mine, I didn't prefer the modern-day frame story in this new work of Brooks'. What I did prefer and appreciate was the historical view given of this one particular slice of Jewish history. I'm engaged by stories that tell themselves across years, that follow people - and books! (Have I mentioned yet that when I first heard of this novel, I was worried someone else had written my story before me? Fortunately, upon reading, fear confirmed unfounded.) - across years, through centuries. I like to get the big picture with all the details, and in the historical segments of this story, Brooks gives that, and gives it good.

Davita's Harp
by Chaim Potok (read August 09)

Have I ever mentioned on this blog that I heart Chaim Potok? Yes, I think I have. I didn't think anything he wrote could completely flamboozle me - as a creative person and as a human being - for days more than did My Name is Asher Lev, but I was wrong. Go here and I'll tell you why.

Home
by Marilynne Robinson (read November-December 09)

I read Gilead (sister novel to this one) in the summer in response to high recommendation, and I didn't get it. What was all the hype for? I fell into the camp of "but nothing happens in this book!" Fortunately, back in November, I got the itch for another Marilynne Robinson read on a Sunday afternoon (she does paint a lovely, Sabbath-melancholy picture, after all) - and I'm so glad I heeded. This book is beautiful. Talk about savoring; rarely have I read a book so intentionally, so slowly, re-reading sentences, paragraphs, pages, to absorb the full import of what happens in the lives of these three, four main characters in their overtly-quiet, deeply-turbulent moments. I will go so far as to say that this book, out of all the books I've read this year - and maybe ever - inspired me toward change not as a writer, but as a person, a spiritual person, and the character that most inspired me in faith toward God was the central figure, the problem figure, the aetheist. I don't know what Robinson does, but I think she's doing something new, and, in Home, she does it exceedingly, stunningly, heartbreakingly well.

Gaudy Night 
by Dorothy Sayers (read November-December 09)

Another re-read. Every time I read Gaudy Night (this may be my fourth or fifth time-round), I feel I understand more of the writer's mind, I perceive in the characterizations, the dialogue, and the plot, what Sayers was working out personally about herself as a writer, about her craft. I'll read it again most years, probably, just to hear her tell me again, more and more clearly each time, how it was that she revolutionized her writing to be more honest to her characters and herself, and to develop her take on the murder-mystery novel into such a literary masterpiece as this.

Honorable Mentions of the Year's Reading List:

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (stilted telling; creative concept)

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin (too-bizzare - for me - concept; deep characterization)

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (a bit too mainstream for me; fun and interesting plot)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (also a bit too mainstream; creative telling and interesting topic)

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (overweighted with historical detail to read smoothly; fascinating historical detail)

The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper (sometimes-stilted in language; creative concept, complex connections, especially in the end)