Nines

Having done the Tens, I knew I was leaving out some of my favorite books based on my crazy ranking system. Therefore, I spent a bit of time today while yapping with my parents, visiting from home, paging through my list and making notes which I'll copy below. These are the nines.

~ About the Author by John Colapinto: pacing problems caused it to slip from a very credible 10 down to a really high 9. If I had to try to describe it, I'd call it "funky modern suspense fiction." Think of it as an object lesson in telling the truth. Surprising, enthralling, profound.

~ All the Queen's Men by Linda Howard: suspense with romance, as opposed to romantic suspense. It sounds like hair-splitting, but what I mean is that the taut suspense comes first throughout the book. The well-rounded characters endure believable but spectacular struggles.

~ Asking for Trouble by Elizabeth Young: I picked this up thinking it was just-like-everything-else chick lit, just another Bridget Jones. It didn't take long to discover that it was deeper than that. Although there was a large number of Briticisms, it was fresh and fun and totally engrossing.

~ The Bachelor's Cat: A Love Story by L.F. Hoffman: Very much a tear-jerker, but great. Perfect for a real cat person - and romantic. (Proof that I have a heart.)

~ Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott: A book about writing by one of my favorite writers. It's fascinating. I read it with Post-It notes handy, so I could mark particularly salient insights.

~ Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler: this won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1989. It may be her saddest book, but it's sweet and thoughtful.

~ Carry Me Across the Water by Ethan Canin: I picked this up because my friend Debbie recommended it. I'd also liked his earlier book Blue River. This is a sad little book – in trying to synthesize its purpose, I described it as "war memories, family, regrets, second chances." The language is especially lyrical.

~ The Catsitters by James Wolcott: Clever and surprising. With a male protagonist. How rare is that, in modern popular (albeit rather intellectual) fiction?

~ The Dearly Departed by Elinor Lipman: My introduction to Lipman. It's very good: snortingly funny in parts, sweet and painful in others. I didn't want it to end.

~ Does She or Doesn't She? by Alisa Kwitney: The second of her books that I read, and at this moment I can't figure out why that one (The Dominant Blonde) wasn't a 10. This is all about fantasies and how dangerous they can be. I was disappointed by the ending, but only because it was more realistic than I'd hoped. There were some really, really funny scenes in this book, and some things that were touching and sad, and the whole thing sparkled with a sort of freshness. It was not like much of what I read – that's a good thing.

~ Dying to Please by Linda Howard: bodyguard gets targeted for the murder of a client. Scary, engrossing, and believable. Although I could anticipate the ending, it still came as a great surprise.

~ Edinburgh by Alexander Chee: The main reason that I wanted to do this second list, because I thought that this book was so well done that I had to share it. It's painful, mostly, and sad. With quirky language, beautiful and painful imagery, and thoroughly real characters. Definitely not for every taste, but I really liked it. The kind of book that, after you've read the last page, sits on your lap while you stare into the middle distance, thinking about how you may have changed from reading it.

~ An Elegy for September by John Treadwell Nichols: A fantastic, lovely, sad little book about a love found and given away.

~ Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman: For book nerds only. I'm going to quote a couple of chunks of the Amazon.com review because they remind me of particular people or things. For instance, John-the-Philosopher & family: "Fadiman is a woman who loves words; in 'The Joy of Sesquipedalians' (very long words), she describes an entire family besotted with them: 'When I was growing up, not only did my family walk around spouting sesquipedalians, but we viewed all forms of intellectual competition as a sacrament, a kind of holy water as it were, to be slathered on at every opportunity.'" The Cat: "[The book includes such topics as] the pleasures of reading aloud ('When you read silently, only the writer performs. When you read aloud, the performance is collaborative')." J.R.: "Over the course of 18 charming essays Fadiman [includes subjects like the] "odd shelf" ("a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection reveals a good deal about its owner"). These are short, fascinating, smart essays that are both relaxing and thoughtful. A great way to spend a weekend.

~ Girls' Poker Night by Jill A. Davis: The author wrote for David Letterman, so she knows how to be funny. What surprised me were the delicacy and the layering of real emotion. It's deceptively simple, both sad and funny, with very realistic characters. Finally, it looks like "a chick book," but it's not.

~ Innocents by Cathy Coote: caveat – I actually gave this a rating of "maybe a 5? maybe a 9?," because it's an unbelievably disturbing book. Not for the obvious reasons - the subject matter, the callousness, or the frankness. It's disturbing because it's so realistic. The unnamed characters (all the better for not being saddled with names, a yoke of convention) fundamentally seethe with emotion - primarily tension, but also love (which he realizes, and fairly revels in, and she denies) and fear (one in the same?). While I read this book, I loved it, and could not imagine not buying it and rereading it. Once I had finished it, I cannot imagine ever even consciously picking it up again. Not that it was not worth reading, but that it is both so disquieting and so unforgettable that I do not need to see it again. She's quite a writer - but can she publish something less troublesome?

~ Into Love and Out Again by Elinor Lipman: It shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm a huge fan of Lipman's. This is a lovely group of short stories (some linked), thematically similar to the rest of her work. It's beautiful, heart-warming or -wrenching by turns. Just so great.

~ Jimmy's Girl by Stephanie Gertler: I loved this, in all its smarmy, oozy goodness. It's like an oversticky caramel roll – you know it' not good for you and it's probably going to send you into sugar shock or make you hyper, and eventually you'll have diabetes and wonder if perhaps...but it's so good that you just don't care. I thought it was sweet and sad. Wistful, even. It stuck with me for a long time.

~ Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray: This looks like a romance novel for the gray-haired set, but there’s more to it than that. It's a novel about the importance, or even the preeminence, of family, and how that can be a blessing and a burden not only for now but for the future. If I'd really known what it was about, I probably wouldn't have chosen it, which is too bad because it's really very good. The story is very tender and totally worth reading – and savoring.

~ Light, Coming Back by Ann Wadsworth: Yes, this book is about lesbians. But it's not a "lesbian book." And it's about so, so, so much more than that, that if you have any sort of soul at all you'll feel pathetic for thinking you didn't want to read it just because of that. Now, that being said, The story is a short one and the telling long, but the language is so spectacular that it makes up for a lot.

~ Love Among the Ruins by Robert Clark: Star-crossed lovers reminisce. Devastating, intricate and complex. A little stilted at times, but overall a great story with an amazing ending that blew me away.

~ Lucky Us by Joan Silber: Melancholy and heartbreaking but so well written that it doesn't leave a bad taste. The characters are real and appealing. The plot is unexpected but handled so delicately that it's not uncomfortable. I adored this book.

~ Man and Boy by Tony Parsons: a sad & hilarious & more sad book about growing up and making choices. It's absolutely cry-out-loud. And funny.

~ The Man Who Wrote the Book by Erik Tarloff: hilarious, artful, romantic, painfully funny, painfully realistic although so fanciful. This is not a book for the delicate – it's about, among other things, the crafting of "utterly filthy porn." I'm not sure if I've ever laughed as hard as I did while reading this book.

~ The Midnight Hour by Karen Robards: romantic suspense done extremely well. A judge and a cop hook up (in every way) to stop a crazy teen from killing people.

~ Mother of the Bride by Lynn Michaels: In the same vein as Julie & Romeo, this could have been "just" romance – but it's more. Cydney is Bebe's aunt, and she steps in when Bebe gets set to marry the nephew of a reclusive author (think J.D. Salinger). After realistic confrontation and through significant animosity, Cyd and the author, Angus, come to an understanding, and eventually more. It's lovely. Smart, cute, funny and engaging. Light, but long enough to really get into. Much like Jennifer Crusie, although a bit smarter (and if you've read Jennifer Crusie you know what I mean).

~ One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Others, including J.R., have described this book very well. I'll just say that I read it on the recommendation of an English professor who happens to be my personal literary guru, and he wasn't wrong. It was long, complicated, ethereal, fascinating, difficult, engrossing, lovely, weird, difficult to put down but also hard to get into, and a great deal of work, but finally just...beautiful.

~ One on One by Tabitha King: Stephen King's wife, you know, the photographer. Not a well-known novelist, but this is a genius book. If I'd read this in high school I'd have hitchhiked to Maine to kiss her on the lips – she just gets it. This book blew me away.

~ Open Season by Linda Howard: When librarians discuss fiction, the talk eventually turns to good books about librarians. This is always my recommendation. However, it's more than that; it's also just a good work of suspense. Daisy's the librarian in a small town, bored, and wants a guy. She gets a makeover and goes out to the bars and has some fun, but sees something she shouldn't. And then she knows she's in trouble; she’s getting followed, and she's in serious danger – running for her life, even. The story is funny and engaging. The characters, while somewhat isolated, are believable and compelling.

~ Other Peoples' Marriages by Rosie Jones: a tiny little soap opera. I read this for the first time when I was about 15 and adored it. Read it for the second time at around 20 and thought it was poignant and sweet. Again a year ago and saw the seaminess and the pain. It's nuanced, but it's also just a juicy read.

~ Out of the Blue by Sally Mandel: A big surprise. Sad, heart-warming and nice but not sweet. Good, real, flawed characters. Swift plot. Great scenes. A thinker.

~ Paradise County by Karen Robards: romantic suspense on a horse ranch. Doesn't really sound like my kind of book, but this kicked ass. It's realistic and engaging – and scary! Alex and Joe are real characters, complete with flaws. Their romance is at least as enthralling as the suspense, which is absolutely gripping. This is an excellent book.

~ The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough: I read this for a grad class called History of the Gilded Age. Hated the class with a passion, but loved this book. As one might guess from the title, it's an epic (i.e. really, really long) history of the building of the Panama Canal. It's also an engrossing story about international relations, class issues, Central American geography, American and French domestic politics, and mud. I'd have never thought to read this had it not been required for a class, but I'd be less of a person – and certainly less of a historian – in that case.

~ Perfect Skin by Nick Earls: A young man is widowed. He is left to raise his daughter alone, to continue his career (he's a surgeon), to begin dating, and to go on with his life. Difficult as it may be to imagine, this is fucking hilarious, fun and engrossing and snortingly dirty. (Ugh, the scenes with Katie's cat!) It's also sad and quirky and intriguing. Heartbreaking.

~ Rescue Me by Gigi Levangie Grazer: Author is married to Brian Grazer, Ron Howard's production partner. I knew that before I read it, so I was reluctant to give her even one iota of credit for being a real author with "street cred." I figured she’d been published because someone needed Brian's good graces. So, with that in mind, here's my review: this is substantial and engrossing. The writing is interesting and intelligent. The characters are surprising and thoughtful, treated lovingly by their crafter. When I read the last page, I turned it because I wanted more.
She sold me, see? It's that good.

~ River Teeth by David James Duncan: My earlier description of this reads, "kind of weird fictiony-nonfiction with lots about outdoor life and family." I love everything he writes, so what does it matter that it's weird? Here's what the Booklist reviewer wrote, in total: "Though some readers dislike blurred lines between genres, Duncan's compilation of fiction and nonfiction is fluid and diverse, if not easily definable. His writings, which are sometimes narrative, mostly defy formal structure and are based on a metaphorical and realistic image he calls river teeth, or the knots in a tree that resist breakdown after the tree has fallen into a river and its main mass has disintegrated. Duncan claims that each person owns scores of river teeth and that they have the potential to guide, wound, and withstand time's erasure. Duncan's style is refreshing because of its intimate tone, the simultaneously lyrical and vernacular prose, vivid description, hilarious action, spirited movement, and poignant observation. 'The Garbage Man's Daughter,' the key piece, is a perfect re-creation of childhood perception. This emotional and witty portrait of a family's relationships offers an insightful commentary on a current and real threat to children: loss of childhood. Duncan deftly characterizes modern life and American culture--our fears, desires, and drives--revealing in these exquisite vignettes and tales all that shapes a life."

~ The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell: Required for that History of Modern England course. This was my introduction (as a serious student) to class consciousness and the real life of the working poor. A sense of guilt and heightened awareness of differences permeated my approach to life for a time thereafter, thanks in large part to this book.

~ The Side of the Angels by Christina Bartolomeo: By the author of Cupid and Diana. It's funny, sweet, hopeful, and engaging. The plot is realistic and engrossing. The characters are real - flawed but still very appealing. Not as fabulous as Cupid & Diana, but it's tough to catch lightning twice.

~ Talking to Addison by Jenny Colgan: I laughed out loud, really hard, through most of this book. Over the last 20 pages, I cried almost as hard. It's difficult to explain why this was so affecting. It's not really so Bridget Jones-esque, although they're British and 30-ish and unmarried. It's much more of a character study of Addison, through Holly's eyes. He's an amazing person, really intriguing. And it's a pretty amazing book, too.

~ Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out Into the Real World by Maria Shriver: I will not get into the politics issue – this was just an interesting, quick read about things to think about when making decisions. It was not preachy or condescending, and I found it to be worth the time.

~ War Against the Animals by Paul Russell: I read this because I am drawn to Russell's writing after having read and been horribly freaked out by The Coming Storm. And, over time, I have come to appreciate that book much more than I had immediately after I read it. Anyway, the main character of this book, Cameron, is difficult to fully admire, as he's desperately trying to fade into the scenery after the death of the person he thinks is the love of his life, Toby, and the breakup of his long-term relationship with Dan. However, his actions are well-grounded and he's sensitive and logical, so it's comfortable and pleasing to be with him and to learn about him. Jesse, another major character, is disturbing but so attractive that one cannot not watch – like a car crash that’s about to happen. He's both reckless and too careful, and seems doomed (or damned?) for each. Their relationship is fragile and beautiful but also painful and in some ways irritating. The third of the primary characters, Kyle, is so obnoxious that one wishes he would simply cease to be, but he is the perfect foil to the others' senses of self. It's a really wonderful story.

~ The Way Men Act by Elinor Lipman: Yup, another Lipman. Very good! On a par with The Dearly Departed and The Inn at Lake Devine. Fascinating and touching, sweet without being sticky. Nice.

~ Whispers at Midnight by Karen Robards: This is the scariest of all the Robards books I've read. Incredibly engrossing – I think I read it in less than a day. Great characters, action, and language - very good. A little on the dirty side, but it works with the story. I had no complaints there.