Year-end reading challenge recap

Well, I kind of sucked at reading challenges this year, and I’m actually kind of OK with that.

The Record of Shame

U.S. Presidents Reading Project – Not a single additional title read all year long. I valiantly checked out a biography of James Madison at the 11^th hour, but I very unvaliantly did not read it. Ah well.

eBook Challenge – Read 10/12, so we gotta chalk this one up as a "nice try, but no dice." What I've learned: eBooks are nice, but book books are nicer.

  

The Record of Glory

Reading Madly – Completed! I'd said I'd read 7 books, and I read 8.This reading challenge helped me through the dark days of no-new-Mad-Men-episodes.

Whisper Stories in My Ear – I just barely pulled this one off, listening to (and reviewing) 12 audiobooks.

100+ Reading Challenge - Read 114 books. (Shelfari keeps taunting me with the fact that I read more books last year, and I sneer right back at it.)

Library Challenge – Read 105 library books. 

Plus, the ones I finished earlier:

Nonfiction Challenge

Historical Fiction Challenge

Pub Challenge

I Want More Challenge

3Rs Challenge

In 2012, I’m going easier on the reading challenges. I’m keeping it a little more free-form, a little more… unruly. 


Happy New Year, people!

Dreadful people

Laura Rider’s Masterpiece by Jane Hamilton

Man, I hated every blasted character in this book. And for a reader who reads for character, that could have been sheer agony. On the up side, I was interested to see how the debacle created by the characters turned out (badly. very badly), so the plot pulled me through, despite the horrid wretchedness of the people in this novel.

This was a book club book, and everyone else hated the characters, too, so it wasn’t just me being cranky or something. And it proved to be a great book club book because there’s plenty here to discuss.

Here’s the basic rundown: Laura Rider’s done with sex, and her husband Charlie is rather sad about that. They own a garden center in Wisconsin, and Laura has a secret dream of becoming an author.

Things implode when Laura’s idol, a public radio host named Jenna (something-or-other; I returned the book without making a note of her last name) moves to their small town and the Riders meet her and Charlie begins an affair with Jenna—more or less with his wife as an accomplice, which frankly, dudes, freaked me out. Basically, Laura’s using the episode as inspiration for her novel.

At this point, I’m screaming, Get me the hell out of here!!

Yet I read on.

Because there’s got to be some kind of resolution (explosion? a gentle simmering down? I’ll never tell…)

NPR, I adore you, but...

… I simply cannot abide your book choices.

Why is this?

Day after day, I’ll hear book reviews on NPR, and they’re never books I want to read. It’s puzzled me for years.

And their “best novels of 2011” list contains not a single thing that I even liked. 

I read only one of these books (State of Wonder by Ann Patchett), and it was not my favorite thing. And three of these books I started and was not in the mood to finish (The Marriage Plot, The Art of Fielding, and The Submission).

So I was just about to renounce all NPR book choices for all time, when this little gem popped up on Facebook: NPR’s list of 2011’s best celebrity tell-alls. 

Now that’s my kind of list.

I’ve read only one of them so far (Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe), but I’ve just added some of the others to my TBR.

Low brow at all? 

Guilty as charged.

Best books of 2011

2011: a good reading year 


Here's my list of the best books I read this year, listed in no particular order. All were published in 2011 except for those with a year in parentheses after them. 


They nicely turned out to be 50% fiction and 50% nonfiction all on their own, without any wrangling required on my part.


Click on any book title to read all about it.



The fiction


Red on Red by Edward Conlon

Hell Is Empty by Craig Johnson

English Creek by Ivan Doig (1984)

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall (2010)

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

The nonfiction

What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes

Life by Keith Richards (2010)

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Flourish by Martin Seligman

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach (2010)

2012, you have a lot to live up to. That's all I'm saying. 

Merry Christmas! Let's talk about the Nixons...

Mrs. Nixon by Ann Beattie

If you like your books to be all one thing, cut and dried (perfectly fictional, or perfectly nonfictional), then this book will drive you straight up the wall.

For the rest of us, who maybe are intrigued by the occasional mash-up: Splendor!

(Though. If I owned a copy of this book, I’d have to put it in nonfiction for 6 months of the year, and then move it to fiction for the remaining 6 months. There’s a small element of literary/shelving stress here.)

Beattie does some zany stuff in this book, including writing an entire chapter in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s style, about two characters who haven’t appeared before in the Nixon narrative. The man is writing a love letter to the woman. Turns out, we learn at the end of the chapter that the text of the love letter was the actual text of a letter Richard Nixon wrote to Pat. The rest of it is all made up, characters and all.

This book is interesting, guys.

You turn the page, and you don’t know if you’re going to get a literary interpretation of the short story “The Necklace” or social commentary in Pat Nixon’s voice or the author’s musings on why she felt drawn to write about Pat Nixon of all people. (She even writes a false version of events to explain why she chose this subject. Then confesses immediately that the previous chapter was A Lie.)

And it all ties together.

There were several moments while reading this book that I gave thanks to my 18-year-old self, who knew that majoring in English would have been a bad idea for me. There was just enough literary analysis in this book to remind me that I just don’t like doing that stuff. (Hello, readers! You ain’t gonna find nothing deep on this here book blog.)

Anyway. Pat Nixon. She’s one of those so-placid-she’s-nearly-invisible political wives. So that’s actually pretty intriguing, because you know she was having secret thoughts inside that perfectly-coiffed head of hers. So why not have a novelist imagine what those thoughts were? And also, she was married to Richard Nixon! So there’s some built-in tragedy there.

I’ll say it again: This book is interesting.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC.

Wise warrior

What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes

He’s tough, and he’s also smart as hell.

Karl Marlantes was a Marine who served in Vietnam—a combat veteran who earned the Navy Cross and lots of other commendations. Also graduated from Yale and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. No schlump, this guy.

So he’s tough, he’s smart, and he’s also unblinkingly honest and—that rarest of things—wise. He’s been figuring things about for the past 40 years about his own experience, and the experience of other warriors. And the result is this remarkable book, which I want to thrust into people’s hands everywhere I go. I especially want to hand out copies the next time I’m on Capitol Hill. Those people need to read Marlantes’ words and take them to heart. Hell, we all do.

It’s only 256 pages in length, but it’s packed with ideas, and they’re thoughtful and hard-won truths. This book demands to be read with care, not because the writing is difficult (it’s not), but because the content is so damn important. Also, it’s sobering, and often it’s just plain sad-making to read this book. But people—all kinds of people, and lots of people—really, really, really should read it. It’s the stuff we need to know before we send people to war. It’s the stuff we need to know when they return.

Listen to this:

“There is a correct way to welcome your warriors back…  Cheering is inappropriate and immature. Combat veterans, more than anyone else, know how much pain and evil have been wrought. To cheer them for what they’ve just done would be like cheering the surgeon when he amputates a leg to save someone’s life. It’s childish, and it’s demeaning to those who have fallen on both sides. A quiet grateful handshake is what you give the surgeon, while you mourn the lost leg. There should be parades, but they should be solemn processionals, rifles upside down, symbol of the sword sheathed once again. They should be conducted with all the dignity of a military funeral, mourning for those lost on both sides, giving thanks for those returned.” (p. 195)

So, yes, he is sad, but he’s also frank about the ecstasy he experienced during battle. And then the horrible aftermath of killing.

He tells it true.

It’s an extraordinary book.

And perhaps the best doggone book I’ve read all year. Definitely the most important.

(Considered writing Karl Marlantes a thank you letter. Probably should do that. [Note: I don't write fan mail to authors, so this is a weird inclination on my part.])

For a preview of the book, here’s a half-hour interview with the author that aired on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation.” 

And here's an interview that aired on C-SPAN:

But good as these interviews are, the book’s The Thing.


Highly recommended.

Noir. Worldwide Noir.

In the wake of watching the entire 5-season run of The Wire in less than 2 months flat—during the period of withdrawal—I diagnosed for myself the Reading of Noir.

(Guys, there’s a whole series of this stuff!)   

I started with DC Noir, for two reasons. No, three.

1. George Pelecanos edited it, and he’s a producer and writer on The Wire. Also, he’s a big-name mystery author I’d never read and wanted to.

2. Washington, DC, baby!

3. It was available as an eBook, and I’m making a last-ditch effort to redeem myself in the eBook reading challenge. (Can she read 5 more eBooks by year’s end? CAN SHE?)

And man, I had a moment of complete and total bliss when I began reading this book, sitting at a café in front of a fireplace with my Nook and a mocha. And the book was all noir-y and grim, and horrid things happened to the characters, and/or they did horrid things to others, and I was oh-so-happy. And some of these things were happening in DC places I’ve visited, so that made it even better.

Next, I read Boston Noir—edited by my very own favorite Dennis Lehane. And dear Dennis, I’m sorry, but I liked your buddy’s (edited) book better. There was something about the stories in DC Noir that just had that certain je ne sais quoi. And some of them had some killer plot twists.

Next up: Baltimore Noir. I’ve never been there, but that’s where The Wire’s set, so I’ve seen it on TV. And Baltimore’s the world I’m missing during the withdrawal phase from all that TV watching.

Normally I’m not too much of a short story reader, but these really work for me. Though I find that I’m only interested in the books set in places I find interesting. (Last Vegas Noir? Naaaa-uhhhh.)

My other withdrawal remedy: Reading Blue Blood by Edward Conlon

Dogs. They are amazing.

The Dogs of War: The Courage, Love, and Loyalty of Military Working Dogs by Lisa Rogak

In the dog person/cat person question, I’m unquestionably a dog person. Seeing a dog hanging out of a car window, grinning, slays me every time. They’re made happy so easily, it almost breaks my heart. (Note: No, there are no dogs at Casa Unruly. I'm still trying to keep houseplants from perishing. [mixed results there]  I have my limits.)

Normally I have a “no dog books” rule, because dog books almost always make me cry. (Or, in the case of Marley and Me, hurl.) The dogs are always dying in those books, and why would anyone read such a thing?!

But when I saw the ARC of this book available at NetGalley from Macmillan (thanks, guys!) I thought, That’s a dog book I could handle. Probably I’ll end up emotionally overwhelmed by the very goodness of dogs—especially dogs as heroes during wartime—but that’s the way it goes.

Yes, that’s how it went.

And this thing starts out with a serious bang. The first section was so darn riveting I read it three times. And I just keep thinking about it.

That first section’s about the dog that took part in the Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. Holy Toledo!

OK, so that’s crazy-amazing. The parts that get me are that the dog wore specially-made night-vision goggles and a flak jacket, had a camera mounted on his back, and had an earbud that allowed his handler to communicate with him. 

I just can’t get over the fact that there was a dog on that mission.

Anyway.

The rest of the book describes the unique relationship between military dogs and their handlers. The dogs are given a military rank, and they actually outrank their handler. (This makes me smile.)

Now, there was one part of me that thought: Those poor puppies, being thrown into harm’s way and not knowing the risks. (Kind of like how I used to feel sorry for sled dogs, who had to pull all that weight through the snow.) But then I thought: The dogs they’re choosing to train for these missions are dogs that are suited to do this work. They’re not training up lapdogs, for pete’s sake. And clearly, the dogs often are treated better than the humans.

The best part of this book is the quotes from the dog handlers, whose words clearly show the bond they’ve developed with their dog. Here’s Robert Moore, whose Weimaraner partner, Wisky, served with him in Iraq: “‘You talk to them just like anybody else. It’s just like if you’re with somebody every day, like your squad mates or people who are on your team that you’ve worked with for a whole year, it’s a very strong bond.’” (p. 180 of the ARC eBook)

The eBook numbers 268 pages, which makes it feel a little too long for what I’m about to say: This book feels like it could be read by younger readers (maybe middle school on up). The subject matter is high-interest stuff, and the writing doesn’t seem like it would be too complex for younger readers. 

But it works for grown-ups, too. I, for one, found it fascinating.