Here’s a list of the best books out of the 50 I’ve read so far this year in no particular order:
1. A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin: I love a good short story, and Lucia Berlin’s are damn near perfect. Not a word wasted, and some of them are just a few paragraphs long. Berlin was never really recognized for her talent during her lifetime, but this posthumous collection makes up for it a bit.
2. The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra: This is another book of stories, but they are so well intertwined that it could’ve been marketed as a novel and I wouldn’t have been mad. While Marra is an American he writes about Russia, and I will admit that most of what I knew about Russia before reading this novel was very general and stereotypical. Russians like to drink vodka, it snows a lot, and Putin is a scary little man. Marra presented me with a sad and engrossing look at war torn Chechnya, and a small village in the arctic that mines so much nickel that they can mine more nickel out of the polluted snow. Crazy, but it was all told with such beautiful prose.
3. Delicate Edible Birds/Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff: I’m kind of cheating here, because I’m grouping two books together, but they’re by the same author so it’s fine. Anyway, I discovered Lauren Groff last year, and fell head over heels in love. Yes, she uses A LOT of purple prose, but she’s so good at what she does with it. She’s pretty much the writer I want to be.
4. Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut: To me, Vonnegut is one of those authors where you never know which book to begin with when you first start to read him. You can advise someone to start with Slaughterhouse Five or Breakfast of Champions, because those are his most well known novels, but they might not be your personal favorites. They’re certainly not mine. However, Bluebeard is. I read a comparison somewhere that when reading Vonnegut it’s like you’re wrapped in a warm blanket while someone delivers some bad news. I thought that was a perfect analogy.
5. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach: Mary Roach is another favorite author. While she’s a science writer, she writes about it in layman’s terms, and also makes it incredibly entertaining. This book was basically about pooping and flatulence, and I was delighted the whole time. Also, she gave me a great origin story about fire breathing dragons that I love to bring up at parties.
6. The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity by Mark Vonnegut: Yes, Mark is related to Kurt. He’s his son, and I had no idea he wrote books as well until earlier this year. As someone who suffers from depression, I found this to be a very interesting read. Mark suffered from what was classified as Schizophrenia back in the 1970s, but is now recognized as Manic Depression. He talks about the worry and anger that comes with not knowing what’s wrong with you, if you’ll get better, and exactly how to treat it. He also talks about the metaphor of saying that mental illness is like a broken bone, and how it only works for the big picture. A treatment that works for you might not work for someone else with the same problem. Of course, there’s also mention of mental illness being a taboo subject, but this memoir was written in 1975, and mental illness is still something people are ridiculously hush-hush about. Overall, Mark’s story is an inspiring one. He was “cured”, relapsed a few times, but eventually went on to get a PhD from Harvard and is now a respected pediatrician in Massachusetts. Also, while there is some influence on his writing from his father, Mark certainly holds his own voice.
7. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: There’s a moment in this book where characters are discussing the idea that you can’t write an accurate book about race. As a privileged, white American female, I don’t know if I can properly comment on this, but I do want to say that if Adichie’s Americanah isn’t accurate, then it must be pretty damn close. She opened my eyes to so many things I didn’t know/never thought about race and immigration in America. Overall, the novel was enlightening and entertaining.
8. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel: This was such a charming little novel. A friend suggested I read this, and before I did I wasn’t sure how much I actually liked magical realism. Esquivel certainly helped me decide which side of the fence I was on on the matter.
9. The Girls by Emma Cline: At the surface, this seems like a novel about interesting things (A Manson-like cult, and the 14-year-old girl who nearly gets tangled up in all their hysterics) but you’ll be disappointed by the ending if you don’t just eat up Cline’s prose. Her writing style is what made this novel great.
10. How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran: Johanna Morrigan really fits the teen angst stereotype, but she was such a lovable character. Props to Moran for making a teenage girl real and likable.
Honorable Mentions:
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
Gonzo Girl by Cheryl Della Pietra
Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer
Like Wild Onions 
[…] If you would like to see a list of the best books I read in 2016 click here! […]
LikeLike
[…] To see a list of the Best Books I read in 2016 CLICK HERE! […]
LikeLike