books of 2016

Well, 2016 wasn't a complete wash. At least I got to read some stuff. Here it is:

January

The Happiness Project – Gretchen Rubin. Thus begins my obsession with my Upholder doppelganger, Gretchen. (Don’t know what an Upholder is? At gretchenrubin.com you can take the 4 Tendencies quiz.) Gretchen writes about happiness and good habits from an analytical and practical point of view. In this book, she writes about her year-long project of trying various empirically supported happiness-boosting techniques. If she hooks you here, there’s another book down there in July, and you’ll want to catch her Happiness podcast.

The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett. I’m sure I was the last English reader alive not to have read Ken Follett. As I’m sure you already know, this was a historical novel about the building of a medieval cathedral. I liked it pretty much through about the first third, at which point the cathedral burned down and I felt like the entire plot just repeated. At about the two-thirds mark, I think the cathedral burned down again and we got another plot repeat. I guess that’s about enough Follett for me.

The Big Short – Michael Lewis. If you lived through the financial crisis of 2008, this is required reading. Don’t worry, you will not be bored, though you will probably be fascinated and horrified in equal measure. Better still, first see the fantastic movie adaptation, which even manages to be funny while horrifying you, and then read the book, which will fill in the gaps. You must also listen to the podcast This American Life episode “The Giant Pool of Money” and its sequel “Return to the Giant Pool of Money.” The more you understand about the shenanigans that led to the melt-down, the more enraged you will be. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Where God Was Born – Bruce Feiler. I listened to this one as an audiobook. Very interesting and enjoyable. Feiler narrates his travel around Israel, going back and forth between biblical and modern stories. That and the fact that SO MANY of my friends visited Israel in the past few months is making me want to go.

February

Lucky Us – Amy Bloom. Ok, I remember liking it but I had to go back to the Amazon page to remind myself that it was about two orphaned sisters in the 1940’s who try their fortunes in Hollywood. I guess the fact that I couldn’t remember that probably tells you that you could pass some time reading it but I didn’t think it was much to write home about.

The Whistling Season – Ivan Doig. This one, on the other hand, I remember well. This was a gorgeous novel about a motherless family of boys in early 20^th century Montana. Laura Ingalls Wilder for grown-ups. Good story; funny and beautifully written.

The Birdcage – Marcia Willett. This was a very enjoyable audiobook that made me quite enthusiastic about afternoon dog walks for the duration. About a British family with a buried secret.

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth – Reza Aslan. I have always enjoyed hearing Reza Aslan speak so I had been meaning to read this one for quite a while. Though it was a little drier and more scholarly than I had expected, I did find this exploration of the historical Jesus and the period of early Christianity very interesting. Try also “From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians” on video from PBS’ Frontline.

Stones for Ibarra – Harriet Doerr. One of my very favorite authors. Terrific novel about an American couple making a home in Mexico. The scene in the restaurant where the wife imagines her life looking forward a year will absolutely break your heart. I’m not going to tell you anything else. Just go read it. Then read Consider This, Señora by the same author. You’re welcome.

March

Um, there’s nothing on my list. I have no explanation for this. As I said last year, I hope I at least got caught up on The New Yorker.

April

The Cold War – John Lewis Gaddis. Another audiobook that made me a very enthusiastic dog walker. Fascinating history of the period from the end of WWII through the Reagan administration. The author is a real expert with a gift for making things clear.

Into the Beautiful North – Luis Alberto Urrea. A book club selection with some really memorable characters and engaging scenes, but on the whole, not the best story. I give him credit for a great title, though.

About A Boy – Nick Hornby. I have read several other books by Nick Hornby, and like those, I found this one to be smart and funny and a great story. I love the way he writes. Several of his books have been turned into quite good movies, and he is also a fine screenwriter, notably he wrote the screenplay for the movie “Brooklyn” from a year or two ago.

Alexander Hamilton – Ron Chernow. No, I cannot get any Hamilton tickets either. But I can check books out from the library. This is the biography the musical is based on, and when Lin-Manuel said he’d enjoyed all 800+ pages as light vacation reading, I followed suit. It really is a great story, and if you are familiar with the songs from the show (or, say, if you know them all by heart) you will already have the bones of the story to hang all this detail on.

Back When We Were Grown-Ups – Anne Tyler. It has been a long time since I read Anne Tyler. I enjoyed this family comedy/drama a lot—it had a good story with some crazy interesting characters, though I was disappointed in the ending.

May

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – Rachel Joyce. A lot of people seemed to have enjoyed this book; I was not one of them. I thought it was a little too cute for its own good, neither fanciful nor realistic enough, while at the same time filled with unappealing characters. The good news is that when other books are recommended as being “in the style of The Unlikely Pilgrimage…” I know to steer clear of them too.

The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work – John Gottman. I don’t go in much for self help, but this was quite interesting; research-based, practical suggestions for improving relationships. These folks observe couples in the lab and can predict with startling accuracy which relationships will last. I’m still happily married, so you do the math.

June

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik. I am a big fan of Justice Ginsburg, so this scrapbook-style biography was a real pleasure to read. Full of her life story, annotated speeches and opinions, and lots of photos of artifacts of the cult of the Notorious RBG.

Heads in Beds – Jacob Tomsky. This was a humorous account of a long-time hotel employee’s experiences up and down the pay scale of various luxury hotels. Light, but might not make you very enthusiastic about your next vacation.

July

Better Than Before – Gretchen Rubin. As promised from above. This selection from Gretchen focuses on establishing good habits and putting them to work for you to achieve other goals. This is also where she first gets into her personality framework that I find so interesting.

Burr – Gore Vidal. After Hamilton, what did you expect? This is a historical fiction rather than a straight-up biography, but it really didn’t contradict anything the Chernow bio put out there about Burr. What a character.

August

Five Days at Memorial – Sheri Fink. An investigation into what happened in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans. Certainly an interesting and tragic story, but I was left wishing that instead of reading about the horrible, predictable, ultimately understandable ways everything went wrong at Memorial (and 2 other similar hospitals), I had gotten to read a book about what went RIGHT at another charity hospital across town. That hospital’s staff was able to maintain a basic level of patient care and general sanity in the face of the same hardships. Somebody write that book, K?

Purity – Jonathan Franzen. This guy really has a knack for creating the most unappealing characters whose story I still can’t put down. Must be the writing. This book assumed a little more significance with its plot about an Assange-like character when WikiLeaks burst back into the news last year.

The Royal We – Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. Really pretty dreadful novelization of the relationship of Prince William and the former Kate Middleton. I am embarrassed to admit that I did finish it though.

September

The Little Paris Bookshop – Nina George. I did not, however, finish this. It was about a bookseller on a barge in France. Useful in the future for weeding out other similar recommendations.

The Girls From Corona Del Mar – Rufi Thorpe. I loved this one though. A long friendship between two women. Not always a happy story but the way the relationship between the friends was written just rang so true.

Cleopatra: A Life – Stacy Schiff. An interesting biography about a historical character I didn’t know much about. It also went into the history of Egypt and Rome during this time.

Every Day is a Holiday – George Mahood. This was a very light memoir by a guy noting a variety of holidays from around the world. For bookclub.

October

The Expatriates – Janice Y. K. Lee. This was even better than her book that I read last year (The Piano Teacher.) A story of a group of expatriate women living in Hong Kong and the family tragedy that brings their stories together. Beautifully written and a terrific story. Read it!

The Reluctant Fundamentalist – Mohsin Hamid. A book club selection. It was interesting to begin with examining the life course of a young Muslim man in the United States, but I thought it failed to really justify the transformation of the character into a dangerous fundamentalist.

November

Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier. Another time I have been way way late to read a really popular book. A Civil War homefront story; it was a pretty good one but I probably enjoyed the lovely writing even more than the story.

The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America – George Packer. This fantastic book was suggested by the NY Times on their list of 6 Books to Help Understand Trump’s Win. Think The Big Short but encompassing a wider angle of American life, spanning from 1977 through the second Obama election. Fascinating – I couldn’t put it down.

December

Animal Dreams – Barbara Kingsolver. This was a reread for book club. Always good, though the romance story line definitely hit me harder at 25 than at 51. But I always love Barbara and this is a winner of a book any time.

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage – Ann Patchett. A recommendation from my mama and I really liked it. I’m always a big Ann Patchett fan. This one is a collection of her essays over the years. The one about the word game made me laugh out loud.