New York Times Top Ten Books
Here is my take on the NYTimes Top Ten list this year:
MAN GONE DOWN
By Michael Thomas. Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $14. This first novel explores the fragmented personal histories behind four desperate days in a black writer’s life.
OUT STEALING HORSES
By Per Petterson. Translated by Anne Born. Graywolf Press, $22. In this short yet spacious Norwegian novel, an Oslo professional hopes to cure his loneliness with a plunge into solitude.
I have a new friend and neighbor who is Norwegian so this has been on my request list.
THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES
By Roberto Bolaño. Translated by Natasha Wimmer. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27. A craftily autobiographical novel about a band of literary guerrillas.
This book has been sitting on the bedside table for some time. I’ve just started to read it and I am already deeply engrossed.
THEN WE CAME TO THE END
By Joshua Ferris. Little, Brown & Company, $23.99. Layoff notices fly in Ferris’s acidly funny first novel, set in a white-collar office in the wake of the dot-com debacle.
This novel was one of my favorite books of 2007. It is an incredibly funny satire of office life. A must, must read.
TREE OF SMOKE
By Denis Johnson. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27. The author of “Jesus’ Son” offers a soulful novel about the travails of a large cast of characters during the Vietnam War.
I did work my way through this and found it to be beautifully written. Now I’m reading the critics who really found it wanting and am having second thoughts.
Nonfiction
IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone.
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Alfred A. Knopf, $25.95; Vintage, paper, $14.95. The author, a Washington Post journalist, catalogs the arrogance and ineptitude that marked America’s governance of Iraq.
This book was recommended to me by several trusted reader friends. I’ve read many of the Iraq books and will read this as well.
LITTLE HEATHENS: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression.
By Mildred Armstrong Kalish. Bantam Books, $22. Kalish’s soaring love for her childhood memories saturates this memoir, which coaxes the reader into joy, wonder and even envy.
THE NINE: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.
By Jeffrey Toobin. Doubleday, $27.95. An erudite outsider’s account of the cloistered court’s inner workings.
Jeffrey Toobin’s book is a surprising page-turner. I plowed through it. It is absolutely critical reading if you want to understand how the Supreme Court works and influences/mirrors social policy and culture.
THE ORDEAL OF ELIZABETH MARSH: A Woman in World History.
By Linda Colley. Pantheon Books, $27.50. Colley tracks the “compulsively itinerant” Marsh across the 18th century and several continents.
THE REST IS NOISE: Listening to the Twentieth Century.
By Alex Ross. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30. In his own feat of orchestration, The New Yorker’s music critic presents a history of the last century as refracted through its classical music.
Explore posts in the same categories: UncategorizedI have become newly interested in 20th century music through my subscription to the BSO. I find myself enjoying the new pieces as much or more than the earlier works. This is definitely on my book list to read soon.
