I’m grateful for books. Reading them and writing them and giving them to friends and talking about them. These are ten of the books I loved most in 2016
THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE by Jacqueline Sheehan. A five-year-old child found at a crime scene sets events in motion that ripple back in time, into the newspapers, and up and down the east coast. Delia is the child services worker assigned to the girl, her last case before she joins her sister in a bakery/café start-up. With the help of her boss, a cop, a golden retriever and a Maine coon cat, Delia delves into the underworld of the heroin trade searching for Hayley’s family. Sheehan’s writing is at its brilliant best when she brings people and animals together in scenes that explore and celebrate their essential connection. This book will be published in February 2017.
AFTER THE DAM by Amy Hassinger. The natural world is so much more than setting in Amy Hassinger’s new novel. River, sturgeon, eagles, and three generations of conflicted and intertwined families join forces in this powerful story. Hassinger’s lush prose and nuanced themes of stewardship of our children, our selves, and the earth make this literary page-turner a must-read.
THE BOOK THAT MATTERS MOST by Ann Hood. Few authors capture loss and grief, hope and connection like Hood, and in this book she weaves those powerful themes with one of my absolute favorites things – reading books in groups, and how novels both speak to our individual sorrows and connect us with others. Ava’s husband has left her for a yarn-bomber and her daughter Maggie is in trouble in Paris when Ava’s best friend invites her to join her library book group. The theme is “the book that matters most” and each member chooses a book for one of the monthly discussions. This novel reminds us of the power of reading and the many ways that books connect us to each other and to the world.
HEIRLOOMS by Rachel Hall. You know that feeling when you pick up a book and start reading and quickly understand that you've found a journey you didn't know you needed? That's how I felt reading Rachel Hall’s debut collection of interconnected stories. She invites us into a Jewish family, before and after the Holocaust, in France and Israel and the United States. Quietly and lyrically, Hall explores the profound ties immigrants feel to our past, our losses, our dreams, and each other.
A lot has already been written about Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel, HOMEGOING, and I’m not going to add much. Just to say that I’m so glad I read it early, before all the hype, and had a chance to discover the magic of this novel on my own. Gyasi’s two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, and their descendents still whisper to me from time to time and remind me not to forget their stories.
Another debut novel, THE MOTHERS by Brit Bennett, takes place in a contemporary California town and explores first love, secrets, community, momentous decisions, and growing up with deep “what if’s.” I loved the chorus of Church Ladies and the feeling of being invited into their living rooms for a few hours.
Michael Goldman’s translation of Cecil Bodker’s STORIES ABOUT TACIT made me both wish I read Danish and grateful for Goldman’s own prose. These stories, connected by both characters and a wry storytelling style, both surprised me and felt inevitable. This is delightful gem of a book.
ANOTHER BROOKLYN by Jacqueline Woodson takes the reader to a girl’s coming-of-age years in Brooklyn, a place of mothers hearing voices and friends being raped, of danger and hope and disappearances and beautiful possibilities. To me, it read like poetry – raw and sparse and very powerful.
In Lee Hope’s HORSEFEVER, Nikki is horse-crazy; her passion for horse eventing is also about testing herself – body and soul – and her marriage. With language that sizzles and a story that races across the competition courses and the Vermont countryside, HORSEFEVER explores and explodes the profound effects of Nikki’s obsession on the people closest to her.
I just finished reading an advance copy of EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid, coming out in early 2017. It may be the best book I’ve read all year. Then again, it’s the most recent book I’ve read, and coming after the election, it’s so spot-on honest and hopeful about our world it makes me tear up just thinking about it. EXIT WEST follows Saeed and Nadia from their unnamed “city teetering on the abyss” through their migration to London and beyond. As the author explains in an interview, he relaxes the laws of physics in one specific way to accomplish their travel. The use of this technique and lack of geographical grounding add to the almost mythical storytelling. But this is not a fairy tale; the novel tackles combating the racism against immigrants and building cooperative new communities. It is also a love story, a story about hope in a very dark time. Don’t miss this one.
THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE by Jacqueline Sheehan. A five-year-old child found at a crime scene sets events in motion that ripple back in time, into the newspapers, and up and down the east coast. Delia is the child services worker assigned to the girl, her last case before she joins her sister in a bakery/café start-up. With the help of her boss, a cop, a golden retriever and a Maine coon cat, Delia delves into the underworld of the heroin trade searching for Hayley’s family. Sheehan’s writing is at its brilliant best when she brings people and animals together in scenes that explore and celebrate their essential connection. This book will be published in February 2017.
AFTER THE DAM by Amy Hassinger. The natural world is so much more than setting in Amy Hassinger’s new novel. River, sturgeon, eagles, and three generations of conflicted and intertwined families join forces in this powerful story. Hassinger’s lush prose and nuanced themes of stewardship of our children, our selves, and the earth make this literary page-turner a must-read.
THE BOOK THAT MATTERS MOST by Ann Hood. Few authors capture loss and grief, hope and connection like Hood, and in this book she weaves those powerful themes with one of my absolute favorites things – reading books in groups, and how novels both speak to our individual sorrows and connect us with others. Ava’s husband has left her for a yarn-bomber and her daughter Maggie is in trouble in Paris when Ava’s best friend invites her to join her library book group. The theme is “the book that matters most” and each member chooses a book for one of the monthly discussions. This novel reminds us of the power of reading and the many ways that books connect us to each other and to the world.
HEIRLOOMS by Rachel Hall. You know that feeling when you pick up a book and start reading and quickly understand that you've found a journey you didn't know you needed? That's how I felt reading Rachel Hall’s debut collection of interconnected stories. She invites us into a Jewish family, before and after the Holocaust, in France and Israel and the United States. Quietly and lyrically, Hall explores the profound ties immigrants feel to our past, our losses, our dreams, and each other.
A lot has already been written about Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel, HOMEGOING, and I’m not going to add much. Just to say that I’m so glad I read it early, before all the hype, and had a chance to discover the magic of this novel on my own. Gyasi’s two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, and their descendents still whisper to me from time to time and remind me not to forget their stories.
Another debut novel, THE MOTHERS by Brit Bennett, takes place in a contemporary California town and explores first love, secrets, community, momentous decisions, and growing up with deep “what if’s.” I loved the chorus of Church Ladies and the feeling of being invited into their living rooms for a few hours.
Michael Goldman’s translation of Cecil Bodker’s STORIES ABOUT TACIT made me both wish I read Danish and grateful for Goldman’s own prose. These stories, connected by both characters and a wry storytelling style, both surprised me and felt inevitable. This is delightful gem of a book.
ANOTHER BROOKLYN by Jacqueline Woodson takes the reader to a girl’s coming-of-age years in Brooklyn, a place of mothers hearing voices and friends being raped, of danger and hope and disappearances and beautiful possibilities. To me, it read like poetry – raw and sparse and very powerful.
In Lee Hope’s HORSEFEVER, Nikki is horse-crazy; her passion for horse eventing is also about testing herself – body and soul – and her marriage. With language that sizzles and a story that races across the competition courses and the Vermont countryside, HORSEFEVER explores and explodes the profound effects of Nikki’s obsession on the people closest to her.
I just finished reading an advance copy of EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid, coming out in early 2017. It may be the best book I’ve read all year. Then again, it’s the most recent book I’ve read, and coming after the election, it’s so spot-on honest and hopeful about our world it makes me tear up just thinking about it. EXIT WEST follows Saeed and Nadia from their unnamed “city teetering on the abyss” through their migration to London and beyond. As the author explains in an interview, he relaxes the laws of physics in one specific way to accomplish their travel. The use of this technique and lack of geographical grounding add to the almost mythical storytelling. But this is not a fairy tale; the novel tackles combating the racism against immigrants and building cooperative new communities. It is also a love story, a story about hope in a very dark time. Don’t miss this one.