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December 22, 2008
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2008 favorites
Hopefully you'll have some downtime over the next couple of weeks. And if you are like me, you will be looking forward to spending some of it reading and reading and reading some more.
Here's a list, in no particular order, of the best things I read this year.
--Kathleen Kent's The Heretic's Daughter. Kent is a direct descendent of Martha Carrier, who was among those hanged during the Salem Witch trials. The novel represents Kent's meticulous reconstruction of her ancestor's story, and it gets under your skin and stays there. It's more than an eerily contemporary reminder of one of the uglier episodes in American history--it's also a patient and loving effort of genealogy and reclamation.
--Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men. This classic was until recently one of those literary lacunae we all carry around with us. I read the novel this year for a Liberty Fund conference, and was absolutely blown away. It's astonishing as a prescient work of political fiction (this is a novel that seems to predict the future of American progressive politics, not to mention to warn us about the dangers of charismatic leaders of any political stripe). And it's even more astonishing as a meditation on memory, loss, regret, and, again, historiography as refracted through genealogy (these things are all obsessions of mine). Plus, it's gorgeously, beautifully, poetically written.
--Tom Perotta's Bad Haircut. You know Perotta, if not from his books, from the films of the books: Election, with the unforgettable Reese Witherspoon, and Little Children, with the less memorable Kate Winslet. Bad Haircut is an early collection of short stories, all told from the point of view of one boy at different points in his adolescence. They are funny, painful, sweet, and at once innocent and wise. All are set during the 1970s and early 1980s, and the historical detailing is just as rich and cheesy and fun and sad and evocative as can be.
--Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs. You have to read Empire Falls first. Then you will be ready for this one.
--William Trevor's Silence in the Garden. William Trevor is the great tragedian of twentieth-century Irish life. He likes to explore how the large movements of modern Irish history insinuate themselves into the private workings of families--and poison them. This one just knocked me over.
--Jincy Willett's The Writing Class. If you have ever taken a writing class--or taught one--this is the murder mystery for you.
--Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher. Gripping Victorian true crime.
Please do share your own recommendations in the comments.
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The Englishwoman in America, Isabella Lucy Bird...an young, intelligent, & observant (also prejudiced and sometimes irritating) Englishwoman visits the U.S. in the 1850s.
After the Black Death, George Huppert...a social history of early modern Europe
Behavioural Investing, James Montier...insights into markets and human nature
1000 Dollars and an Idea, Sam Wyly...a serial entrepreneur (University Computing, Datran, Sterling Software Ponderosa Steakhouses, Michaels Crafts) tells his own story
The Making of Victorian Values, Ben Wilson...lots of interesting insights into the good & the bad of this era
Inventing Ourselves Out of Jobs, Amy Sue Blix...perceptions of technological unemployment throughout the 20th century
A Dance Between Flames, Anton Gill...Berlin between the wars
Re-reading: Goethe's Faust (the Arndt translation, which works pretty well as poetry in English)
Also...read almost all the George Eliot novels, as recommended by somebody named Erin O'Connor. Also watched a mediocre video version of Adam Bede and a very excellent video of Daniel Deronda.
Much of what I read this year was tied to my teaching, but at least I love what I'm teaching, so here goes:
1. Hugo, *Les Miserables*. I'm just finishing this with my sophomores, who on the whole loved it. We read an abridged edition, but it's still longer than anything they've ever read before (with the exception of that giant Harry Potter novel). I was surprised how much I loved teaching it.
2. *The Odyssey* (Fagles and Fitzgerald translations). My sophomores read this next. I'm always amazed each time I read this. *The Iliad* leaves me cold, but *The Odyssey* moves me and thrills me. I have no Greek, but I found the Fitzgerald a better read, even if his versions of the Greek names are annoyingly different from what's standard these days (Akhilleus for Achilles, Kirke for Circe, etc.).
3. Ron Rosenbaum, *The Shakespeare Wars*. I teach a good deal of Shakespeare to my 10th and 11th graders (The Tempest, MacBeth, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Much Ado), but he's also a personal interest of mine. Rosenbaum does an excellent job of dramatizing the most arcane debates in Shakespeare studies. He reveals the need for the most obscure specialists as well as the need for obsessed laymen like himself. New Journalism meets the Bard.
4. Peter Ackroyd, *London: The Biography*, *Shakespeare: the Biography*, and *The Clerkenwell Tales*. Ackroyd, along with Iain Sinclair, owns literary London, and his book on the city is his materpiece. The Shakespeare bio is a great read, even if, like all other Shakespeare bios, he makes a lot out of very little evidence. *The Clerkenwell Tales* is his fictional vision of medieval London, where Chaucer meets Raymond Chandler.
5. Colin Thubron, *In the Shadow of the Silk Road*. Patrick Leigh Fermor is my favorite travel writer -- and one of the greatest living prose stylists, in my opinion -- but Thubron makes for a close competitor in both of those categories. He engages places both through the minutiae of historical detail as well as through economical and often heartbreaking conversations with the locals, as he traces the old Silk Roads from China to the Mediterranean.
6. Marybeth Hamilton *In Search of the Blues*. A controversial work of musical history that challenges the the idea of some pure, rural folk origins of the blues. Hamilton argues that this idea was an invention of white music collectors after the fact that served their needs for folk authenticity in a pop-oriented world. This isn't news for anyone who really listens to country blues (Charley Patton plays everything from Tin Pan Alley to historical ballads, showing a keen sense of audience), but it's an excellent corrective to the "White Stripes" idea of the blues that's resurfaced lately.
Luther mentioned Patrick Leigh Fermor, which reminds me of another interesting travel writer: Harry Franck. "A vagabond journey around the world" is the story of his round-the-world trip circa 1904, starting out without much money and working his way. He also wrote "A vagabond in Sovietland" (1935), which is good but not quite as good as the first one, and lots of other works which I haven't read yet.
Also, there's a Patrick Leigh Fermor excerpt on my blog, which can be located by searching "Fermor."
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