2017 Year in Review

In 2017 I read 67 books, or 24,127 pages . This is an increase over last year when I read 57 books, or 18,395 pages. I continue to listen to audio books as I train for half-marathons and I recently changed jobs requiring a longer commute, and therefore, more time with my audiobooks. Considering I spent almost 80 hours this fall listening to a podcast rather than books (seriously The Adventure Zone was sooooo good), this number could have been even higher. All the reviews this year on the blog were my own fresh from 2017. I had been hoping to feature guest blogs last year and that just did NOT come together, so maybe 2018 is my year. A lot of this year felt like keeping my head down in a book and trying to find some escape from the very volatile political climate in our country. 2017 was the year I quit Facebook! My average book rating this year was 3.7 meaning that the books I read were more good than bad.

Longest Book: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. At 771 pages this book clocked in as my heftiest book of the year. But I loved every freaking page of it. Donna Tartt's writing is so crisp, so fantastic that it's also my BEST book of the year. See below. 

Best Book: The Goldfinch by  Donna Tartt. Holy moly, I felt like I was reading this for a long time, but I just never got bored with it, even when in depth descriptions were made of a bird painting. Donna Tartt's writing is something I cannot get enough of. I read The Secret History later this year and loved it as well. Down to the disturbing details and the dense history of the characters she presents, the Goldfinch is a masterpiece through and through.

You can read the review here.

Shortest Book: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander (J.K. Rowling). I watched the movie on a plane this year, travelling from the west coast on an overnight flight during which I was too cold to sleep. Red-eyes are very very dumb y'all. So naturally I had to read the screenplay when it came out and then had to catch up on this little tome to add to my Beetle the Bards and the History of Quidditch (which my 5 year old has taken to walking around the house with despite his never reading it and knowing nothing about the Harry Potter books or movies). It was short, quick, cute, and a nice dip into the Harry Potter world.

I didn't even write a review for this but you can read the review  of the screenplay here.

Best Character: Kolya from City of Thieves. I really loved City of Thieves. It was such a great story of two young men during the siege of Leningrad. Zig zagging it's way from heartbreaking to hilarious, Kolya made the story for me and for the other main protagonist, Lev Beniov. Kolya reminded me of my best friend from high school, with just a little extra macabre charm.

You can read the review here.

Worst Book: Blood Work by Michael Connelly. This was hard to decide. Last year I read some really really bad books. And this year I had so few one or two star reviews - but a lot of threes. This was a straight two. Connelly really missed the mark here. The love story was very smarmy and unrealistic. Overly dramatic and equally unbelievable, the story is somehow made worse by the terrible movie made with Clint Eastwood. Please do yourself a favor and skip it.

You can read the review here.

Biggest Disappointment: The Book of Harlan by Bernice McFadden. I made a commitment to read a book by an African American author for Black History Month. Bernice McFadden has been so well lauded for her earlier work that I had high expectations for this book about her direct ancestor who was a jazz performer and had to spend time in a Nazi concentration camp. Somehow, unbelievably, the book focuses very little on this time and instead delves into the various ancestry of McFadden and the possible descendants of her familial line. I can see why the author was more interested in how her own history was created, but the story, the line of interest was definitely more with an accidental victim of the nazi violence than with the every day struggles of a single mom in New York who we never get to meet too clearly.

You can read the review here.






Worst Character: Claire Roth, The Art Forger. Oh god. Claire. She was so so dumb. And so easily manipulated. And so defined by her past relationships with more powerful or influential men. Ick. The book ultimately was interesting, but Claire was just so so terrible.

You can read the review here.

Honorable Mentions:  Cutting for Stone. I really really loved this book. I love stories of siblings and this one of identical twins, born of a secret love between a nun and an English doctor was so moving and touching and just well everything. I really can't say enough good things about this book.

You can read the review here.

Goals for 2018: I've set my goal of 60 books for this year. I know it is doable since I blew that away in 2017. I'll be training for another half marathon soon so I'll have the time to listen. 60 books is slightly more than a book a week and I know I'll get my Ploughshares love in four times this year.

Will George RR Martin get around to publishing Winds of Winter (signs are pointing to yes!- check out this update), I'm not counting on it (I was similarly disappointed last year and even wrote that EXACT SAME SENTENCE in last year's review - AND the year before that) or I would have set the goal at 52. But if it ruins my reading goal for the year, I'd be okay with that.

Ploughshares Solos Omnibus Volue 5

This will likely be the last book I finish for 2017 and it's a fitting end to this weird tumultuous year. Nine stories that take you so completely out of your element and make things seem upside down but normal at the same time. Solos Omnibus #5 was a really great way to experience multiple places and time in one short volume.

Face the Music by Michael Lowenthal - This excellent story of a jazz music student learning under the visiting professor tutelage of Sun Ra was sort of a musical coming of age story. Wherein the student realizes that all the notes he'll ever learn of jazz won't make a difference when it comes to actually playing jazz. Sun Ra forces the students to look at music, not academically, but intrinsically. In the end, the student recognizes his own limitations, and therefore, Sun Ra's genius. 

Koppargruva by Hugh Coyle - Before Nobel was the name of a prize given out in Sweden, it was the name of a man, an inventor, whose work in dynamite and nitroglycerin helped revolutionize the mining industry. This short selection of a book in progress (which I am looking forward to purchasing and devouring upon release), tells the story of Nobel's travels to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and his attempts to sell his products and his innocence in the death of his brother and several other miners in Sweden. 

Footing Slow: A Walk with Keats by Eli Payne Mandel - Keats was an English poet who was underappreciated while he lived, died young, and then became an integral part of the English literary fabric. In this story, Mandel attempts to recreate the walk across England and Scotland attempted by Keats towards the end of the 19th Century. Ultimately neither Mandel or Keats could complete their planned trips and while their experiences varied widely, the telling of the attempt was very satisfying.

A History of China by Carolyn Ferrell - A young woman tells the story of her German mother and GI father who tried, and failed to make their love work under the cruel light of a pre-civil rights movement America and the other inherent challenges that come when your vision of something does not match the reality and your shame in failing to make the vision happens manifests itself in many ways. For the young narrator, her large family and all of their complicated relationships with her father bleed out into her own actions. 

The Girl Who Lied by Uche Okonkwo - A tale of young girls at a private boarding school. The wealthy, interesting Kemi tries everything to get back home and to be shown love and concern by her absentee parents. Meanwhile the narrator feels shame at her own family's humble means. A real grass is greener scenario with a little bit of self awareness to make the tale satisfying. 

Bones by Lisa Horiuchi - A retired white collar worker decides his life needs more excitement and so he travels to Belize to try to find the bones of "the missing link" in evolution. He's stymied by a language barrier, government uprisings, and porous national borders. He's not even sure why he's interested in the bones in the first place except that he wants to see them. 

The Critic by Timothy Parrish - This story felt just a little bit too long for me, but was a very interesting tale of a critic obsessed with Bob Dylan who he refers to as "the Twerp." The critic and the musician circle around each other for years as the 60s come and go and the critic feels like the best good times have passed. He's probably right, the music of the 60s is iconic and informs most of what we hear today. But would we feel that way if a critic hadn't been there to point it out? 

Girl of Few Seasons by Rachel Kondo - This sad tale of a poor Maui family centers on a brother and sister, Ebo and Momo, who raise pigeons together until Momo is injured and has to be moved to Honolulu for care at a state run facility. Her brother, desperate to see her after nine years apart, enlists in the US Army in order to have one visit with her. It's a take on island life I've thought little about and made me realize I know embarrassingly little of the demographics on the Hawaiian islands. 

and Finally Kaat by Edward Hamlin - A Flemish woman and her American lover live in Paris. The women are forging ahead in their relationship until a motorcycle accident calls into question the commitment of the American. Nothing is certain and decisions are made on conjecture. It's a bit melancholy actually. 

The entire set of stories were well written and interesting. I liked being transported for a time out of our current news cycles and into these mini-worlds filled with people still going about their experiences with eyes wide open.

4/5 Stars. 

Orange is the New Black - Piper Kerman

This book was all around excellent. I had heard of the TV show (I have eyeballs and access to the internet, so...) and was vaguely aware that it was based on a book. I'm glad I chose this one. There wasn't quite enough detail on her trial for the law nerd in me, but that's not the point of Orange is the New Black.

This very well done memoir of Piper Kerman, who follows her girlfriend to Indonesia in a slightly naive pursuit of "adventure" and ends up ferrying money for illicit drugs through US airports. She gets out of the game and moves on with her life but the incredibly slow wheels of the US justice system eventually catch up to her and she is sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. Due to some delays, she doesn't actually start her sentence until 10 years after her crimes. 

Sentenced to Danbury (sorry this was audio, I don't know how to spell anything) minimum security, Piper puts up with the monotony and doldrums that make up prison life. The hardest thing to deal with would definitely be the day to day nonsensical BS that comes with a large federal program. Piper seems to make friends along the way and serves her time without going too crazy.

This memoir is extremely well written and avoided cliches and hyperbole. It's not hard to guess why it has been so well received. 

5/5 Stars. 

Thunderstruck - Erik Larson

First things first, Erik Larson knows how to research an issue. Sometimes you forget that these things in his books happened to real people. Like Deadwake (you can read that review here), Thunderstruck involves ships and transatlantic crossings. But the similarities really end there.

Thunderstruck follows the progress of two seemingly unconnected events. First, the development of wireless telegraphy by inventor Guglielmo Marconi and the turbulent marriage of Hawley Harvey Crippen and Cora Crippen. 

As Marconi races against critics and arrogant scientists to achieve wireless transmissions across the Atlantic, Crippen and Cora move from New York to London to pursue Crippen's career in homeopathy and mail order pharmaceuticals. Cora, unable to accept her lack of talent, spends copious amounts of her husband's money in pursuing Opera and then local cabaret gigs to little result. She is presented as domineering and belittling of her husband, engaged in extramarital flirtations and affairs. Crippen, small and meek finally takes up with his secretary. And, well, then Cora goes missing, Crippen gets on a Marconi equipped vessel, and the gory remains of a body are found in his basement. 

Crippen and his secretary are pursued through wireless technology over the Atlantic Ocean and arrive, unwittingly, to be delivered in to the hands of the authorities, while a rapt public follows their 11 day journey through news reports made possible by the Marconi technology, thus cementing the use of Marconi's system into the hearts and minds of the once skeptical public. 

Thoroughly researched and well written, Larson does not disappoint.

4/5 Stars. 

The Kind Worth Killing - Peter Swanson

I was so annoyed with the unlike-ability of the main characters through the first 1/4 of The Kind Worth Killing I was wondering why my good friend had recommended this book. But then something happened that I did not expect and well... I ended up being very entertained and surprised by this book. 

The book starts with Lilly and Ted meeting in an airport bar and having a conversation during which Ted admits that his wife is having an affair and he offhandedly remarks that he's thinking of killing her. Instead of laughing, Lilly basically says, "I'd like to help you with that." The two plot and scheme through the next few chapters as we get varying viewpoints of Ted and his growing obsession with Lilly and Lilly with her backstory of a lonely childhood with aloof and irresponsible parents. 

I really can't say more because it would be giving a lot away and honestly being surprised by this book was the best part. Sort of like a Gone Girl feeling. Not quite as well written as a Gillian Flynn book, but well done nonetheless.

4/5 Stars. 

The Heist - Daniel Silva

These Gabriel Allon books continue to deliver. The Heist was a bit slower than the last installment as I thought the two distinct story lines were a bit too far apart, but I really love Silva's ability to weave together history, art, and current events. 

The Heist begins with Gabriel in a church restoring an altarpiece. It's a wonderful shake back to those first Allon novels which found him doing the same thing. He's living in Venice, now with a pregnant Chiara and you can feel like, although he's back in this space, it's more of a last goodbye as he contemplates becoming Chief of The Office. 

But it seems his friends just can't stay out of trouble. His friend Julian Isherwood has stumbled on a dead body and of course Gabriel is asked by his friend in the Art Squad to take a look on behalf of the Italian Carabinieri. Gabriel discovers that the dead man was actually a stolen art dealer. Gabriel is asked to follow the trail of stolen art to find a missing Caravaggio, the Art Squad's number one target. 

What Gabriel discovers is that Bashar Al-Asad, the Syrian president, has been commissioning art thefts in order to create portable wealth should his regime topple. Not satisfied with a few recovered paintings, Gabriel uncovers a vast network of wealth tied to "Evil Incorporated." To infiltrate the network, Gabriel must call upon a female bank manager - a child of Syria and herself a victim of the regime. 

And of course he needs his team and some things don't go according to plan. The stakes don't seem too high for Gabriel in this one, we're not ever worried for his personal safety, but it is interesting seeing him undertake an operation with the understanding that the entire show will soon be his responsibility. He's going to be a father soon after all.

3.75/5 Stars.