Top Reads 2014

Item of business: I have a new essay up at the Curator this week, “Safe as Houses.”

More on books. I did a mid-year Top Reads list back in summer, and it was well-advised. Pregnancy wreaked havoc on my brain cells, and there were months at a time when I didn’t read a coherent word. It was actually freeing: more time with my (then) three-year-old, permission to slow down, take naps, gaze out the window and think thoughts, gaze out the window and think no thoughts, binge on Masterpiece Theatre. But it was also good to get back the capacity for reading books. A good finish to the year. These are them.

Leapings: Revelations and Epiphanies by Brian Doyle
Brian Doyle first crossed my reading path as judge for Ruminate Magazine’s nonfiction prize a few years ago. Then I started reading the Sun, and the best issues were the ones with his essays. Then (I mentioned this in my last Top Reads) his beautiful, beautiful essay “Yes” in 2003's Best American Essays. Recently, someone in my Facebook feed linked to his short piece “Shouldering” (on page three of the online magazine). Brothers, fathers, kitchens; I could picture my husband’s childhood. A great piece on writing – “Sensualiterature” – was in the most recent Creative Nonfiction issue. I decided to rely on serendipities no longer, and ordered his essay collection Leapings: Revelations and Epiphanies. Oh, yes. His topics (summer camp counseling; teaching the eight-year-olds in Catholic class; writing; 9/11, in the wrenching, riveting title piece), his prose (a playful, poetic word rhythm), his fearless (or fearful in the best way?) handling of oft-taboo CNF topics (children, Jesus, faith). He’s decidedly Roman Catholic, and I (Protestant that I am) have learned much, and am heartened by how often I nod an agreed affirmative – yes, yes! – to his expressions of faith and beauty in the world. Also, he is funny. Just go ahead and do it. Read Brian Doyle.

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
I had this one on the night-side nursing table. It was perfect for a slow, meditative (and fragmented) read. I had given this book a try several times in years past, and am glad I pushed past the usual stopping point. Oh, the visions of love Berry develops, and of heaven, and of hopeful possibilities for beauty on earth. “Good, good, good,” the moonshine glugs in agreement as Jayber and other men of the town pass the jug around during their “little worter dranking party” in the woods. Here is Berry most eloquent on relationships and the importance of them; on caring for the land, yes, but for people above all; but most of all, on heaven. “This is a book about Heaven,” Jayber tells us toward the end of his life, though he has “wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell - where we fail to love one another, . . . where we destroy the things we need the most, where we see no hope and have no faith, where we are needy and alone, where things that ought to stay together fall apart.” But it is, yes, finally a book about heaven, indeed. Since reading, every time I’m struck by some beauty around me or joy within, I hear that bottle’s pronouncement: “Good, good, good. Good. Good, good.”

Lila by Marilynne Robinson
More heaven, and visions thereof, and accompanying concerns (Who will end up there?), and moments pushing at the edges of the hell Jayber describes. More of the character Lila, who we never had much of (only tidbits in Gilead and Home) before now. Her experiences are wrenching (abandonment, wandering, and worse), her personality fascinating (despite all hand-to-mouth odds, she’s constantly compelled to think about “existence”), her drive to love thought-provoking and instructive. This is a book to unsettle you and leave you there, but the images of and propensities toward love (look for Doll - or is it Christ? - taking the child Lila up in her arms, as the adult Lila recalls it over and over) are as stunning as ever in any Robinson novel.

The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh
I’d call this a guilty pleasure, but I don’t actually feel guilty. Paton Walsh has written several new detective novels about the characters Dorothy Sayers created in the 1920's and 30's: Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. After a summer-long Sayers binge (my fuzzy brain cells gave rereading a pass) – Gaudy Night, Strong Poison, Busman’s Honeymoon – I took the plunge. The first couple books had their moments, but The Late Scholar bears up really enjoyably, so much that I’ve read it twice in close succession. Admittedly, no one can be Sayers, and the prose loses some of the depth between her books and these new ones, but the characters are largely consistent and enjoyable, the mystery interesting enough, and the setting dead-on. It’s back to Oxford! Paton Walsh, who attended the university herself, gets Oxford. It’s wonderful to be back. And really, what Sayers devotee doesn’t wonder what Peter and Harriet might become in their mature years?

Onward into 2015 and all the good books waiting to be read – and read again.

Past Rabbit Hole Top Reads are here:
Spring 2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

Top Books 2012

Every January, like lots of other folks, I make a list of my favorite books from the last year - not necessarily books published within the year, but any and all that I read and loved. A pattern always emerges. These aren't merely good books; these were the narratives of my thought, emotion, and memory in 2012:

When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson (nonfiction/essay)

Robinson’s three novels are amongst the most moving I’ve read. So when I heard this essay collection was being published in Spring 2012, I jumped on the chance to review it for The Other Journal. (That review is here.) My high expectations were exceeded. The prose is denser than in her fiction, and her weighty meanings require slow, attentive work to parse out, but it's worth the effort. As always, Robinson challenges many of my preconceived notions. This is a good kind of unsettlement. 

Run by Ann Patchett (fiction/novel)

“My word, that woman can write!” says a friend to whom I recommended Patchett. Indeed. Bel Canto and State of Wonder may be more gripping of plot; read Run for the characters. Patchett’s M.O. is to create the unlikeliest of scenarios, drop her characters in, and imagine what they might do. In this novel, she works wonders in hearts and relationships in a short matter of days, against the chill quiet of a traffic-stopping snowfall, within the difficult diversity and warm potentiality of a family. Here is family in some of its most unlikely iterations: adopted, pretended, begrudging, forgiving. Here is encouragement to relate more empathetically.

Drowned Ammett by Diana Wynne Jones (fiction/middle grades)

I have the lurking suspicion I’ve already read what will always be my favorite DWJ novels, the Chrestomanci sextet. Drowned Ammett is the second in another series, Jones's Dalemark Quartet. And while the Chrestomanci books have charmed me with their barely-constrained whimsy, Drowned Ammett's young protagonist Mitt easily ranks amongst my favorite-ever book characters. His selfishness is never far behind his learning and growth. His kindness is complicated. He is real. And the final scenes sailing through the Holy Isles? Jones renders the magic of coast and sea in a heightened beauty that rivals C.S. Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I gave a full review here. I’ll be rereading this one for sure.

Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce (fiction/middle grades)

I've mentioned this unexpected read before. In his other books and screenplays, Boyce’s worldview tends to grate uncomfortably against my own; his conclusions often suggest an individually-determined morality that leave his young protagonists a little wanting in the Consider-Others department. But in this book, Boyce’s capacity to weave humor with deeper life lessons makes for not only a thoroughly enjoyable, but also a surprisingly moving read. Plus, there are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - as well as fine art and a little WWII history and the Welsh countryside. I recommend it. (Interestingly, Boyce helped author a characteristically playful and irreverent Olympics opening ceremonies last summer.)

Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard (nonfiction/essay)

This book was already on my to-read list when I discovered it in our library sale corner for one dollar. One dollar! Each essay is astounding, stunning, or simply a deep rumble of truth. Not surprising; this is Dillard. She had me at the Author's Note, where she clarifies that “this is not a collection of occasional pieces, such as a writer brings out to supplement his real work; instead this is my real work, such as it is.” Amen to that. Her essay “An Expedition to the Pole,” alone, is worth getting your hands on this book. It's an intensely-felt mashup of polar exploration history and awkward church moments. Dillard comprehends the human experience on so many levels, and in these essays, she translates it perfectly, if not a little strangely and unexpectedly, to the page.

What did you read this year? Which books do you recommend? Did they compel or discomfit or embarrass or please you? What's next on your list?

Past Rabbit Hole Top Reads are here:

2011

2010

2009