The Best of 2018

2018 started with Conscience of a Conservative, by Jeff Flake, whose ideas about acting based on conscience rather than self-interest or party loyalty I liked; I liked less some of his votes this year (notably voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh) that didn't seem to follow this principle. Starting January with a political book established a theme for the year--a number of other analyses of political actors/issues followed, but none made the "best of" list. The year ended with Magpie Murders, a mystery I had somehow not gotten around to despite it having received a lot of attention when it was published in 2017; as always, I read a number of mysteries during the year, many of them rather bad. I read a little poetry, but not as much as I think I should have and nothing I loved. Short stories were also in short supply in 2018.

Fiction

I couldn't decide on a favorite so I picked two:

Overstory, by Richard Powers.  In this book, as in his earlier works, science is key to the narrative, in this case environmental science. The environmentalism may seem heavy-handed to some, but I did not find it so. I loved the weaving together of numerous characters with special relationships to trees (some are odd connections, such as the character who was saved by a tree when he fell out of a helicopter). As we proceed through the layers of the forest/sections of the book, their lives intersect in an effort to save the California redwoods, and we care deeply about the forest and the people.

The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai.  The Great Believers is told in two linked narratives, In the mid-1980s Yale and his friends are dealing with the frightening new epidemic killing gay men and the effect of HIV/AIDS on relationships of all kinds. At the same time, Yale is trying to acquire a collection of artwork from an elderly aunt of his friends Nico and Fiona. In 2015, Fiona is in Europe searching for her estranged daughter Claire; Fiona is staying with a friend from the old days in Chicago, who is mounting a solo exhibition of photos featuring the crowd from the 1980s. Makkai fills the book with wonderful characters and subplots but all the plots cause the reader to think about love, family, relationships, art, and cause-and-effect. 

Honorable Mention: The Story of Arthur Truluv, by Elizabeth Berg, which wasn't the deepest book but left me feeling good about humanity, a somewhat difficult task; The Female Persuasion, by Meg Wolitzer, a flawed but enjoyable exploration of feminism, friendship, and mentorship; Mrs. Bridge, by Evan S. Connell, which so vividly conveyed marriage in the years before WWII in a style that still feels innovative decades after the book was written.

Mystery

No mysteries really wowed me this year, but a few did stand out from the crowd of mediocre titles (I know, I should just get over series mysteries):

Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz. Magpie Murders is a book within a book, with parallel mysteries in both. The narrator in the "real world" is Susan Ryeland, an editor whose most valuable author, Alan Conway, creator of the Atticus Pund detective series, has recently died--it looks like a suicide, but Susan comes to believe Alan was murdered. Her inquiry into his death starts as a search for the last section of his last novel, which was missing when her boss gave her the new manuscript to read; soon, however, she is investigating his death as well as contemplating what happened in the last section of the book.  The book is cleverly constructed and features some interesting word play and reflections on the writer's angst.

Honorable Mention: The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn, and Sunburn, by Laura Lippmann, both of which managed to surprise me more than once!

Rereads

I was going to call this section "classics," but I'm not sure the two titles I'm listing really classify. However, I loved each of them in two different phases of life, making them classics for me:

The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. First read in my late teens/early twenties, this wonderfully written novel provides a devastating look into how depression colors every aspect of one's life. The fact of Plath's subsequent suicide makes the book all the sadder and more compelling.

Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner. Angle of Repose is also beautifully written. It is a multi-level work, telling the stories of retired and wheelchair-bound historian Lyman Ward and the subjects of the family history he is writing--his grandfather, Oliver Ward, a mining engineer and inventor who was often mistreated and swindled by bosses, and his grandmother, Susan Ward, an Easterner disappointed in love and challenged in her Western life with her rough-around-the-edges husband. As Lyman constructs their story, largely from Susan's letters to her best friend, he reconsiders his own life.

Young Adult/Children's   

I feel blessed that my granddaughter loans me books she thinks I should read, but in 2018 I was alarmed that so many of the books featured bullies, mean girls, etc. My favorite from her recommendations was a classic:

Matilda, by Roald Dahl. Matilda is a very funny book about a gifted little girl who wreaks havoc on her horrible parents and the abusive headmistress of her school. Dahl captures the revenge fantasies every child must have felt, while still making Matilda entirely lovable.

I also want to note that the grandkids and I read Lois Lowry's The Giver together and really enjoyed reading and discussing it. We also watched the movie and discussed why the filmmakers would change the story in a variety of ways. A highlight of the year!

Nonfiction

Two books stood out for me this year, both having to do with the challenges of being a young person in our high-tech polarized world:

The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom, by Helen Thorpe. Thorpe tells the stories of a classroom of immigrant students at South High School in Denver, most of whom have come to the United States, with or without authorization, to escape terrible circumstances in their home countries. Once they arrive here, the challenges they and their families face--legal, financial, emotional, cultural--are huge, but their perseverance and the work of teachers and others who assist them in their journeys are inspirational. Thorpe's style of journalism, in which she immerses herself in her subjects' lives, is what we learned as "the new journalism" back in journalism school in the early 70s. For this kind of subject, it definitely holds up well even though it is no longer new.

Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, by Sherry Turkle. The author, a professor at MIT, examines how technology, especially smart phones, affect our creativity and ability to be empathetic, our friendships, family relations, education, work, politics, and how we treat the aging. I found it a fascinating discussion that I continue to think about, particularly as it applies to my work as an educator/curriculum writer, but also implications in daily life.

Performances

My son got me started with audio books a few years ago, and I am listening to them with increasing frequency. You can listen to a book while cooking, cleaning, playing Candy Crush, walking, etc. Normally I don't think too much about the performances (unless the narrator has a particularly irritating voice, some odd verbal tic, or a penchant for mispronouncing words), but two works stood out this year:

Black Man, White House, by D.H. Hughley and Michael Malice, performed by Keith Szarabajka, John Reynolds, Fran Tunno, Cherise Boothe, Dan Woren, P.J. Ochlan, Gregory Itzin, Paula Jai Parker-Martin, Mia Barron, Ron Butler, and James Shippy. Presented as a series of (fake) oral history interviews about the Obama campaign and presidency, Black Man, White House is hilarious--the writing is insightful and funny, but the performances make it laugh-out-loud funny.

Girls & Boys, by Dennis Kelly, performed by Carey Mulligan. Mulligan gives a tour-de-force performance (she was also in the one-woman play on Broadway and in London) of Kelly's play about a marriage, from the moment the husband and wife meet until the marriage ends, complete with career ups and downs and the births of two children. At another level, the play is also about culture, violence, and men and, as performed by Mulligan, is utterly gripping. I've listened to it twice, and a third listen is not out of the question.

Favorite Passages

Since I didn't post as often in 2018, it's not difficult to go back and peruse my favorite passages ("home" was something of a theme this year), so I think I'll just end with one from a book I just finished last week. It seems particularly relevant as we head into 2019:

Now would be a good time to be careful with the meaning of words.

     Wesley Yang, The Souls of Yellow Folk