a belated books from 2010 post
Around New Years, I went back through my list of books read in 2010 and made notes for an LJ post I wanted to make -- my top ten favorites from the 40 or so books I read last year. And then I put down the pad and got distracted with a little project or two and never made the post. But I recently found the books and 9 weeks or so later, it's still worth posting.
So
1) If you have to read just one of these, go for the non-fiction: Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Amsary. Not every history book is a page turner, but I was completely fascinated by this book. And the events since New Years have only made understanding Islamic history more relevant.
2) The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi was, by far, the best science fiction I read in 2010. This future world is a believable extrapolation, but it has that sense of strangeness and wonder that I often miss in near-future SF. It tied for the Hugo Award for best novel with China Mieville's The City and the City (which is on my to-read pile).
3) Kim Stanley Robinson's Years of Rice and Salt was a recommendation from a Readercon panel on alternate history. In many ways it's the fictional-alternate-history mirror to Destiny Disrupted: how would the civilizations of Asia have continued if Europe had never come back after the fall of Rome to compete with them? It's not a perfect book; the plot falters at a certain point, but it's still worth your time.
4) Little Bee by Chris Cleave is not an easy read. But this darkly disturbing story has a bright and exuberant narrator who lifts the book up and makes it fly.
5) The Magicians by Lev Grossman plays with the trope of a school for magic from a far from childish point of view. Nods to classics of fantasy are certainly here, and I'd recommend it.
6) The Given Day by Dennis Lehane is historical fiction set mostly in post-World-War-I Boston. Labor unrest, family drama, and racial struggles are some of the ingredients in this novel. After reading this, I went and tracked down several more Dennis Lehane books but this was the only one that really sticks with me.
7) How is it that I hadn't already read Little, Big by John Crowley? When that question came up sometime in 2009, I put the book on my list and it took me a while to get into it. I had, in fact, tried it and put it down many years ago, but sometime in the intervening decades I grew into this haunting tale. I suspect that this is one of those books that is different when you re-read it at different stages of your life, and thanks to lillibet for the push to try it again.
8) The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. Ok, I am a fangirl of Atul Gawande, who says some of the smartest and most readable things about the state of American health care for both good and bad. This slim book points the way to how things can get better.
9) The Girl Who Played with Fire is the middle book of Stieg Larsson's acclaimed trilogy, but it is the one I read first and enjoyed most. The first book has an excruciatingly slow beginning, and the third one has so much stuff to tie together; it's rare that the middle book of a trilogy is the one where the pacing works best. If you haven't read these already, do read them in order (do as I say not as I do!), and do yourself a favor by having them all to hand before you start.
10) The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry is one of those books that makes one wonder about the line between SF and mainstream fiction. By shelf treatment at least, this one is on the mainstream fiction side of the line. I listened to it, rather than read it, as an audio book on a long car ride, and it made the hours fly by for me.
Honorable mention for Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, a deep portrayal of Henry VIII's right hand man, Thomas Cromwell. Brilliantly written, this book won the Booker Prize a couple years ago. I'd have liked it better, and it would have made the top 10, if I'd been prepared for it to stop mid-tale -- there's a sequel in progress and when I can see the two as a whole work, I'm sure I'll be recommending it wholeheartedly.
So
1) If you have to read just one of these, go for the non-fiction: Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Amsary. Not every history book is a page turner, but I was completely fascinated by this book. And the events since New Years have only made understanding Islamic history more relevant.
2) The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi was, by far, the best science fiction I read in 2010. This future world is a believable extrapolation, but it has that sense of strangeness and wonder that I often miss in near-future SF. It tied for the Hugo Award for best novel with China Mieville's The City and the City (which is on my to-read pile).
3) Kim Stanley Robinson's Years of Rice and Salt was a recommendation from a Readercon panel on alternate history. In many ways it's the fictional-alternate-history mirror to Destiny Disrupted: how would the civilizations of Asia have continued if Europe had never come back after the fall of Rome to compete with them? It's not a perfect book; the plot falters at a certain point, but it's still worth your time.
4) Little Bee by Chris Cleave is not an easy read. But this darkly disturbing story has a bright and exuberant narrator who lifts the book up and makes it fly.
5) The Magicians by Lev Grossman plays with the trope of a school for magic from a far from childish point of view. Nods to classics of fantasy are certainly here, and I'd recommend it.
6) The Given Day by Dennis Lehane is historical fiction set mostly in post-World-War-I Boston. Labor unrest, family drama, and racial struggles are some of the ingredients in this novel. After reading this, I went and tracked down several more Dennis Lehane books but this was the only one that really sticks with me.
7) How is it that I hadn't already read Little, Big by John Crowley? When that question came up sometime in 2009, I put the book on my list and it took me a while to get into it. I had, in fact, tried it and put it down many years ago, but sometime in the intervening decades I grew into this haunting tale. I suspect that this is one of those books that is different when you re-read it at different stages of your life, and thanks to lillibet for the push to try it again.
8) The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. Ok, I am a fangirl of Atul Gawande, who says some of the smartest and most readable things about the state of American health care for both good and bad. This slim book points the way to how things can get better.
9) The Girl Who Played with Fire is the middle book of Stieg Larsson's acclaimed trilogy, but it is the one I read first and enjoyed most. The first book has an excruciatingly slow beginning, and the third one has so much stuff to tie together; it's rare that the middle book of a trilogy is the one where the pacing works best. If you haven't read these already, do read them in order (do as I say not as I do!), and do yourself a favor by having them all to hand before you start.
10) The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry is one of those books that makes one wonder about the line between SF and mainstream fiction. By shelf treatment at least, this one is on the mainstream fiction side of the line. I listened to it, rather than read it, as an audio book on a long car ride, and it made the hours fly by for me.
Honorable mention for Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, a deep portrayal of Henry VIII's right hand man, Thomas Cromwell. Brilliantly written, this book won the Booker Prize a couple years ago. I'd have liked it better, and it would have made the top 10, if I'd been prepared for it to stop mid-tale -- there's a sequel in progress and when I can see the two as a whole work, I'm sure I'll be recommending it wholeheartedly.