Bay Reads- January 2017

Best Books of 2016

Local book aficionado Carole McKellar polls other avid readers in the Bay to compile a "best of" list to help you find books you'll enjoy reading - and gifting - in the year ahead.  
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More Shoofly Stories

Just one of Carol McKellar's bookshelves

Newspapers, magazines, and podcasts wrap up the year with lists of the best books published during the past year. I look forward to it each December and compare my favorites with the choices of various book editors.

I studiously write down the lists of New York Times and Publishers Weekly. This year I included Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Buzzfeed. I’ve read some of the featured books, but I admit I’ve never heard of others. That’s why the lists are valuable to me for the coming year’s reading.

Last December, A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin popped up on every “best of” list. I was unfamiliar with the author, but it is now one of my all-time favorite short story books.

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​Some titles I read in 2016 were critically acclaimed, but others I enjoyed were not. Some were current while others were quite old. I read Emma by Jane Austen for the first time to celebrate its 200th anniversary.

I belong to Parnassus Books First Edition Club. Parnassus is a Nashville independent bookstore owned by author Ann Patchett and Karen Hayes. Each month they select an outstanding book signed by a visiting author and mail it to their subscribers. I’ve participated for the past few years, but this was an exceptionally good year for membership. I’ll designate the books that I received from Parnassus.
 
I keep a journal of all the books I read, and as I look back over the list I am struck by what a banner year this was for African American writers. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates continues to be a best seller after winning the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2015. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Parnassus First Edition) won this year’s award for fiction. I loved the Whitehead book as well as these titles by other African Americans writers I read this year:
 
The Mothers by Brit Bennett (Parnassus First Edition). This is her first novel, and it is remarkable. It tells the story of two friends from the point of view of the church “mothers.” The girls share the sadness that comes from being motherless. There are secrets and betrayals, but this is not a melodramatic book. It stayed with me long after I finished it.
   
Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson (Parnassus First Edition). I loved Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming, a memoir in verse for young readers, and this book, written for adults, is a lovely read. Again, it’s about childhood friendships and the difficulty of sustaining them into adulthood. I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Woodson at the Mississippi Book Festival in August.
   
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.  Another debut novel by a young woman who was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. Homegoing tells the story of two half-sisters, one sold into slavery while the other remained in Africa.

The Fire This Time, edited by Jessmyn Ward. Ward and young African American writers provided essays, poems, and memoirs offering their perspective on race in 21st-century America. The book is an homage to The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, which I read for the first time although it was first published in 1963. I wrote about these books in my  October 2016 Shoofly column.

Other favorite books I read this past year are:

When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams. This is a beautiful, poetic memoir that I wrote about in November 2016.
   
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (Parnassus First Edition). I love every book she writes, and this book is a worth successor to Olive Ketteridge and The Burgess Boys.
   
My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante. These are the first two of the four Neapolitan novels. These books tell the story of two friends from Naples starting as children in the ’50s and tracing their lives to the present day in late middle age. I look forward to reading the remaining two novels in 2017.
   
Free Men by Katy Simpson Smith (Parnassus First Edition). Smith is a young woman from Jackson, Mississippi, and she writes historical novels using the most beautiful prose. I read her first book, The Story of Land and Sea twice.
   
Lila by Marilynne Robinson (Parnassus First Edition). This is the third book in a series that includes Gilead and Home, but you don’t have to read the other two to enjoy this heartbreaking story of love and redemption.
   
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald.  It’s hard to say what I liked so much about an odd but appealing young woman who tells of training a hawk. It’s much more than a bird book, however, as Macdonald grieves the loss of her father, who taught her to view the world with wonder.
   
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Parnassus First Edition). The gentleman in question is a Russian nobleman who is sentenced to life within the Metropole Hotel for the crime of being an aristocrat. Count Rostov makes a life in confinement and thrives due to his intellect, curiosity, and kindness. This book was so convincing that I did research to find out if the count was real.
   
Hold Still by Sally Mann. Subtitled A Memoir with Photographs, this book tells of the remarkable life and career of Mann.
   
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. I read this book in one day because I couldn’t put it down. It tells the story of two broken marriages and the damage done to the children.
   
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson is the founder and director of the Equal Justice Initiative whose works won “reversals, relief or release for over 115 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row.” I wish everyone would read this book. Stevenson’s fascinating TED talk is available online.
   
Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett (Parnassus First Edition). This novel describes the struggles of a family dealing with mental illness.
   
The Dream Life of Astronauts: Stories by Patrick Ryan (Parnassus First Edition). These stories are all set around Cape Canaveral, but they are about much more than outer space.
   
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. This hefty book tells a tragic story, but it was so good. I read it on a trip and felt travel time breeze by.

I asked my Bay Book Group to list some of their favorite books of the year.  Here are some picks of the members who responded:
 
Allison Anderson, BSL Architect
Allison loved the following books and gave them 5 stars:
Before I Fall by Noah Hawley
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers
The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan
Jonathan Unleashed by Meg Rosoff
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
A Burglar’s Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh
Harriet Wolf’s Seventh Book of Wonders by Julianna Baggott
The Girls by Emma Cline
A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks
 
Cindy Williams, Bay High School Librarian
Honeydew by Edith Pearlman. 
The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge (Young Adult novel)
 
Jenny Bell, AdLib Communications owner
Stitches by Anne Lamott.  Although the book came out in 2013, Jenny wrote, “I reread it this year and found it very timely, at least for me.”
 
Ann Weaver, NOAA Coastal Services Center Facilitator/Trainer
When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams (who reminds me that one person can make a difference) 
A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit (reminds me of the importance of being alone outside)
 
Dita McCarthy, Attorney
Euphoria by Lily King. Said Dita, “I was pleased to learn more about an anthropologist character based on Margaret Mead. I particularly enjoyed the way it offered a look back at a school of anthropological thought that was considered progressive and groundbreaking at the time, and now, from our perspective, seems quaint. I also liked the way the author treated the inherent problems with such anthropological studies of remote tribes. By inserting themselves into the tribes, both out of a thirst for knowledge and also greed and desire for fame, they are indeed affecting the tribe.”

The New York Times 10 Best Book of 2016 Fiction
The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan
The North Water by Ian McGuire
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith
War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans, translated by David McKay
 
Nonfiction
At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar
 
The Washington Post 10 Best Books of 2016 Fiction
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
The Trespasser by Tana French
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
News of the World by Paulette Jiles
 
Nonfiction
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar
Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain’s Secret Special Forces Unit That 
Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War by Ben Macintyre
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich

I look forward to 2017, which promises to be another good year for readers. I have a stack of books on my nightstand that includes Moonglow by Michael Chabon, LaRose by Louise Erdrich, The Trespasser by Tana French, and The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen.

George Saunders’s first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, will be released in February, and I can’t wait. Swing Time by Zadie Smith and News of the World by Paulette Jiles are on my list of must-reads. I hope some of the books mentioned above spark your interest and lead you to the bookstore or library.