in 52 Weeks
The challenge is simple: read a book every week for a year. It runs from April to March. Below is the 2005/2006 booklist (you can see I fell a little short). Other booklists are 2004/2005, 2006/2007, 2007/2008, and the current booklist. Read on!
March...
49. Ursula, under
Hill, Ingrid
Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2004
Fiction, about a little "trailer trash" girl who falls down an abandoned mineshaft, and then proceeds in alternating chapters to tell the story, in detail, of the lives of her ancestors, back to ancient China. No more or less than it purports to be: just an examination of the inherent worth of a child's life as supported by the DNA evidence. It's a page-turner, thrilling, and it's some great writing, a thrill to read. Unfailingly great characterization. I loved it!
February...
48. The spirit catches you and you fall down: a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures
Fadiman, Anne
NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997
A journalist writes about the case of a Hmong immigrant's baby girl, her cataclysmic epilepsy, and how her parents understanding of sickness (spiritual, primarily) and her doctors' understanding (biomedical) conspired unintentionally to send her into brain death. Fadiman manages to expose the limitations of both parties without making either seem like the antagonist. One of the better non-fictions I've read this year, or any year. Revealing, and crushing.
47. Adventures in prayer
Marshall, Catherine
NY: Ballantine Books, 1975
A treatise on various types of prayer and their efficiencies: the prayer of helplessness, the waiting prayer, the prayer "that helps your dreams come true." I don't mean this to sound belittling. It's worthwhile... perhaps not the most lifechanging lesson ever...
46. The shadow of the wind
Zafon, Carols Ruiz
NY: Penguin, 2004
A spanish historical melodramatic mystery about an enigmatic author whose books bewitch a young boy. Way over the top, style-wise, but somehow it manages to skid to a stop with grace. I gave this to a few homebound patrons for whom, in retrospect, it perhaps wasn't the best fit.
45. Oh pure and radiant heart
Millet, Lydia
Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press, 2005
A meditation on the bomb, imagining that Oppenheimer, Fermi and Leo Szillard are transported to the present day at the moment of the first atomic bomb test, and find themselves appalled at the state of the world they created. A dark comedy, not entirely successful or satisfying, but Millet has a way with the revealing observation and the inner life of her characters. The book, however, offers very little hope for the human race-- in fact, it proposes that history ended at the moment of the Trinity blast, and we're just in the denouement, winding down to oblivion. How thrilling.
January...
44. King: the photobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Johnson, Charles Richard and Bob Adelman
New York: Viking Studio, 2000
A quick read, for obvious reasons (yes, there was text). Whether you're a King idealist or a King revisionist, there's no denying the power in the man's action. I heard a white 31-year-old simply read King's "I have a dream" speech a few weeks ago, and its innate power brought tears to my eyes. The photos in this biog helped flesh out King's story for me.
43. Adventures in the mainstream: coming of age with Down Syndrome
Palmer, Greg
Bethesda, MD: Woodbine House, 2005
Well, I bought this because I wanted some insight into this very topic, and I got some. It's both good news and so-so news, and to be honest, I wish it could have come from some reporter other than Mr. Palmer. His relentlessly smug, leftist, wrongly-self-satisfied and slightly prejudiced tone killed the book for me. Surely there's insight to be had about coming of age with Down Syndrome, somewhere. Try not to get it from this book.
42. A virtuous woman
Gibbons, Kaye
Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 1989
I kept on, at the urging of said co-worker who recommended Gibbons in the first place. Boy, this is a skilled and worthwhile writer. More southern voices, a husband and wife this time, telling their story, not always heroically. I heartily recommend both of these titles and I look forward to reading her new book (just out).
41. Ellen Foster
Gibbons, Kaye
Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 1987
A co-worker's recommendation of this author helped me overcome my general aversion to Oprah books, thank God. A beautiful book in a distinctive voice, as if Scout grew up with a monster for a father instead of Atticus. It's so short, too, so all you reluctant readers, please start here! Wow...
December...
40. Wickett's remedy
Goldberg, Myla
New York: Doubleday, 2005
A complicated novel, not strictly satisfying but very interesting. It's only nominally even about Wickett's Remedy (a tonic sold around WWI), but rather about how over time the truth gets lost-- not only to later generations, but even to those who participate in the original events-- because of the mischief of memory. Although I trumpeted Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and kind of liked Safron Foer's Extremely loud..., I'm getting tired of these novelty novels, using pictures and marginalia and letters and asides to build a story like a house of cards. I only want to read book books for a little while. At least until Clarke writes the sequel to Jonathan Strange.
39. One hundred years of solitude
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel
New York: HarperPerennial, 1998
Reads like one of those time-lapse movies of an explosion that runs forward to impossible heights of destruction, then reverses, running backward till all the fire and smoke and dust sucks back into its point of origin and everything is still. Follows six generations of one extended Latin-American family through, as my co-worker put it, "a century of alone-ness." A very good book.
38. Between two worlds: the inner lives of children of divorce
Marquardt, Elizabeth
New York: Crown, 2005
Marquardt concludes, after a controlled national study, that there is no such thing as a good divorce when it comes to the effects of divorce on children. Even those children of divorce who grow up to be relatively successful and seemingly well-adjusted are deeply wounded in ways that children of intact marriages never are. I guess I didn't need a study to tell you that, but this book helped clarify some specific inner-life issues for me.
35 - 37. Harry Potter and the: Goblet of Fire; Order of the Phoenix; Half-Blood Prince
Rowling, J. K.
New York: Arthur A. Levine, 2000, 2003, 2005.
I was disappointed by the omissions of the most recent movie-- I just remembered the book being so much fuller. So I went back and re-read it. And then I read the next two again. I won't endlessly rehash everything that's been said everywhere else: I'll just say two things. One, these books are fun. Two, wouldn't it be interesting if book seven revealed the whole darn thing as a Christian allegory, with Dumbledore in the Jesus position, sacrificing himself for Harry and then coming back to life to redeem wizard-kind? I bet Rowling would be having a good laugh then.
November...
34. The highest tide
Lynch, Jim
New York: Bloomsbury, 2005
It's not a perfect novel (its got some characterization problems), but its mix of coming-of-age story with magical descriptions of marine science is weirdly fascinating. The central metaphor seems to be that the real stuff of life (and by extension, the experience of adolescence) is as mind-boggling and mysterious as the unseen creatures of the deep, deep sea.
33. Saint Maybe
Tyler, Anne
New York: Knopf, 1991
My boss recommended I read this, so... I read it. You think I just read it because I had to. But another friend was talking it up at exactly the same time as my boss! This one follows Ian Bedloe through most of his adult life, and Tyler's sympathies never come down hard either with or against Ian. She's excruciatingly fair to his nature, and she writes like a dream, so: I know I'm not your boss, but I bet you'd like this book.
32. Dirt music
Winton, Tim
New York: Scribner, 2001
The descriptions of Winton's writing that accompanied pre-press for his new book of short stories, The Turning, was intriguing enough to send me back to the stacks. This one is a loving tribute, as much to the landscape of the Australian coast as to the desparate losers who cling to it. A little too metaphysical at times for my taste, but the writing is diamond-hard and brilliant.
October...
31. Fallen
Maine, David
New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005
What I really appreciate about Maine's writing is that he puts so much thought into the real-life implications of the biblical narrative. This one (his second, after last years The Preservationist) imagines what's in the gaps between the fall of man and the death of Cain. Maine doesn't shy away from considering every angle, asking every question. But neither does he proseletyze, either for or against God. He's both fair and foul, and a damned fine read.
30. Sightseeing
Lapcharoensap, Rattawut
New York: Grove Press, 2005
Short stories from a Thai-American writer. A little uneven, but rewarding: definitely in a cultural sense, and often in the literary sense.
29. The contemplative pastor: returning to the art of spiritual direction
Peterson, Eugene
Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdman's, 1994
I read this at the strong recommendation of a friend. Peterson has some insightful things to say about what is-- and isn't-- a pastor's job. I have a much better appreciation for what I do-- and don't-- expect my pastor to do.
28. Reaching for the invisible God: what can we expect to find?
Yancey, Philip
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000
How do you have a relationship with a person you can't see? Yancey examines faith, doubt, the image of God in Jesus, and the problems of relating with an infinite spirit who defies expectation. It's awesome.
September...
27. The tattoo artist
Ciment, Jill
New York: Pantheon Books, 2005
An artist is stranded with a tribe of tattoo cultists on a tropical island and begins the long, painful process of making her art personal. In the end, though her tattoos are demonstrable icons of her whole life, she no longer knows who she is. This was an interesting read, though not essential.
26. The problem of pain
Lewis, C. S.
New York: Touchstone, 1996
What theological difficulty doesn't Lewis clarify? Here he addresses the problem of believing in a God who allows suffering and even Hell. His rigidly logical thinking unlocks the emotional reservoirs of faith. Wish I'd read it ages ago (except, maybe, for the chapter on animals. he's got some highly personal ideas about animals).
25. Carry me home
Kring, Sandra
New York: Delta Trade, 2005
A "nostalgic" (read: sentimental) soap opera about a developmentally delayed young man who helps bring everyone he knows through the miseries of the second world war. Don't get me wrong, it's a pleasant read. It's not joining the canon or anything.
24. Under the overpass: a journey of faith on the streets of America
Yankoski, Mike
Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2005
Two Christians spend a summer homeless as an expression of their faith. I was told it was heavy on MOR evangelical Christian-ese, and it is, but. It has this going for it: the rock solid message that you can (yes, you can) help the poor and the homeless in little ways. You don't have to tackle the entire problem at once, or ever. One person, one meal, one moment at a time is not only enough, it's what God requires of you.
23. The importance of being foolish: how to think like Jesus
Manning, Brennan
San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.
The gospel: Jesus loves sinners. I read it at a particularly apt time (well, what time isn't apt? One section spoke directly to me circumstances with eiree accuracy). The bottom line is this is a welcome, penetrating presentation of the gospel and I heartily recommend it.
22. Word freak: heartbreak, triumph, genius, and obsession in the world of competitive Scrabble players
Fatsis, Stefan
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Puzzle lovers, game players, fringe dwellers, borderline obsessive-compulsives: this is the book for you. At one point I was so excited, I told my wife, "Honey, I'm going to learn all the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 letter words acceptable in tournament Scrabble!" She told me, "No one will ever play with you again." So, that's a good reality check, but at least I got to live the dream vicariously. What a fun book.
August...
21. American desert
Everett, Percival
New York: Hyperion, 2004
A bibliography of recent fiction by African-American authors led me to this satire on death, personal honesty and misplaced cultural priorities. In which a zombie with a heart of gold realizes that he was kind of a jerk and a coward while he was alive. Everett doesn't (apparently) believe that God exists but he does make a strong case for the idea of generational sin, and that was the books most interesting and compelling aspect (to me).
20. Family matters: why homeschooling makes sense
Guterson, David
San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1992
I wanted to find out if homeschooling makes sense. Guterson's answer: "I think so."
19. Pobby and Dingan
Rice, Ben
New York: Knopf, 2000
A tiny fable about a sick little girl in Australia whose father loses track of her imaginary friends while larking about at his opal mine claim. Her brother learns "what it is to believe in something which is hard to see..." I was intrigued by the title and encouraged by the length (a scant 94 pages, 12pt type or something like, and only 4 inches wide).
18. Old boys
McCarry, Charles
Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2004
This looked like an interesting read for two reasons. The author, who wrote a popular spy series in the 70's, came out of retirement to write it. The spy, subject of the author's earlier books, has also aged appropriately (as has the bad guy). The good guys act like 80 year olds, which is an interesting twist on the genre. Throw in an ancient scroll shedding new light on the Passion of Christ and you've got yourself a cracking good spy novel-- better by far than The Bourne identity.
17. Everything bad is good for you: how today's popular culture is actually making us smarter
Johnson, Steven
New York: Riverhead Books, 2005
Eric asked me to read this. Johnson goes beyond the "hand-eye coordination" argument to propose that: videogames make you smarter by exercising your complex problem-solving skills; television makes you smarter by exercising the parts of your brain that analyse complex social networks (Survivor) and the parts that track multiple storylines and ambiguous information (Sopranos, 24); the Internet makes you smarter by forcing you to master new interfaces and interact in new social networks. We're not in a race to the bottom, media-wise, he contends. He divorces content from form, though, and makes no overarching accounting for whether the increasing degradation of content (Grand Theft Auto, Fear Factor) perhaps outweighs the increasing complexity of form. And he misses an important point, IMO: as creators of media become more sophisticated (complex) in their forms, they also become more sophisticated in "framing the discussion." We're becoming increasingly leadable because we're addicted to the amazing feats of complexity worked into our entertainments. We'll follow them wherever they want us to go. We might be getting better at problem solving or social networking, but we're still as dumb as sheep when it comes to striking off in our own direction. But don't bother me about all that, just let me know when Halo 4 comes out.
July...
16. The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Edwards, Kim
New York: Viking, 2005
Funny thing about this book: my wife was going to write her own novel with the exact same plot (the nurse can't stand to leave the child with down syndrome at an institution, so she raises her herself in secret). In this case, the girl is the second born of twins, and the father decides at her birth to tell the mother that the daughter died. Then he spends the whole book obsessing about how the geography of his heart is playing itself out in the real world around him. The language is beautiful but the whole thing rings a little false, and it took for ev er to get going. And there was too little about the daughter, although that's a personal complaint.
15. Oh the Glory of it All
Wilsey, Sean
New York: Penguin, 2005
Sean Wilsey's memoir about being rejected by his indescribably crazy society parents, his descent into juvenile delinquency, his redemption at a cult-like brainwashing center in Italy, and his subsequent return to psychological health and authordom. I read it because a.) the cover and title are so cool, b.) Dave Eggers says on the bookjacket "Holey moley this is a great read," and c.) I never read a society tell-all before. It turned out not to be a society tell-all as much as just a pretty good memoir in a very original voice.
14. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Rowling, J. K.
New York: Scholastic, 2005
Harry Scary and the Good Good Stuff.
13. The Known World
Jones, Edward P.
New York: Amistad, 2003
Daniel Burt ranks Toni Morrison's Beloved at 45 in his top 100 most influential novels of all time (for Facts on Files' The Novel 100). I've read at least two books in this reading campaign that back him up (the first being Property), and this one even won the Pulitzer Prize-- just like Beloved. It's about-- once again-- the moral corruption inherent in slavery; The Known World focuses on the special hypocrisy of freed blackmen owning slaves. Jones masters Morrison's magical realism, and the fiercely felt standards of right and wrong that run as undercurrent to her (and his) novels' action. Those who oppose those standards reap ruin, whether or not they understand why. What a great book! Love Beloved? Read this.
June...
12. Small Town Odds
Headley, Jason
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2004
Mr. Headley emailed me out of the blue one day to recommend his novel, because he'd stumbled across my blog. Apparently I'd written that I enjoyed Richard Russo's books (I do), and he related that his debut novel, published last year, is drawing comparisons to Russo. Anyway, I was flattered to be solicited by an author, as a reader, because of my blog, and I read his book. I found the Russo thing to be a fair comparison. There was some inconsistent writing (some underdeveloped characters, a little reliance on cliche, and the story and style are as old as the hills), but I was hooked by the end, and I can say in all sincerity that it was a very enjoyable read with some moments of hilarious dialogue and some passages of gentle brilliance.
11. Mere Christianity
Lewis, Clive Staples
New York: Macmillan, 1952
I like to go back and review the basics every once in a while.
10. Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on christian spirituality
Miller, Don
Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003
Some friends told me this was an irreverent take on faith in Christ. To my surprise, I found it very reverent, deeply moving and maybe even life-changing in some of the ways it clarifies God's love for people. I highly recommend it.
09. Kick me: Adventures in adolescence
Feig, Paul
New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002
Did you watch Freaks and Geeks on TV? Feig wrote that. So this is more in that vein: squirm-worthy true stories from his own adolescence. I really hope you never read this book, if only because 90 percent of it mirrors my own experiences growing up, and I don't want you to know that much about my icky inner life.
08. Infinite Jest
Wallace, David Foster
New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1996
1,100 pages, no resolution, $25K words you never heard before, cast of thousands, confusing, ana-chronological, and its still one of the best books i've ever read. In fact, I would read it over again right now without a moment's hesitation, and in fact, I might. I can't even begin to tell you what it's about, except in mile high overview: it's about how although we get almost everything we want, we're still miserable-- we kill ourselves with pleasure.
May...
07. The Transformation of American Religion: How we actually live our faith
Wolfe, Alan
New York : Free Press, 2003
Wolfe, secular and Jewish, offers that the religious in America (he addresses, primarily Protestant Evangelicals, but also Jews, Catholics and, to a lesser extent, Muslims and Buddhists) are much more like the non-religious in practice than either side thinks. He believes this is a good thing. In the clash between American culture and religion, he observes that culture tends to win hands down, steadily reshaping the practice of religion into something much more like itself: individualistic, non-threatening, undemanding. Very telling if you're an evangelical protestant-- helps you take a good look at yourself and your relationship with God.
06. Never Let Me Go
Ishiguro, Kazuo
New York : Knopf, 2005
The author of The Remains of the Day. The peaceful forward flow, the tone, the subtle handling of fantastic elements, all serve to make this book almost otherworldly-- exactly like our world, but then again not, exactly. Ishiguro makes no attempt to save his characters from the evil in their society-- they act and behave just the way they would, they do nothing that they wouldn't do given their circumstances. It's enough to make you cry. Ishiguro's last few pages say almost the same thing as Safron Foer's little flip book at the end of Extremely Loud..., except better, and using words, and to exponentially more devastating effect. So sad, so good.
April...
05. My Life As A Fake
Carey, Peter
New York : Knopf, 2003
Australian snob and poet Chris Chubb creates a golem, unintentionally, when he invents poet Bob McCorkle to disgrace a rival editor. Bob ends up coming to life, stealing Chubb's daughter, and writing his own poems of unquestionable genius. His work is so locked up in his creator's falsehood, though, that it's impossible to extract it. There are some unneccesary grace notes, but I ultimately enjoyed this book a lot.
04. A Continent for the Taking: the tragedy and hope of Africa
French, Howard W.
New York : Knopf, 2004
If you never think about the state of things in Africa, join the club. If you wish you knew more, I recommend this book. Though French comes squarely and finally down on the side of tragedy, his love for Africa is evident in this exceedingly smooth and erudite read. That's blood on the cover, by the way.
03. Cork Boat
Pollack, John
New York : Pantheon Books, 2004
Supposed to be an inspiring and humorous tale of one man's realization of a lifelong dream to build a boat out of corks and sail it through the heart of wine country-- "Hey, you can do anything! I built a boat out of individual corks!" But the somewhat graceless tone and the simple overload of leisure and privilege made it a little tough on my palate.
02. The Alienist
Carr, Caleb
New York : Random House, 1994
Oh, popular novels, I'll never understand. This is a fictional account of the historical underpinnings of the "get into the mind of the killer" genre. Pass.
01. True History of the Kelly Gang
Carey, Peter
New York : Vintage Books, 2000
Somehow he manages to both sound colloquial and uneducated, and elevated and poetic, at the same time. Plus, a cracking good outlaw story. This one's a winner.