by AlicetheKurious » Tue Apr 15, 2008 8:17 am
Over the past year, I have read many, many books (around a book a week), but these, in no particular order, stand out from the rest:
1) The Night of the First Billion, by Syrian author Ghada Samman: The setting is Geneva, Switzerland, at the time of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, where a diverse community of exiles from Lebanon are struggling to adapt and survive to their new lives, only to find that they themselves are carriers of the disease that has ravaged their homeland. I was fascinated by the story and characters, but, due to my unfortunate susceptibility to be emotionally affected by whatever I happen to be reading, I felt like a ticking bomb while reading it, it made me so angry.
2) The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood: loved it, loved the writing. It could be described as a feminist variation of Orwell's 1984, set in a dystopic United States, in which environmental pollution has resulted in widespread human infertility, so the elites, using Christian Fundamentalist ideology, designate certain women to be breeders, or "handmaids" in the sense that Hagar, Sarah's handmaid, was given to Abraham to bear his children. As the title suggests, this is the story of one such handmaid, and her gradual transformation into a secret rebel.
3) The Map of Love, by Ahdaf Soueif: A quintessentially Egyptian novel, a beautiful love story set against the political turbulence of the last century. The best thing about it is that although the author is an Egyptian woman, the novel was originally written in English. Thus it is a rare treat: an authentic Arabic novel, without the unavoidable awkwardness of a translated work.
4) Mezzaterra, by Ahdaf Soueif: Ok, I really like Ahdaf Soueif. This is a collection of non-fiction essays about being an Arab, a Muslim and a woman in the West.
5) The Vanished Man, by Jeffery Deaver: If you like detective novels, the 'Lincoln Rhyme' books are numero uno for sheer reading pleasure. Besides "The Vanished Man", "The Stone Monkey" is also excellent, but any Lincoln Rhyme story is superb. How good is Jeffery Deaver? Well, normally I avoid novels with Nazi characters, or set in Nazi Germany (done to death, too much risk of cliches & cardboard characters), but because he wrote it, I read "Garden of Beasts" and adored it.
6) The Wise Woman, by Philippa Gregory: The truly chilling story, set in the time of Henry VIII, of a young woman driven by revenge, lust and greed to unleash the dark forces of magic that had been suppressed within her, with tragic results.
7) The Hiram Key, by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas: A voyage to the origins of Judaism, Christianity and Masonism, via the scenic route. Although it's highly controversial, and some of its conclusions may be dubious, it's undoubtedly a great read, and certainly contains a lot of interesting facts, not to mention intelligent and fascinating speculation. I enjoyed it tremendously, as did everybody I've lent it to.
8 ) For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-rearing and the Roots of Violence, by Alice Miller: This book should be required reading for all parents and anyone who has dealings with children. Although it was written 25 years ago, its message is urgent and immediate, and perhaps even more relevant today than in 1983, when it was published. The author asks the question, "What causes evil in the world?" and answers it by examining case studies of sadistic murderers, and the forces that shaped them.
9) Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy, by Michael Collins Piper: An underground bestseller, and a meticulously documented argument that JFK was assassinated by a joint conspiracy of the Mossad and the highest levels of the CIA. Very interesting and very informative. The book and its author have been the target of a furious smear campaign characterized by all kinds of baseless accusations about what the book says, combined with efforts to make the book unavailable. The most interesting part of the book, for me, was the dissection of the global networks of organized crime, and how they merge with the apparatus of intelligence organizations like the Mossad and the CIA.
10) Black and Blue, by Anna Quindlen: This novel truly brought home to me the horror of being a battered wife and a mother at the same time. The heroine, Fran Benedetto, escapes her abusive husband, a cop, and tries to start a new life for herself with her son. Her physical scars eventually heal, but for herself and her son, that is the easy part. It's an absorbing psychological study, very disturbing, but does an excellent job of making the reader see the kind of complexities that can only really be seen through the eyes of the protagonist.
11) Thrown-Away Child, by Thomas Adcock: Just like "Black and Blue" makes the reader FEEL the reality of what it means to be a battered wife, this novel brought home to me, on a truly visceral level, what racism feels like. Told in the form of a murder mystery set in New Orleans, this novel truly transcends the genre, painting a grim picture of the combination of obvious and subtle forces that combine to dehumanize Black young men.
12) Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon: For pure escapist reading pleasure, nothing beats this novel. This is the reading equivalent of delicious, decadent comfort food. It's got everything: fantasy, magic, romance, thrills and chills, fascinating historical details, and everything else. It's big, but it reads itself.
"If you're not careful the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X
