(Odd) Books of the Year
December 28, 2008

At the end of every year lists of that year’s “Best Books” clog blogs, websites and newspaper book sections. While there can be surprises, it sometimes seems as if the same books simply move from one list to another. Do you ever wonder how the “best” are chosen? Do the arbiters use their best personal judgment or are they influenced by bestseller lists, author names or by prizes or prize nominations? And how many books are considered for inclusion? With a projected total (as of May, 2008) of 276,649 books printed in the U.S. in 2007 it is little wonder that any “best of” list represents at most a sliver of what is available. It is important to note that of the more than a quarter million books, perhaps half of those are for readers such as you and me. (The balance are textbooks, government reports, etc., books that would not be found in a general interest bookstore. Even subtracting those, the number of books released in a single year is staggering, especially considering that it does not include self- or vanity-published books.)

A little more than 50,000 were new fiction. So when I see a Ten Best Books list I have to wonder how many fine novels the list maker missed simply because there is no way for anyone to even begin to know a single-digit percentage of them. It’s not a surprise that because of that fact many of the “Best Books” lists include mostly the commercially popular and better known books and authors. 

For those who make them I think self-created lists that reflect the personality of the writer are more interesting. Wouldn’t it be fun to see a cookbook reviewer list winners in categories like “Cookbook Author Who Never Met a Real Kitchen” or “Greatest Snob Appeal”? A romance reviewer with a sense of humor could have categories like “Finest Phallic to be Found” and “Best Bodices to be Undone” choices. How about a mystery reviewer with “Blood and Gore That is Nothing But a Chore” or “Clueless Sleuth” or even a “Hang (Up) This Series” category?

I like these types of off-beat lists. What appeals to me about such a list, aside from the fun of making it, is that it allows me to think about each book on its own terms instead of in competition with others. All of these are books I read or reread in 2008, which is not necessarily the year they were published. With that in mind, here we go:

Grimmest: I love the adventure genre so when I walked into my local independent bookstore and noticed High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed by Michael Kodas on the New Arrivals table I paid full price to take it home that day. I devoured it in one long reading session late into the night even though it was increasingly depressing, requiring me to stop several times just to get away from the ugly greed and relentless selfishness that infused the story. What a sad affair. I grieve for the mountain rather than the lost mountaineers.

Most Uplifting: The Windows of Brimnes: An American in Iceland by Bill Holm probably wouldn’t be considered “uplifting” by traditional standards but for me this memoir of an American-born Icelander who lives in both countries is a gentle, inspirational story of appreciative living. 

Funniest: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 by Hunter S. Thompson. Since the recent presidential campaign captivated more people than any in a long time, including me, I thought it would be interesting to go back and reread one of the classics of campaign reporting while closely following the final two months of the 2008 campaign. It turned out to be a great idea, and I laughed nearly as much as I did during my first reading.

Why Did I Buy This Book: An Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the World of Books by Wendy Werris. She was on a panel at a book festival, and she was sufficiently interesting that I bought her book.  Though filled with wonderful tidbits of insider information about bookstores, freelance sales reps and books it ultimately provoked more yawns than interest from me.

Book I Started But Dumped the Fastest Because It Was So Bad: Crossworld: One Man’s Journey into America’s Crossword Obsession by Marc Romano. I’ve never been a puzzler myself but have long envied those who can do them. So I thought this book would provide a fascinating insight into their world and perhaps even re-spark my interest in trying them again. I was wrong. I read to page 123 before finally acknowledging the truth—it belonged in the trash can.

Best Cover Design: It’s almost impossible to pick one out of all the books I saw so I narrowed my choices down to best cover design in the books I read this year. Obsession: A History by Lennard Davis came out the winner. Its white on white design, and the word made by pin pricks, quietly elegant, is simply exquisite. By the way, that’s a pin you see between “A History” and the author’s name. 

Worst Cover Design: Snuff gave me a weird, sick feeling the first time I saw it. While I wouldn’t pick up Chuck Palahniuk’s books anyway, I found this cover particularly creepy. Now I wouldn’t want him within a hundred miles of me. 

Hardest Book to Put Down in Order to Sleep: Edgar Allan Poe is a writer for whom I hold a lot of affection. Some of it no doubt has to do with his mysterious end, but much is based in his wonderful stories. So when The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower came out I immediately nabbed it, though it took me several months to get to it. Shame on me because the story of how Poe used a real-life murder to create another case for the fictional detective who had been brought to life in the earlier “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” was an incredible read. There was much about Poe I hadn’t known before, and this book provided an excellent portrait of the man as writer within the context of the social period and the drama of the crime. 

Best History: The Would-Be Commoner: A Tale of Deception, Murder, and Justice in 17th-Century France by Jeffrey Ravel. Crime, scandal, and societal gossip came together for me in this riveting true story that took place during the rule of King Louis XIV. What did happen to the man who married autocratically before disappearing, then re-appearing in a search for money before he again disappeared, this time under mysterious circumstances. Illicit love, possible murder and a potential imposter ended in newfound justice for a nation. Brilliant research and wonderful writing by the author made this a superb book for this reader.

Best Use of Language: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky). Even in translation, Tolstoy’s ability to create powerful characters and scenes is present. Though I am not yet finished with this, I am absorbed to the point of unawareness of life around me when I am reading.  

Most Memorable Character (Good or Bad): Lyndon Baines Johnson. He was a dominant force in early 1960s politics at a time when this country was undergoing dramatic changes, a man of conflictions and contradictions who represented better than anyone the unpredictability that ravaged the nation. There was much I didn’t know about him then that LBJ: Architect of American Ambition by Randall Woods taught me. My feelings about him haven’t changed, but my understanding has been considerably enlarged by this excellent biography.

Best Book to Eat By: Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love. Short stories are rarely on my to-read list but this one by Russian emigrant Lara Vapnyar is so perfectly mixes food and relationships that I found myself reaching for the book several times. Food and sex are frequent topics for writers, but they are not often written about so well in fiction. She made me fall in love with broccoli and borscht and a few characters too. 

Worst Book to Eat By: The River of Doubt by Candice Millard. Like last year’s choice, No Mercy: A Journey to the Heart of the Congo, this one is about a harrowing journey into a place I ache to know intimately but would never want to visit personally. Unlike it, The River of Doubt was as excellent a read the second time as it was the first. However, the months-old sweat and underwear, insects, maggots, mosquitoes, and other river and jungle inhabitants that fed on the men is not on any menu I wish to see.

Best Bed Book: I tend to favor old favorites that I know very well when I am reading just before sleep. One of those is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, which I find endlessly fascinating regardless of how often I read it.

Worst Bed Book: Murder in the Rue de Paradis is the latest in a series by Cara Black. What attracted me to it initially is the cover, which possesses both an ominous feel and the compelling power of a Brassaï photograph. The inside, however, is a menacing storyline that creeped me out so much it turned what I thought would be an amusing bedtime reading hour turned into a fear-filled and sleepless night. I stopped reading and haven’t returned to it yet. This requires lots of light and sunshine and happy people around to counteract the darkness within. 

Biggest Single Book Purchase: It’s at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books that I am most likely to spend more money than I should. Perhaps it’s the smell of book ink in the morning (as Umberto Eco put it) or the excitement of so many booklovers that soaks the air and enters my skin by way of osmosis, but I invariably come home from here with a trunk full of books. It was no different this year. My cost: $437. The books: memoirs, biographies, histories, cookbooks, two essay collections, several coffee table books, and audio books.

Smallest Book Purchase: I visited my local library one day and on a whim decided to check out their shelves where they put their sale books. It was a lucky day for me. I came away with six books—two on gardening, two on cooking, a mystery and a how-to craft book—which cost me a total of $10.50!
 
Not Deep, Mostly Just Fun: The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton. This is the only book I’ve read by him, but it’s one of my favorite “light” books. When I heard Crichton died, I immediately went to my shelves and pulled out this quirky, delightful story of a nineteenth-century train robbery that shocked Britain by its audacity and complex planning. It was turned into a delightful movie, but the book is better for its history.

Best Illustrated Book: Croatia. This was one of the books I received in my role as a design judge for the Benjamin Franklin Awards. Though it was published in 2007, it didn’t arrive on my doorstep until January 2008, which is when I read it. It is without question the winner in this category, a rich, luscious, vibrant, sensual volume that displays a beautiful country in its finest wear.

High Hopes / Big Letdown Book: Tycoon’s War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America’s Most Famous Military Adventurer. Sounds intriguing, yes? Unfortunately, despite the possibilities inherent in a book about a man whose wealth exceeded that of the U.S. Treasury, another man who nearly took it away, and a private war that eventually involved seven nations, the book failed to exploit its own riches. 

Best Book Event: Book Expo America 2008. This is a trade event, and it rarely comes to Los Angeles, but this year it did. I went and had a great time. It was especially thrilling to spend time with literary agent extraordinaire Janet Reid, BiblioBuffet columnist Henry Carrigan, and publisher Lynn Price with whom I shared a hotel room. This event is large enough to make my normal choice, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, look like a country fair. I wore my feet out but it was worth it! 

Best Book Bargain: At a small nonprofit’s book sale in May, I found an old (1955) mass market paperback, Banned Books by Anne Lyon Haight. It was originally priced at seventy-five cents. I paid ten cents for this copy with the orange cover and unopened pages that are browning but still almost entirely intact. Though I have many more recent ones, it’s one of my reference books that I occasionally check for the Literary Amusements page on BiblioBuffet.

Most Paid for a Single Book: The Light of Paris which, at $50, isn’t that much compared to other years but is a good amount for only 128 pages. It’s an exquisite book, however, and another wonderful addition to my collection of B&W fine art photography books about Paris.

Month That Most Books Were Read: It must have been the newness of the year, but January is the winner this year. It also likely helped that early darkness and no obligations gave me much more time to read and that several of the six or seven books I started and finished in the month were relatively short. I just wish I could remember what they were but I do know that Wave Me Goodbye: Stories of the Second World War and Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh were among them, fine books both.

Month That Fewest Books Were Read: December. One. Isn't that sad?

First Book Purchased in 2008: Well, bloody heck! When I made this list last year I promised myself I’d write down the first book I bought in 2008. But I didn’t, or if I did I can no longer remember doing it.

Last Book Purchased in 2008: It should say “last books” because I just got home from my local independent bookstore where I used part of my Christmas gift to buy five new hardcovers:
American Lightning by Howard Blum
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester
Panama Fever: The Epic Story of One of the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time—the Building of the Panama Canal by Matthew Parker
Résistance: A Woman's Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnès Humbert

If any of you want to send me your choices in some or all of these categories or categories of your own making, please do. I would be pleased to publish them next week. Include, if you like, some comments about why you chose the category and the book(s).

And since next week will be our anniversary, I plan a few festivities that will include some nice things for you, our readers. I hope you will join in as we end, this week, our third year. Thank you to everyone—contributors, readers, supporters—who has been a part. Happy New Year to all. 

Upcoming Book Festivals:
Unfortunately, there are none this week. 

The Pub House:
When darkness falls early what could be better than a mystery? One of the best publishers of mysteries is Poisoned Pen Press. This press had a rather unusual beginning in that the owners of the Poisoned Pen bookstore found the books they loved to sell being published less and less. Originally they set up a print-on-demand model to re-publish out of print stories but they soon moved into original fiction. Today, their catalog features more than 500 quality books that range from cozies and historical mysteries to contemporary and even police procedurals.  

Of Interest:
Our weekly book giveaway continues. This week I have a biography, Finding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition, and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind, by Paula Kamen. Chang’s The Rape of Nanking (1997) thrust the author into the international spotlight, but her personal suffering eventually led her to commit suicide, seemingly at the height of her success. Finding Iris Chang is an intimate look by a close friend who not only chronicles Chang’s story but their friendship. If you are interested in winning it, send me an email with your name and mailing address. If I get more than one person who wants the book I’ll put the names into a jar and draw the winner. No one in the same household can win more than two books during the course of this giveaway, which runs through the end of January.  

This Week:
This week I have two notices. First, you have the opportunity to win the Oxford English Dictionary! Yes, that’s right. The twenty-volume set can be yours for free if you are the winner of Powell’s OED giveaway. All you need to do is go to their blog and tell them what word is your favorite—the one you can’t stop obsessing over, the one you make sure to use at least once in every party conversation, the word that gets stuck in your head like the song lyric you can’t quite place but can’t stop humming—and why. The deadline is January 5.  

Second, The Year of Readers is for those of you who thrive on challenges of the literary kind. Jodie has devised this as a way to encourage readers to put reading at or near the top of their choices this year while raising money for literacy concerns. “I love to read,” she writes. “Countries and people open up when I start a book and a story begins.” From January 1 though December 31, 2009, she is running an international book-a-thon that will be open to anyone who reads. Here’s how it works: Pick a literary charity you want to support; you can choose anything, but she has some suggestions on the site. First, sign up to be part of The Year of Readers, then get people to sponsor you and start reading.

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren