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Best of 2007, Part Three of Four ~ Books

February 14, 2008 in adrian tomine, book reviews, books, dave eggers, junot diaz, mcsweeney's, the road, the walking dead, x-men | 10 comments

Best Books READ of 2007 (fiction)

It turns out that 5 of my 10 best books of 2007 were in fact published in 2007, and an additional 2 were paperbacks which were released in 2007…so this list has more validity than I expected. Yay for me!…

You can also read Part One and Part Two if you’re feeling left out.

10. Lady Into Fox, By David Garnett. Originally published in 1922, Reprinted by McSweeney’s in 2004.

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I’m hesitant to write complicated reviews of each of these books, since I’ve already done that in review format over the year, so I’m just going to link to them here and add a sentence or two if I feel so moved…okay? Great. So Lady Into Fox really surprised the hell out of me. It’s never a book I would have expected to make a top for the year list for me, but I really ended up loving this bizarre story of love and loss…it’s a great creative metaphor for a lot of other things in life. Read more about Lady Into Fox here.

09. Water For Elephants, By Sara Gruen. Published in 2006 (the softcover – which I read – 2007).

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Water For Elephants surprised me as well, if only because I don’t consider myself a NY Times Bestseller reader in general, but this book was really beautiful and well conceived. I finished it quickly, which is always a great compliment. Read more about Water For Elephants here.

08. Midnight At the Dragon Cafe, By Judy Fong Bates. Published in 2004 (the softcover – which I read – 2005).

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I adored China Dog, Bates book of short fiction, and didn’t figure Midnight At The Dragon Cafe could live up, but I loved this as well. Bates has a brilliant way of turning a story on its ear, just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, read more about Dragon Cafe here.

07. Astonishing X-Men #1 – #22, By Joss Whedon & John Cassaday. Published in issues 2006 – 2007.

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I can’t say enough good things about this collection, and my only complaint is that it’s ending soon. The last issue of this arc is due to come out soon, and it will signal the end of the Whedon/Cassaday team up. I’m very sad about it, although maybe it means Planetary will someday get finished? One can only hope. Read more here.

06. St. Lucy’s Home For Girl’s Raised By Wolves, By Karen Russel. Published in 2006 (the softcover – which I read – 2007).

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This was a great and really creative collection. The title really beautifully summarized what I should expect and it totally delivered. Read more about St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised By Wolves here.

05. Shortcomings, By Adrian Tomine. Published in collected hardcover format, in 2007.

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I’m a huge Tomine fan and Shortcomings is just a beautiful beautiful work. Read more here.

04. One Hundred And Forty-Five Stories In A Small Box, By Dave Eggers, Sarah Manguso, and Deb Olin Unferth. Published in 2007.

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I knew this was going to be great, with the creative format and the brilliant ideas that McSweeney’s is always swinging around, but I was unprepared for how much I was going to love both Eggers and Manguso’s books. Manguso’s collection stands out particularly as wildly creative and heartbreaking, although Eggers has my favorite piece overall. Read more here.

03. Famous Father’s Other Stories, By Pia Z. Ehrhardt. Published in 2007.

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Ehrhardt was a new author for me and I was incredibly impressed. A wonderful collection. Read more about Famous Fathers & Other Stories here.

02. The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, By Junot Diaz. Published in 2007.

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I freaking LOVED this book. It blew me away, and was an excellent way to end the year. I had been anxiously awaiting Diaz’s follow up novel (like everyone else) after I was shocked by his wonderful first book Drown, a collection of short stories. This far surpasses Drown in so many ways. I don’t care how long I have to wait for the next one, so long as it is as good. Read more about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao here.

01. The Road, By Cormac McCarthy. Published in 2006.

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What can I say? You don’t win the Pulitzer for writing a mediocre book. I haven’t ready any of McCarthy’s other works, and I’m very intrigued as I love his style, but I suspect he won’t ever be able to hit closer to home for me than he did with this book. Reading The Road was a singular experience that I will always cherish, and sadly, probably never duplicate…but I’ll spend my life trying. Read more about The Road here.

Honorable Mentions: You Are A Little Bit Happier Than I Am – Tao Lin (Poetry); Tell Me Why – Clare Jacobsen (Non-Fiction); Superbad – Ben Greenman (Short Fiction); No One Belongs Here More Than You – Miranda July (Short Fiction); Transparency – Frances Hwang (Short Fiction); and The Walking Dead – Robert Kirkman & Charlie Adlard (Graphic Fiction/Comic Book Series).

Worst Book Of The Year: I’m not going to say. I know that’s a cop out, but it’s easier than explaining why it is the worst book I read this year. And words like “bitter” would surely be tossed around in the comments section and y’know what? I don’t need that. :0

#52…Which Means Book A Week for 2007 Success!

January 2, 2008 in book reviews, books, entertainment, junot diaz | 4 comments

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Whooo-hooo!

I just finished the other day a completely magnificent book, that also happens to be my 52nd book for the year 2007…happily (and barely) meeting my 2007 goal to read a book a week. Okay, so I cheated a bit here, and here, and maybe even here, but you’ve got to admit it’s pretty awesome. I feel good about this accomplishment, that said, I’m not going to do it again for 2008 and here is why…

1. I found that having such a stringent book reading goal kept me away from some more challenging (or just more lengthy) books that I’ve long been wanting to read (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, The Children’s Hospital, Watership Down, The Tropic of Cancer to name a few). Multiple times this year I picked up books (often those books) and was forced to put them down for fear that they would prevent me from making my goal. A good alternative would perhaps be to set a page number goal, rather than a book number goal…that might be something I try in the future, but not this year.

2. I sometimes found myself frustrated or rushing through a book that was dragging or was simply a slower book to read because I was getting (or as of April had become) so far behind. This was not a fun feeling. It took an activity that I enjoy immensely (yes, reading) and turned it, kind of, into a task. It was sometimes unpleasant and the reality is there are enough unpleasant things in my life currently without needlessly adding to the stack. :)

3. I need to be more focused this year on writing and submitting and yes, the dreaded elliptical trainer (blah!) than happily and selfishly and yes, somewhat detrimentally reading. I’m sure I’ll still read a hell of a lot, but a shift of focus is definitely necessary.

So onto a review of book #52. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Junot Diaz. Fiction. 4.5 Stars.

This was, I think the second best book I had the pleasure of reading this year, second only to McCarthy’s The Road, which was not only wonderful, but I also had the pleasure of blasting through in about three and a half hours in the middle of the night…which is always an awesome experience. Wao is a much more layered, complex, and quite frankly longer work, so it took me a few days to get through, but I enjoyed every second of it.

I was given Diaz’s short fiction collection Drown a few years ago by a wonderful friend and loved it right away. It was a welcome change from much of the short fiction out there…beautifully crafted stories that were just fascinating. Wao is no different as it is rich and amazing in its history and yet it is told with a casual believable voice that was EXACTLY what I wanted…and that was pitch perfect for the book. Even the footnotes were fascinating – while historical and there to be “footnotes” they were all written in the same voice as the book…and with a definitive perspective. I definitely came away sharing all the author’s views of the Dominican Republic.

Diaz has some truly beautiful believable characters, even if they come from a world I cannot even begin to imagine, and it’s the kind of epic book that I fear I will never have in me to write because of my boring boring life and super super boring experiences. Oh Woe Is Me. I never know with Diaz how much is fiction and how much is autobiography that has been recrafted into fiction, and that I suppose is one of the marks of a great writer…that I believe him SO much that I cannot stop fathoming at the truth he has put down on the page, and have to keep reminding myself that much of it must be fiction…must be…it is too fascinating and rich and beautiful and horrible to be really true. Right?

I can only think of two reasons not to give it 5 stars, 1) I did not give The Road 5 stars and this is an admittedly close second on that book and 2) it is told from the perspectives of a couple different characters and is told almost in short story format in the form of chapters – which I love – but occasionally found confusing or maybe distracting. Anytime you switch character focus you run the risk of losing your reader as he/she can become bored with a new character that is not as interesting as one they were so invested in – this was not a major problem as Diaz’s book was pretty well balanced, but a few times I felt like I was getting a frustrating history lesson when all I wanted to do was get back to the point…to the characters I was pining for. It is a minor complaint, but a complain nonetheless I suppose.

Anyway, a brilliant book. If you’re looking for something to blow you away, this is it. 4.5 stars.