Watching the weather report last night we are heading into a week of mild weather with temperatures in the 70s. The plants in the yard will be so happy! Me, too.
The Joyful edition:
A few nights ago I was watching the Olympics on TV. It was time for bed but I didn't want the day to end. Why? I had to analyze the feeling. What was going on? All of the sudden I realized it was a mixture of joy and hope -- two feelings I haven't experienced in a long time. Earlier in the evening my husband and I the Kamala Harris rally where she introduced Tim Walz as her running mate. There was so much joy in the arena for this rally. It was contagious. I caught it across the airwaves. Today I will share a few more moments which have led to that joy. I'll hyperlink sources where I'm able to. Click on the links to find out even more.
"Thank you, Madame Vice President, for bringing back the joy!"-Gov. Tim Walz
Polling and More...
88 days until the election. Plenty of time for things to change, but here is where polls stand today. The numbers were very different three weeks ago before President Biden opted out. In some polls Vice President Harris has gained over 6 points. She is also up in other swing states: +6 in Nevada and statistically even in Arizona and Georgia.
Washington State Primary in August is a Bellwether for National
Elections in November.
“You’ve got a unique thing going on, where all the candidates appear on
the same ballot, no matter the party, and voters are free to choose from
any of them,” … “It’s better than the polls.”- Seattle Times
J.D. Vance, Trump's VP pick, made a disparaging comment about single, cat ladies a few years back. That hasn't gone well for the campaign since now there is a whole new group activated against them. Vance made things worse when he defended himself by saying, "I have nothing against cats." Well, you can imagine what the backlash looks like.
Zoom meetings for Harris abound. This is an upcoming meeting for Taylor Swift fans. There is still time to sign up. Swifties for Harris. I plan on attending another online meetup on Monday: Christians for Kamala.
In a 2022 CNN interview musician Billy Joel explained how the Beatles helped to bring America out of a depression caused by the death of JFK.
"In 1964 the country had the blues, big time. Everybody
was depressed over the Kennedy assassination, and it lasted for a long
time. Who took us out of that depression? The Beatles. They showed up on the Ed Sullivan Show in February that year and the rest is history.
They represented youth, the future. They
represented vitality. Something new, something which was of us, our age
group, the baby boomers, and they took off like superstars." --Billy Joel (Source)
We can insert Harris/Walz for the Beatles (not musically, of course.) Think about it. Harris and Walz came along when we needed them the most. We were in a state of depression about our country. We had the blues, big time. Then Biden bowed out as a candidate for President and suddenly, WHAM, Harris and Walz to the rescue. They represent joy and hope, the future. They represent vitality. Something new, something like us, and they have taken off like superstars.
"Can you feel it? I've been breathless lately, watching a movement coalesce in plain sight."-Angela Marx, DKos
"Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are leading with joy and vigor. The enormous amounts of money donated, the massive crowds showing up everywhere they go this week.
There is a palpable feeling in the air now... All I know is that in the past two weeks, I’ve started to feel that
the future isn't going to just be some apocalyptic hellhole where my
grandkids will live short, brutal lives.
But a future where good works and good people overcome the hate and
insanity of the corrupted and demented pro-authoritarians; where nations
come together for real, to make progress against the inevitable damage
from Climate Change, before the time to begin such work passes."
Doom-scrolling has been replaced by Joy-scrolling.
Unbelievably I haven't only been joy-scrolling. I've also been reading and I've read some fantastic books these past few weeks. I've haven't reviewed any of them yet, but let me recommend these three:
North Woods by Daniel Mason -- I can't believe this book didn't win the Pulitzer. It is a series of collected interconnected stories and documents centered around a house in Western Massachusetts from the earliest days of Colonial America into the future. I loved, loved, loved this book.
Wandering Starsby Tommy Orange -- This is a sequel AND prequel to There There, a fantastic book published in 2018 about the urban Indian experience. This book covers more of this topic and additional exploration of the horrors of addiction. It isn't an easy book to digest, but it should still be required reading for all Americans.
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters -- Another story about Indigenous people and the difficulties they have endured over the years. The story focuses on a family whose daughter is kidnapped. Another tough topic but a beautifully wrought story.
Olympics
I visited my aunt yesterday. She is convalescing in a rehab center after a hospital stay for her health concerns. As I entered the room, she had her eyes glued to Olympics coverage on the TV. She assured me that she was doing well and would make it home in no time. In the meantime she could watch as much Olympics as she wanted! Of course, as an American I always hope we will do well but what I love about the Olympics is how it brings the whole world together and how happy it makes us all feel. There is true joy in the Olympics! Here is one remarkable story: Arshad Nadeem: Beating the odds to win Pakistan’s first individual Olympic gold medal.(Federal News) There were so many inspiring stories like this one.
Hope and Joy!
Crowd leaves Harris/Walz rally in Wisconsin with a sense of hope and joy!
The Internet is awash with tweets about how Tim Walz is like dad and full of dad jokes. Here is one of my favorites:
The walled and gated McGrath estate was a world unto itself, protected and private.
Friday56 quote:
We were the last believers, my generation. We trusted what our parents taught us about right and wrong, good and evil, the American myth of equality and justice and honor. I wonder if any generation will ever believe again. People will say it was the war that shattered our lives and laid bare the beautiful lie we’d been taught. And they’d be right. And wrong. There was so much more. It’s hard to see clearly when the world is angry and divided and you’re being lied to.
Summary: After her brother enlists in the Navy and is sent to Vietnam, Frankie McGrath signs up to be an Army Nurse to prove to herself and her parents that women, too, can be heroes. Her experiences there as a combat nurse taint the rest of her life even after she returns home. She returns to a much changed country, one which refuses to accept that women, too, were negatively impacted by their service in Vietnam which leaves Frankie with nowhere to turn for help.
Review: Kristin Hannah's The Women picked at a lot of scabs I've been wearing since my junior high school days, when the Vietnam war was raging and I found myself on the side of the anti-war demonstrators. When Frankie returned home from two tours in Vietnam as a combat nurse she is met with derision and disgust from Americans she encounters at the airport. One person even spits at her. Citizens have misplaced their anger for the war and placed the blame on the soldiers instead of the government which kept the war going. If I had been older, I might have been one of those angry people spitting on returning soldiers and airmen. But I was a kid watching events like this unfurl on TV and my anti-war sentiment raged inside. To add to my anger, my best friend's father was MIA (Missing-in-action) after the plane he was piloting was shot down. My heart broke for my friend and her family as they awaited news, good or bad, about his whereabouts. I even wore one of the POW/MIA bracelets talked about in the book, in hopes that the money raised by this project would encourage the government to work to free/look for the men on the bracelets. I wore my bracelet for several years, sadly.
Sample POW bracelet
After Frankie returns home to a country not interested in hearing about her heroic efforts to save soldiers' lives, she finds the only people who really understand her are other women who also served as nurses in Vietnam. When she turned to the VA for help she was turned away, eventually causing Frankie to turn to pills and alcohol for relief from the nightmares and flashbacks.
Frankie's story needed to me told, and I am glad Kristin Hannah was able to bring the story of these left behind heroes of the Vietnam war to life. Frankie McGrath was a fully fleshed out, interesting character. Unfortunately, most of the other characters were not so three dimensional:"Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people" (KR) But that aside, The Women is a good book about a topic we need to confront as we consider the ramifications of engaging in wars in the future.
Rating 4 stars.
2024 Twenty Books of Summer Challenge
17 / 20 books. 85% done!
The Women is 471 pages, which qualifies it for 'Big Book Summer Challenge.
Top Ten Tuesday: Today's topic is to identify favorite books within a series. Since I just did this same post three years ago and I haven't read that many series since then, I am including some of the same books/series from that first post. (See it here)
Series / Author Title of book Number placement in series
Kopp Sisters / Stewart Lady Cop Makes Trouble #2
Flavia de Luce / Bradley The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie #1
The Book of Dust / Pullman La Belle Sauvage #1
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy / Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #1
Douglas
Tiffany Aching / Pratchett The Shepherd's Crown #5
Millennium / Larsson The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo #1
Back in 2009 Hilary Mantel published a book, Wolf Hall, about the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the court of King Henry VIII during the time period when Henry wanted to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, so he could marry Anne Boleyn. It seemed like everyone at the time of Wolf Hall's publishing read the book, everyone except me I confess. It was massively popular, even winning the Booker Prize that year. James Naughtie, the chairman of the Booker Prize judges, said the decision to give Wolf Hall the award was "based on the sheer bigness of the book."
I didn't know this reason when I selected Wolf Hall as my One Big Book of 2024. I selected Wolf Hall because people are still talking about it today, it has a mini-series made from it, there are two sequels, and most importantly, I am fascinated by the story of Henry's six wives. I purchased the audiobook in early January and then dithered around, waiting until July to start it. My husband, who has a greater knowledge of the historical events covered in the book than I, joined me in the 20+ hours of listening "enjoyment" of Wolf Hall on two closely related in time car trips.
Let's be clear, when I said I didn't know much about the historical events of the early 1530s, I am not exaggerating. I knew about Henry's divorce/annulment of his marriage to Catherine which caused a schism in the church, causing England to break from the Catholic denomination and to set up the King (or Queen) of England as the head of Church of England. (What could go wrong?) I also knew that one divorce is never enough and in Henry's case his quest for a son/heir led him to marry six women. The fates of these six queens can be summed up this way: Divorced. Beheaded. Died. Divorced. Beheaded. Survived (from Six: The Musical). I honestly didn't know who Thomas Cromwell was and I got him goofed up with his nephew Oliver Cromwell who played a big role in British politics in the mid 1600s. Even though Wolf Hall is based on actual historical events and the characters were real people, it is a work of fiction. That said, the book does seem to be fairly accurate and one can believe the conversations between the characters probably occurred in roughly the way the book has them laid out.
I wish I could say that I, like so many readers for the past fifteen years, was completely caught up in the story, but that isn't true. I really struggled with the book and found that my attention just seemed to wander away as the narrator of the book, Ben Miles, read on and on and on. Here is what I think were the sticking points:
Wolf Hall was probably a bad choice to consume as an audiobook. The production time was 25.5 hours. We bumped up the listening speed but it still required over 20 hours of listening. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep at some points in the story and zoned out in other parts.
One of the reasons the audio format didn't work well for me was the sheer number of characters I had to keep track of. When I got confused and couldn't remember who so-and-so was, I couldn't turn back a few pages to remind myself. And the action takes place mostly through dialogue or in Cromwell's head...not exactly riveting stuff.
The overuse of "he" or "he, Cromwell" led to my confusion at first and irritation later. The book is highly dependent on dialogue to tell the story and there were often great long passages of it throughout the book without breaks. After what I imagine was pages of dialogue it was really hard to figure out who "he" was. Mantel must have realized this at some point so she would throw in a "he, Cromwell," to get us back on track. But that was irritating, too. Why not just say, "Cromwell said..." instead? Take a look at the reviews on Goodreads. I am not the only reader who complained about this point. It actually got to the point where my husband and I would point it out to each other. "There's another 'He, Cromwell'", we'd remark. It became a joke of sorts. I have to confess, however, the dialogue and the use of "he" really made the book feel quite intimate. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but found it compelling on that point.
In the end my husband appreciated the book more than I did. He was driving, which hopefully meant he didn't zone out like I did, so the story probably was richer and fuller for him than me. When I mentioned there were two sequels, his eyes lit up. Mine rolled. He didn't rule out reading them on his own time. I'm done. All I want to do is go see the Musical Six one more time. That's about all the information about the Cromwells and the Tutors I want to know about.
Six: The Musical. The Tony Award performance.
In addition to completing my ONE BIG BOOK challenge for 2024, Wolf Hall also contributes to two other reading challenges -- Big Book Summer Challenge, since it weighs in at over 650 pages, and it is the 16th book on the 20 books of Summer challenge.
The first thing most people knew about Miranda Asturias was that Miranda Asturias had a beautiful mother.
Friday56 quote:
From "Take It From Me" by David Levithan
It started with a spoon. I was six, maybe seven. Old enough to know right from wrong, but young enough that deciding between the two always felt situational, spontaneous.
Summary: Celebrated YA author, A.S. King collects weird stories and weird ideas. She thinks up weird questions. She writes them on sticky notes and posts them on the board above her desk. Among those sticky notes was the question, Why do we collect things? Near this sticky note was another written earlier in the year which read, Weird Short Story Collection. This story collection is the marriage of those two messages. "This anthology of stories is the result of me asking nine of my favorite YA writers to write a story about a collection and its collector, and asking them to to toss out conventions, as there were no rules, there was no "normal," and they could be as weird as they wanted" (Introduction).
Review: In my days as a teen librarian I came to really admire the writing of A.S. King. It seemed like every year she published another great book and usually the books told a very touching story in a surreal style. Three times her books have earned Printz Awards or honors (the highest book award for YA literature in the US.) The Collectors: Stories won the Printz Award in 2024, an unusual choice since short stories do not commonly win awards. But A.S. King assembled an all-star cast of writers and let them loose. Imaginations ran wild and the results were unique and, um, weird!
Some reviewers on Goodreads were very negative on the stories in The Collectors, saying all of them were too odd, chiding the authors for doing their assignment -- to tell a weird story about a weird collection/collector. When I saw these comments I wondered if any of these folks had ever read any of A.S. King's novels. I've read seven of her novels and all of them could be called weird/odd/surreal. After her novel Dig, won the Printz Award in 2019, I summed up the book this way "At its core Dig, a deep and confusing surreal novel, confronts the reality of a family who is deeply poisoned by racism. Poverty, hatred, family violence, and disenfranchisement are the results...King, in the author's notes, asks readers to confront racism in all its forms, many we never even think of as problems. The surreal text sets the issue on its edge, causing the reader to look at the problem in a new way."In the same review I took a look back at all her works. I recommend you take a look if you want to understand her writing style better. (A.S. King)
In The Collectors I liked some of the stories better than others but all of them got me thinking back to my life as a collector and about the collections my children had. In fact one evening when my adult daughter was visiting for a meal we all started sharing our favorite memories with our collections as we were growing up. My daughters had a collection of 'My Little Pony' toys. They had a hundred or more of those plastic ponies with their long hair manes. They loved them so much. One year their collection was accepted for display at the Hobby Hall at the State Fair. The girls carefully placed their ponies, their houses, and other MLP paraphernalia in the display case. When we went to the fair, the girls would beg to go stand by the case so they could listen to the comments other fair-goers would make about their collection. What a highlight in their young lives. My husband collected coins. I collected dolls and stamps. We had a fun march down memory lane that dinner time as we recalled our collections. That is what I love the best about reading good books -- sharing with others what I felt and learned from the book.
And speaking of learned, I just read an interview with A.S. King in School Library Journal (July 19, 2024), "The Girls in the Cornfield. A.S. King Shares Why She Loves Libraries." In it she shares how a librarian and the library saved her from a torturous home life as a young child. She said,
Time doesn’t exist when you’re inside a book. Time doesn’t exist when you’re inside summer vacation. Time doesn’t exist when you’re inside trauma, either. In some weird way, these experiences overlapped—a slumber party pillow fort made of paper and words and ideas. I wonder if Ms. Mohn knew, armed with the superpowers of encouragement and librarianship, what she was doing for me—just one weird kid out of so many weird kids—building a suit of armor out of books. When school started again, she showed me the nonfiction section—exciting books about countries I wanted to visit, things I wanted to build, and history that made me care. She made me want to never stop learning.
I love libraries, too. Don't you? And I do recommend all books by A.S. King.
NYT Readers Pick Their 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
When The New York Times Book Review published a list of the 100 best books of the century a few weeks ago, they knew they’d hear from readers who were incensed or sad their favorite books didn't make the list. After giving these readers a chance to vote on their favorites, the NYT published a list of the Readers Picks: The 100 Best Books of the Century this week. The Book Review voters (list 1) and the Readers (list 2) overlap on 39 choices, noted in the comment column below. "As for the 61 new entries here, what stands out most is that they’re the
books that captured cultural moments and sparked lively literary
conversations."
No.
Title /
Author
Comments
Read?
1
Demon
Copperhead / Kingsolver
#61 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
2
All the Light
We Cannot See / Doerr
Yes
3
A Gentleman
in Moscow / Towles
Yes
4
The Goldfinch
/ Tartt
#46 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
5
Pachinko /
Lee
#15 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
6
Educated /
Westover
Yes
7
Tomorrow, and
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow / Zevin
Yes
8
My Brilliant
Friend / Ferrante
#1 on NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
9
Never Let Me
Go / Ishiguro
#9 on NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
10
Station
Eleven / St. John Mandel
#93 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
11
A Little Life
/ Yanagihara
No
12
The Overstory
/ Powers
#24 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
13
The
Underground Railroad / Whitehead
#7 on NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
14
Wolf Hall /
Mantel
#3 on NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
15
The Road /
McCarthy
#13 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
16
Lincoln in
the Bardo / Saunders
#18 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
17
Atonement /
McEwan
#26 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
18
Middlesex /
Eugenides
#59 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
19
Americanah /
Adichie
#27 NYT Book
Review’s list
No
20
Amazing Adventures
of Kavalier & Clay / Chabon
#16 on NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
21
Homegoing /
Gyasi
Yes
22
Hamnet / O’Farrell
Yes
23
The Warmth of
Other Suns / Wilkerson
#2 on NYT Book
Review’s list
No
24
Bel Canto /
Patchett
#98 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
25
Gilead /
Robinson
#10 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
No.
Title /
Author
Comments
Read?
26
The
Corrections / Franzen
#5 NYT Book
Review’s list
No
27
Normal People
/ Rooney
Yes
28
Cutting for
Stone / Verghese
Yes
29
Say Nothing /
Keefe
#19 NYT Book
Review’s list
No
30
A Visit from
the Goon Squad / Egan
#39 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
31
Circe /
Miller
Yes
32
Cloud Cuckoo
Land / Doerr
Yes
33
The Book
Thief / Zusak
Yes
34
Cloud Atlas /
Mitchell
#28 NYT Book
Review’s list
No
35
The Covenant
of Water / Verghese
Yes
36
The Year of
Magical Thinking
#12 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
37
The Nickel
Boys / Whitehead
Yes
38
The Great
Believers / Makkai
#64 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
39
Olive
Kitteridge / Strout
#74 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
40
The Kite
Runner / Hosseini
Yes
41
Life After
Life / Atkinson
#51 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
42
The Brief
Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao /Junot
#11 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
43
Between the
World and Me / Coates
#36 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
44
The Heaven
and Earth Grocery Store / McBride
Yes
45
There There /
Orange
Yes
46
The Song of
Achilles / Miller
Yes
47
Lessons in
Chemistry / Garmus
Yes
48
On Earth We’re
Briefly Gorgeous / Vuong
Yes
49
Gone Girl /
Flynn
Yes
50
James /
Everett
Yes
No.
Title /
Author
Comments
Read?
51
Caste / Wilkerson
No
52
The
Nightingale / Hannah
Yes
53
Trust / Diaz
#50 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
54
11/22/63 /
King
No
55
Braiding
Sweetgrass / Kimmerer
Yes
56
The Hunger
Games / Collins
Yes
57
Small Things
Like These / Keegan
#41 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
58
White Teeth /
Smith
#31 NYT Book
Review’s list
DNF
59
Where the Crawdads
Sing / Owens
Yes
60
The Dutch
House / Patchett
Yes
61
North Woods /
Mason
Yes
62
The
Sympathizer / Nguyen
#90 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
63
The Fifth
Season / Jemisin
#44 NYT Book
Review’s list
No
64
2666 / Bolano
#6 on NYT Book
Review’s list
No
65
Evicted /
Desmond
#21 NYT Book
Review’s list
No
66
Just Kids /
Smith
Yes
67
Piranesi /
Clarke
Yes
68
The Devil in
the White City / Larson
Yes
69
Killers of
the Flower Moon / Grann
Yes
70
Know My Name
/ Miller
No
71
Sing, Unburied,
Sing / Ward
#30 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
72
Crying in the
H Mart
Yes
73
Harry Potter
and the Deathly Hallows
Yes
74
Klara and the
Sun / Ishiguro
Yes
75
The Lincoln
Highway / Towles
Yes
No.
Title /
Author
Comments
Read?
76
Just Mercy /
Stevenson
Yes
77
Sapiens /
Harari
No
78
Kafka on the
Shore / Murakami
No
79
1Q84 /
Murakami
No
80
Deacon King
Kong / McBride
Yes
81
The Immortal
Life of Henrietta Lacks / Skloot
Yes
82
Tom Lake /
Patchett
Yes
83
Let the Great
World Spin / McCann
Yes
84
Tenth of
December / Saunders
#54 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
85
When Breath
Becomes Air / Kalanithi
Yes
86
Life of Pi /
Martel
Yes
87
Girl, Woman,
Other / Evaristo
No
88
The Plot
Against America / Roth
#65 NYT Book
Review’s list
Yes
89
The Glass
Castle / Walls
Yes
90
In the Dream
House / Machado
No
91
Project Hail
Mary / Weir
Yes
92
Drive Your
Plow Over the Bones of the Dead / Tokarczuk
No
93
Remarkably
Bright Creatures / Van Pelt
Yes
94
The Bee Sting
/ Murray
DNF
95
A Thousand Splendid
Suns / Hosseini
Yes
96
The Vanishing
Half / Bennett
Yes
97
My Year of
Rest and Relaxation / Moshfegh
No
98
Shuggie Bain
/ Stuart
No
99
Empire of
Pain / Keefe
No
100
A Man Called
Ove / Backman
Yes
My analysis and commentary:
After the Best Books of the 21st Century Book Review List was published in mid-July, I wrote a quick post highlighting the top 20 books . I also included images of the 36 books I've read from their top 100 list and another image of the books I'd like to read. At the time I was was pretty shocked by how many books on the list I'd never even heard of before, 29, since I am the kind of gal who pays attention to books and book lists. To my mind the best books of the century shouldn't be made up of books no one has read, even if they are well written. If you can't get through the paywall at the NYT to see their list, Deb Nance at Reader Buzz created a google doc of all 100 books. Find it here.
In my post I also identified a few book titles which I thought were shockingly absent in the Book Review list: The Lincoln HighwayorA Gentleman in Moscowby Amor Towles; All the Light We Cannot SeeorCloud Cuckoo Landby Anthony Doerr; Let the Great World Spinby Colum McCann; There Thereby Tommy Orange or La Roseby Louise Erdrich. Those were just a few titles I quickly thought of as I was typing up the post. All of them are fiction. I didn't even give pause at the time to reflect on nonfiction titles. I wish I had continued to pay attention to the NYT days following the publication of their Book Review list. If I had I would have noticed that they created a space for their readers to share their ten favorites. The list above is the product of the synthesis of readers suggestions. 39 titles are on both lists.
I thought the readers' picks are skewed a bit too heavy toward recent books, ignoring excellent books published at the beginning of the century, but after analyzing publication dates I found that both lists weren't that different. The Book Review list averaged a publication date in 2011 and the Readers' Picks in 2013. So both averages demonstrate that selections were made over the spectrum of the century so far. I am still skeptical about books which were published this year or last and questions their staying power. It seems to me readers may have just finished a book like James, which was published this year, liked it and so added it to their list of ten favorites. Only time will tell if a book has staying power.
So what did I like about the Readers' picks? Many of my favorite books published in this century made the list. In fact, I've read 78 81 of them and had another ten on my TBR. I was especially happy to see books by Amor Towles, Anthony Doerr, and Tommy Orange among the 100 favorites. I smiled to see three middle grade/YA titles: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Hunger Games, and The Book Thief. Leaving YA lit off the initial list was a big error. Think of what Harry Potter did for publishing in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. The Hunger Games spawned a whole new genre of futuristic dystopian YA novels. And The Book Thief is just wonderful, great literature. I like it that nonfiction books made both lists -- twenty-one on the first and seventeen on the second.
So what did I NOT like about the Readers' picks? For one thing, I think there were too many popular books without a lot of literary merit. Don't get me wrong. I love Lessons in Chemistry, Normal People, and Where the Crawdads Sing, I'm just not sure they are the best the century has to offer. Popular, yes. Literary umph, no. I was really glad to see some of my favorite authors made the list: Ann Patchett (3 books?!); Barbara Kingsolver (in the #1 spot, but what about her other books?); James McBride; and Abraham Verghese. But I still notice voids like no Louise Erdrich, Arundhati Roy, and Salman Rushdie. Also missing were works by these nonfiction writers: Timothy Egan (The Worst Hard Times); Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken); Elizabeth Kolbert (The Sixth Extinction); and Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat.) These books are so excellent it is hard to imagine how they could possibly be left off both lists. I bet readers like me when I was jotting off my last post on the subject, thought about their favorite novels, forgetting about the excellent examples of 21st century nonfiction titles.
Because I am nerd about book awards I thought I'd analyze the two lists for major award winners/finalists. Let's see how they match up:
Award
Book Review List
Readers’ Picks
Pulitzer
Prize or finalist
24
17
National Book
Award or on short list
14
11
Women’s Prize
(Orange Prize)
9
9
Booker Prize or
finalist
11
6
Nobel
3
0
Note: since there are 39 books in common on the two lists, these numbers aren't as dramatically different as I first suspected. Awards have changed names over the years and I may have inadvertently missed one or two, not knowing the previous name of an awards. I realized, as I was making this chart, how few fantasy/sci-fi/mystery titles are on the lists, but there was was one Hugo Award winner, and several Edgar Award winners or finalists. There were also a ton of other book awards represented, among them Goodreads Awards, which are purely based on popularity.
So what about you? What do you think of the various between the two lists? What books do you think are missing? How do you feel about book lists in general? Let's discuss. Leave your comments below and I will reply to your thoughts.
