Ravenous for a good read? Here are some books I enjoyed in 2015:
Two
sisters are searching for a new husband – a Man at the Helm – for their newly divorced mother who is prone to popping pills and writing odd little plays instead
of taking care of her three children. A master of wit, author Nina
Stibbe brings her story to a thoroughly satisfying end that’s a lot like
raspberry jam – sweet but full of sharp little seeds.
In A
God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson revisits
the Todd family, who appeared in her 2014 Life After Life. This time she focuses on Teddy, a supremely decent man who bombs German towns (and the people in them)
during World War II. Atkinson so clearly describes all of the details of being
up in a Halifax on a horrific mission that I found it hard to believe she was
not a bomber pilot in another life.
Eleanor
and Park by Rainbow Rowell is one of those books – yet another story about
teens with an improbable load of depressing problems. Eleanor is poor, despised
at school, and overweight. To top it all off, her mother is living with an abusive
man who becomes an increasing threat to Eleanor with every page. Park is a
slight, sensitive, half-Korean boy who stays chummy with the school bullies to
keep himself safe. I didn’t expect to like this book, but I was quickly hooked
by the hidden sweetness and humanity of these two kids and the story of how
their slowly developing affection keeps them both afloat in a horrible sea of teen
and adult cruelty.
The
Chapel by Michael
Downing
– To be honest, I didn’t always get what this book was driving at, with its
hefty discussions about the 14th century Italian artist Giotto and
Dante’s Divine Comedy. But the banter
between its two main characters (a depressed widow in her fifties and a silver-haired
smoothy she meets in Italy) is pretty divine itself. Like all great writing,
these sections show (don’t tell) us about the tremendous warmth and need
beneath the characters’ snappy wit.
Far
from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy – “Why do we have
to read this?” many high schoolers automatically complain when their lit teachers
assign a classic. In this case, I would respond by saying that Far From is just plain great. It’s the
tale of a young woman who becomes the boss of a big farm in a day when women
didn’t do such things. She’s hilarious and also heartbreaking – a living,
breathing character who makes some devastating mistakes.
Sure, there are some boring parts to get through (particularly the long
conversations written to reflect a rural English dialect), but you can always
skim over those and get on to the good parts, like when Miss Everdene (Bathsheba, not Katniss) lies
back on her horse in order to ride under some low branches and then rises again
in one smooth, lithe motion.
Meghan Daum comes off as a cranky, wise-cracking aunt who isn’t afraid to tell you how she really feels in
her collection of essays entitled Unspeakable. In a piece called “On
Not Being a Foodie,” she reveals that she hates buying and cooking food. In “Honorary
Dyke,” she bemoans a culture that reveres makeovers and diets and elaborate
wedding showers. She also confesses in “Not What It Used to Be” that she feels no nostalgia for her college days, and, in fact, spent her time in school longing
for the shenanigans to be over so that she could get on with her life. Sometimes
people who are known for “telling it like it is” can come off as being insensitive
or rude. Daum’s truths, however, feel like a brisk, refreshing breeze ruffling
the pages of more socially-pleasing views.
