Fifteen Days: Day 9.bookz

It’s a great testament to the people I’ve become close to here that if you lined up the gifts exchanged during tonight’s Secret Santa Spectacular you would very easily be able to tell who belonged to each present; seriously, everyone did so well!  I was very happy to see that everyone left the room smiling not only because they liked what they got, but what they gave was appreciated.  So fantastic.

Secret Santa!

I had Jacque Donahue, who is nowhere near well these days.  She is suffering from a massive throat infection that is not getting better, and seems to be worse and worse with every time I see her.  No good: Get better, Jacque!  I found her some awesome purple and black silk/cashmere gloves and a little penguin bowling set that she seemed to enjoy; penguins are a favorite of Jacque’s.  Jamie was my Santa Clause and got me a card, a mug, and a book journal from Foyles, London’s most prominent bookseller.  She pretty much hit the nail on the head: I love books and I love coffee.  Done.

Speaking of books, I’ve read ten of them this semester!  This is not including the amazing plays I’ve read since being here, so I like to think that ten separate pleasure-reads is not too shabby.  Since I got a Foyles themed Christmas gift, maybe it’s only relevant that I share with you, in rank order, the books that I had the opportunity to read this semester!

10. The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart

It didn’t start off great.  The first book I read was by an author I’ve never heard of, but the cover and the inside slip managed to keep me interested.  So I figured, why not give it a shot?  Basically, it’s the story of a Beefeater’s collapsing marriage, troublesome job, the loss of his son, and the antics that ensue when living with an ancient tortoise—the oldest in the world, actually.  Overall, I thought there were some interesting plots, especially Mrs. Cook, the tortoise; and Hebe Jones job in the Underground Lost and Found.  What was lacking was serious captivation: I just found myself not caring about the mundane activities between Balthazar (main character) and his coworkers, wife, Queen, and zoo animals.  It just didn’t make me go: wow!

9. Sister by Rosamund Upton

You know when thrillers tell you that they’re the newest, freshest, and most innovative of their kind?  Well, chances are that’s a lie.  I was promised something unheard of in Sister and what I received was an okay book about loving your family to the point of no return.  Beatrice is missing, probs dead, and Beatrice doesn’t know how to find her.  So, naturally, she hops on the first flight home and works with the police to find her.  Tess was involved with some heavy material though, and her life may have been more complicated than Beatrice thought.  The title begs the question: how far would you go for family?  Let’s be real: everyone would go to crazy lengths to help their family, that’s not a question.  My question is: Why promise then not deliver.  I won’t lie, I was interested, but I didn’t think there was anything particularly new about Sister.

8.  A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks

I have already raved about this book in plenty of previous posts, so I won’t bore you with more details here.  Basically: 7 people, 7 days, 7 stories all take place the week before Christmas.  I thought that it was pretty great.  I especially loved Faulk’s weaving, Crash-like plot.  So why so low on the list then?  Well, to be fair, the list is pretty tiered.  Everything at ‘8^th’ and above is quality, quality reading.

7.  The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas

If I could describe my experience of reading Thomas’ novel in one word it would be: mindfuck.  Oh my god.  I was so blown out of the water, so in the deep end throughout the whole novel that I almost gave up at thirty different points.  But every time I tried, the book wouldn’t let me.  It just kept pulling me back in.  Like a curse, or something…  (if you read the book, you’ll get this joke and then laugh because I am funny)  The protagonist, Ariel, is a genius.  Thomas does a great job of making her readers feel like their smart by the end of the novel too.  Entirely cerebral, this is one book I would highly recommend to almost all of my family and friends.

6.  The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

Sometimes you fall in love with an author.  Sometimes you fall so in love with an author that you begin to obsess about everything that they’ve written.  Sometimes you fall deeply, madly, head over heels crazy in love that you email said author for a peek at what they’re working on for their 2012 novel.  Yeah, that would be me and Donna Tartt.  This lady: she writes.  She writes beautifully, impeccably well.  It’s like reading magic, nature, and love all at once.  The Little Friend is about a Mississippi girl that is on the hunt for the man who murdered her brother 12 years ago.  The story is about her, her best friend, and her somewhat incestuous family of the Deep South.  It was numbing and stunning and all together great.  It would probably be higher on this list, objectively, but it’s eclipsed by a book by the same author which makes it hard to live up to.

Not Pictured: The Psychology of Want

5.  The Psychology of Want by Darrel Banner

A friend lent me this book to read with the warning that I would be frustrated beyond words.  Well, I was.  I was also gripped, moved, and emotionally tossed about.  I cannot adequately explain what it was like to read this novel.  Basically, it’s about this college kid that has roommate issues, boy troubles, an identity crisis, a distant family, and a whole slew of turmoil building on his plate.  At some points: I thought I was reading a story about my life.  At others, I was eternally grateful for the family, friends, and love that I have around me at a very high constant.  Any book that can force me to laugh aloud and then crush my soul in a page is doing something right.

4.  Room by Emma Donoghue

Room was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize this year, but was unable to snatch the title away from The Finkler Question.  Well, if the Finkler Question was better than this, than it must be one hell of a read.  Room is about a mother and son in an 11 x 11 space and then one day: they get out of Room.  I know, it doesn’t sound great, but it’s told from the point of view of Jack, the five year old son throughout.  It’s immensely moving.  One of those books that you read very quickly and then sit back and think: wow, what a crazy world we live in.  Drew thought that maybe it was his new favorite book; it’s very easy to see why after reading such a great piece of literature.

Okay, so now it’s very difficult, especially since I decided to do all of this writing on a very impulsive whim.  The three left are all so good, so I may get the order wrong.  But, like most rank based judging, you just have to go with your gut…

3.  The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

I think this novel may have been marketed very poorly to the American public.  In the UK this novel is a work of adult fiction.  I remember seeing it in the US a while back as a young-adult or adolescent read.  I don’t think that it’s being correctly placed.  Zusak has written not only one of my favorite books of the semester, but one of my favorite books of all time.  I don’t like the thought of a teenager or youth breezing through this book without really appreciating the intricacy and taste level that The Book Thief brings to the table.  It is set in WWII Germany and is narrated by Death.  Following the life of Liesel, a German girl just coming of age, the novel follows her on a tricky path that is punctuated by love, loss, and more than a few instances of provoking, eloquent sadness.  I was moved, truly, to tears by this work.  Very experimental, very polished.  Props.

2. The Secret History by Donna Tartt

To be fair, when I wrote that The Little Friend was rated unfairly because it would be eclipsed by a book of the same author, I didn’t know that it would actually be in the top 2.  I just knew that it was going to be up there.  And The Secret History is: it’s up there.  It might just be good enough to be one of those shining, shimmering books in my top 5 of all time (oof.  That’s a list for another day.)  The Secret History is about a college student that finds himself at a new school with a group of very interesting, very unnerving friends.  In a private college in Vermont, there are a select group of students who hold a very tight knit bond.  A bond that is starting to unravel.  A bond that will become undone.  From page one, we know what’s going to happen, Tartt says it all in the opening line.  What we don’t know is that from that moment on, we will be spellbound.  The book is insane.  It’s dark, twisted, more than a little edgy.  I am so thankful that Izzy turned me on to her favorite book of all time: it’s fan-freaking-tastic.

1.  One Day by Dave Nicholls

This book made me cry on a public bus on a very busy route on a very busy day.  I was bawling on the upper deck, begging Nichols to give our protagonists one more chance.  Was my pleading answered?  I guess you’d have to read it to find out.  The book follows two people over the course of their 20 year relationship, encapsulating their lives and thoughts every July 12^th  (the UK equivalent of the US Groundhogs Day).  It’s a little mushy at parts, sure, and all you want to do is roll your eyes, but Dexter and Emma are so endearingly unlikeable that you cannot help but root for them with every passing year.  They’re just so great together.  Nicholls is smarter than that though, he doesn’t give his readers what they want until they’ve basically given up.  Even then, we’re not sure that he’s rewarding our patience.  I thought it was uproariously funny and staggeringly sad.  All I wanted to do was read the rest of his work: can an author really do their job better than that?

So, yeah, that was random and fun and cathartic.  I was going to stop after telling you what I got for Secret Santa.  Woops! 

For now, I am off to the Winter Wonderland Carnival in Hyde Park: it’s going to be a great evening in London, folks.

PS. If you were wondering, Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind is still my favorite.

Cheers!