My favorite book bloggers (see Literature list at right) have all been posting their choices for best books of 2008. Well, actually a number of them have taken exception to the "best lists" of the big newspapers here and in the U.K., so they've been writing about the "worst books" and "most disappointing reads of 2008."
Cornflower posted fiction and non-fiction lists while dovegreyreader scribbles is doing a dozen — not necessarily this year's new titles but books that she felt "created a very special reading experience."
So, where does that leave us latecomers to listmaking? I'm opting for a very American list based on size and looks: big, hefty books coupled with those small volumes that you can whip through in an evening — or an hour. And I'm siding with dovegreyreader: satisfying reads regardless of publication date.
I can hear you now; laughing or taking umbrage. But sometimes, it take a lot of words to produce an engrossing book. And sometimes you want to dig that deep into another world. It is perhaps noteworthy that my "big" reads are all non-fiction; three are biographies and the first title in the list below is my choice for Number One.
HUMAN SMOKE
The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
By Nicholson Baker
Simon & Schuster (2008)
565 pages
This book got a lot of flak from reviewers but I found it fascinating, informative and disturbing in equal measure. Nicholson presents "vignettes" — usually no more than three per page and often just one — that offer facts, quotes, statistics, every kind of information that could be gleaned from letters, diaries, newspaper reports, government documents and the speeches of all the main figures on stage in the period just before World War II.
It's like watching a newsreel in slow motion where you suddenly notice what's going on off to the side. In this case, it's a look at the people working to avoid another war whether they are in Japan or Germany or in the countries that would become the Allied Powers. It's a riveting and disheartening read and one that changed my view of Churchill and Roosevelt — not for the better.
I followed it up with Owen Sheers' "Resistance" and Peter Ho Davies' "The Welsh Girl" for a triumvirate of alternate views of WWII.
N.C. WYETH
A Biography
By David Michaelis
Harper Perennial (2003)
576 pages
A slow start but ultimately engrossing: The author was trying too hard in the early pages to point out all the family links, coincidences and patterns. But that is the Wyeth family: engrossing and riddled with repeating patterns of thought, behavior and talent.
Though the focus of the book is patriarch Newell Convers Wyeth, it is a multi-generational saga where nothing is ever what it seems. N.C.'s illustrations are American classics just as his son Andrew's paintings are. They are also rife with personal symbolism and the working through of conflicted relationships and so have a very different meaning to the artist and the viewer. A big rambling tome with the last 100+ pages devoted to a famiy tree, notes and index.
THE SNORING BIRD
My family's Journey Through a Century of Biology
By Bernd Heinrich
Ecco/Harper Collins Publishers (2007)
461 pages
So engrossing that I read every footnote and reference, cutline, the intro and epilogue — in addition to the story — in four nights of staying up late reading.
Bernd Heinrich's memoir combines high drama with astute observation and attention to detail, especially in the natural world. It's ostensibly the story of his father's charmed life on an almost magical country estate before and between both World Wars. Much of the story takes place within the shifting borders of Germany and Poland where the senior Heinrich is a naturalist whose speciality is wasps.
But he also goes on numerous expeditions around the world collecting assorted animals (dead and alive) for zoos, museums and his personal collections. The snoring bird of the book's title is one of them. His companions include his wives and lovers, and eventually his son, in a menagerie that is as amazing as any of the experiences they encounter in jungles and on mountaintops.
It is also a story of war, devastation, displacement and starting life over in small-town New England after the family finally makes it out of Europe alive. The close calls and miraculous rescues that happen again and again could only occur in real life. They would be frowned upon in fiction as too improbable.
But perhaps, most of all, this is the story of a son trying all his life to please his father, to understand him and finally to break away to pursue science in a world that's incomprehensible to his father. One of Bernd Heinrich's talents is to make science and natural history understandable to the general reader. So while there is a fair amount of science, I usually could follow it and, more often than not, found it fascinating. (BH got two Golden Fleece awards from Wisconsin's late U.S. Senator William Proxmire for his research).
If nothing else, the book was eye-opening in the long quote by Hermann Goring (delivered at the Nuremberg Trials) about how you convince a nation to go to war. Team Bush clearly knew where to look when they foisted Iraq on the American people.
SNOWDON
The Biography
Anne De Courcy
Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2008)
456 pages
Another fascinating read; another tale of tortured family relationships and how they play out in parents and children — the case in all three of these bios. This is an authorized biography of Lord Snowdon, one-time husband of HRH Princess Margaret, 1960s hipster, and ground-breaking photographer. I can't imagine that there is anything left to tell after this book. Nor can I quite cope with someone who could empathize with citizens with disabilities but be astoundingly cruel to those near and, supposedly, dear to him. And seems quite proud and pleased to have all these stories of his womanizing, rudeness and arrogance in print.
It is equally interesting because of the look the book offers at the post-war era when Britain became the coolest country in the world. Snowdon was at the center of that swinging social scene but he also was doing ground-breaking design and photo work. One minute he deserves praise and the next scorn — which makes for fast-paced, if erratic, reading. De Courcy is making a nice career for herself out of celebrity tell-all bios like "The Viceroy's Daughters" and "Diana Mosley."
MY TINY TITLE:
Thinking About Memoir
By Abigail Thomas
AARP/Sterling Publishing (2008)
118 pages
This little book is the first in a potential series of books on the arts of living to be published by AARP. The intent is to consider virtues — like civility, conversation, patience, love — that have "fallen into disuse in our recent history." This initial volume offers a point of entry to the examined life. A quick and easy read with lots of suggestions, tasks and ideas for sparking your memories.
TOMORROW: My favorite book of 2008 based on looks.
I always make my own "index" in the back of a book, noting page number and a phrase to help me quickly find the text or idea I want to remember in the books I read.