***Best Reads 2nd Quarter 2010 (April - June)

Just warming everyone up for our 2nd 2010 quarterly reports:-) Two weeks left to see if a really great book will bump another off your preliminary list (which I know you are making in your head right now!)

Your lists from Quarter 1 are here.

So, of the books you read in the months of April, May and June; which were your very best reads?

Since I can't imagine that I will finish my "tome read" before the end of the month, I will post my list now.

**Touch by Adania Shibli (Palestinian, T 2010) short impressionist vignettes told from the viewpoint of a very young girl living on the West Bank.
**Deep Hollow Creek by Sheila Watson (Canadian, 1992, originally written circa 1938) A young teacher comes from the city to a mountain community in British Columbia and is changed by the experience. Vivid sense of people & place.
**A Taste of Honey: Stories by Jabari Asim (US, 2010) Connected stories laced with humor and affection yet very thoughtful (and often riveting).
**The Last Summer of Reason by Tahar Djaout (Algerian, T. 2007) Profoundly sad tale of one bookstore owner who holds out against the forces of extremism.

I can't imagine a book is going to come along in two weeks to upset this list, but one never knows.

OK, how to do this...

Swann's Way - I'm only 240 pages in, but wow...in the long drawn out breath sort of wow. I'm thinking this is best thing I've ever read.
Infinite Jest - a very different kind of mind drenching thing.

...

OK, I've read some other great books and I should add them, but something won't let me put them in the same post. These two, they just loom so large...I didn't realize what snobbery was inside me.

Might as well come up with my list since I really don't think I finish anything I have going at the moment before the end of June:

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, nature writing at its best and sense I have a serious obsession with the natural world, this one really had a profound impact

The Seashell on the Mountaintop by Alan Cutler, A very well done early history of the science I love and biography of a fascinating individual.

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, while I didn't care for the fictional story as much as others, the history of philosophy more than made up for it. I learned a ton from this book that I think will influence how I read other semi-philosophical books in the future.

I liked most of my other reads from the second quarter as well but I think these are by far the best for me.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell will, I think, end up being one of the very best books read this year, but there were a few more memorable books;

Icefields by Thomas Wharton for atmosphere, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters for twists and turns along a Dickensian tale, When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson for a beautiful way with words and a talent for throwing up a great tangle of threads and sorting them into something interesting and Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky for rising above the hype--this book doesn't need the author's tragic history to make it a meaningful and astonishing book.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet will definitely make my list for the quarter and year, as will The Plague (as a re-read) and The Siege of Krishnapur. I'm planning to read Troubles later this month, and I'm pretty sure that will make the list, since it's supposed to be better than The Siege of Krishnapur. A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor by John Berger will be a nonfiction choice, as will Medicine in Translation: Journeys with My Patients by Danielle Ofri. My current read, The World Is What it Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul by David French, is also a good possibility for the list.

I'll finalize my choices at the end of the month.

Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum (ok this is a cheat since I read it in April, but I didn't post it in the last thread) - story of nine people's lives from Betsy through Katrina
Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire by Robert Perkinson - history of Texas's prison system and how it came to be the model for most in the US
Mariette in Ecstacy by Ron Hansen - really lovely story about a (possibly) receiving the stigmata and it's effects on the convent
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson - Good epic fantasy

Not going to be anything better by the end of the month.

dchaiken, how about putting the rest in another post?

Mine are:

Middlemarch
Daniel Deronda
Cloud Atlas
The wind-up bird chronicle.

And Middlemarch has the crowning glory of not only being my best read for the quarter, but actually the best novel I have ever read. Ever.

Strangely, although I felt I didn't have a good reading quarter, when I look back I see a lot of excellent books. It's just that I read a couple of duds too.

For fiction, I really enjoyed The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa, The Violins of Saint-Jacques by Patrick Leigh Fermor, Skylark by Dezső Kosztolányi, and The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah. I'm not sure, though, whether any of these will make it to my best of the year list. I am hoping to finish my first tome of the summer, Terra Nostra this month (but probably won't; it is a remarkable book, but I'm not sure what to make of it.

Nonfiction really takes the prize for this quarter. Ngugi wa Thiong'o's memoir, Dreams in a Time of War, Charles Bowden's remarkable portrayal of Ciudad Juarez in Murder City, and Mary-Kay Wilmers's exploration of her fascinating family and their varied roles in the history of the 20th century, The Eitingons all make my best-of-the quarter list and all have a shot at best of the year. I also really enjoyed Ben Macintyre's Operation Mincemeat.

This probably won't change much unless I mix some short reads in with my tome.

Generosity
Logicomix NF
Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species - (the graphic synopsis) NF
The Hunger Games and Catching Fire YA Fict
Blonde Faith - this HAS to be the last Easy Rawlins detective story unless we get a Sherlock Holmes like resurrection.
were all books i enjoyed v. much.

The Routes of Man on the roads that are reshaping today's world was fascinating and fun, if not esp. well written. (non-fict)

4 of my top 5 famous/renouned - I finally read them and heartily agree! I won't explain them as I'm sure everyone's read them or heard so much about them already.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi - my first graphic novel ever!
The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman - second graphic novel!
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose
This book got 5 stars because I was completly engrossed from start to finish. I think I read it in one day flat. I enjoyed it so much because:
1. I work at a university
2. It's not been too long since I myself lived in university acommodation for a total of three years, one of them as an RA myself.
3. I am agnostic leaning towards atheism (maybe both) but I have a huge respect and fascination for religions and their history.

For ChocolateMuse (post #8) :)

I only read four other books in this quarter, but they were all good:

fiction:
Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - as re-read, this was more interesting the second time, but didn't linger as much as the first time I read it. I'm not sure what that means in terms of "best"
Small Island by Andrea Levy - borderline here. It's good stuff, but in the shadow of IJ it just didn't sink in very deeply. I'm stalled on how to review this (it was an Early Reviewer).

Poetry:
The Skin of Light by Larry D. Thomas - I'm very biased, but I adored this collection. It hit me harder than any of the three above.

ETA touchstones - they were there, now they are gone...maybe they'll come back upon submit ??

>11 kiwiflowa:: Now, that is an excellent list of books! If I remember right, I think The Unlikely Disciple was on my best list for last quarter, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is definitely going to be on my list this time.

I'm holding off until the end of the month to commit to making one, though.

>13 bragan: Yes there is something to be said for reading books "I've always meant to". There's this quote that I love:

"In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which are frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you...And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. "
— Italo Calvino (If on a Winter's Night a Traveler)

>12 dchaikin: ah, yes, that was worth posting. :)

I've followed your comments on same on your thread as well, only I don't remember you talking about the poetry. You seem to be the only person on LT who owns it?!

>14 kiwiflowa: what a marvellous quote. I think I've seen it before somewhere, but it's great.

Kiwiflowa . . . I copied that into my reading journal when I read If On a Winter's Night a Traveler. Isn't it just great? (And you have made me realize that I need my own personal copy of that book--I had borrowed it from the library when I read it).

I'll have read at least 40 books this quarter, and 20% of 40 is 8, so these are my top 8 books of the quarter:

Troubles by J.G. Farrell
The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
The Plague by Albert Camus
A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor by John Berger
Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Medicine in Translation: Journeys with My Patients by Danielle Ofri
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor

Unless I manage to read something else in the next few days, which is doubtful, my standout reads for this quarter are:

Burnt Shadows - Kamila Shamsie
The Rehearsal - Eleanor Catton

My best books this quarter:

Stoner - John Williams
A Dark Stranger - Julien Gracq
The Rehearsal Eleanor Catton
Wish Her Safe at Home by Stephen Benatar
After the Workshop - John McNally - not an A-list novel but hysterically funny, at least for those of us who have a novel we're waiting to write.
The Woman of the Pharisees by François Mauriac

I feel like I have had a really good reading quarter.

Probably won't have any changes:

1. Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

2. Stealing Fire by Jo Graham

3. This Must be the Place by Anna Winger

4. The Shadow Pavilion by Liz Williams

5. Things Unborn by Eugene Byrne

6. New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear

2nd quarter stars:

Sonata Mulaticca by Rita Dove
The Wedding by Dorothy West
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
The Line by Olga Grushin
The Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble
In Parenthesis by David Jones

#15: ChocolateMuse - I have this impression that there's a whole world of poetry out there that almost no one seems to own. But, in regards to Larry Thomas, I have several of his works and I'm the only person on LT with three (including Skin of Light). His most "popular" works on LT have four copies entered. Comments on my thread will be forthcoming... I think.

Not really an exciting quarter for moi:

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
the Probable Future, Alice Hoffman

and I read some good non-fiction books too. It's hard to know which ones have lasting impact.

I really loved some of my books this quarter, in the order they were read:

Nonfiction:

By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives by Judith Tannenbaum and Spoon Jackson
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, audiobook

Fiction:
Wit: A Play by Margaret Edson
The Murderer's Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood audiobook

and my favorite of the quarter:

The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3: Subversive Stories about Sex and Gender edited by Karen Joy Fowler

It doesn't seem that we share many favorites this quarter.

Joyce - Oh, I read Cat's Eye too, and considered adding it to my list. I was a bit disappointed with it when I read it, but in retrospect it was actually very good.

These are my favorite five books from the second quarter of 2010.

The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest
The Forge of Christendom
Beyond Totalitarianism
The Age of Wonder
Rebecca
Notes From the Underground

I was happy enough in the reading of all of them, and am very happy with what they have left with me. But the ones I got really excited about were the last two thirds of Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy.

I think that I have had better quarters.

Robert

Well, since I doubt I'm going to finish my current book before the end of June (in about twelve hours), and since I'm pretty sure by now it wouldn't make the list anyway, here's mine:

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The World Inside by Robert Silverberg
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

And, just for sheer fun value, The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis

Started in the Middle Ages with 2 books by Sharon Kay Penman (I had already read the 1sr book in her Eleanor of Aquataine series)

Time and Chance
The Devil's Brood

non-fiction The Looming Tower, Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/ll bLawrence Wright

2 poetry books
Edna St. Vincent Millay, selected poems
Robert Frost, In the Clearing

Here are five:

Day for Night by Frederick Reiken -- coincidences and connections lead people to meet and interact; Holocaust subplot

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman -- linked stories about an international English-language newspaper in Rome and its employees

Maus II by Art Spiegelman -- Holocaust memoir and father/son memoir told in graphic-novel format

Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern -- hilarious and poignant father/son stories and quotes

Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So by Mark Vonnegut -- stories about childhood (before his father Kurt was famous), medical school, medical missions, pediatrics practice, and psychosis

The town that food saved by Ben Hewitt. Discusses the "locavore" movement and how it has impacted one small town in Vermont. It's not really the greatest book I ever read (the author can be kind of a wise guy), but if the point was to motivate its readers, I guess it worked. I've emerged from my torpor enough to start putting in some time at the local food co-op.

Just finished The Princess Bride. Can I add that to my list?

>27 bragan: Is that Silverberg the one where the story is all in one building with different neighborhoods on different floors (it's been ages since I read it, and it's a bit vague...)

>31 dchaikin: Only if you quote from it!

>32 avaland:: Yes, that's the one. Well, technically the neighborhoods were multiple blocks of floors, and some of the story did take place outside the building. But that's definitely it. I was very impressed by it; I don't normally expect that kind of SF to hold up that well a few decades later.

#32 Lois - :)...sure, but the books at home and I'm at work, so later on.

I only have two books on my favorites list for this quarter, but they're big ones:

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth

Definitely two of my favorite reads of all time, Medellia!

>35 Medellia:: Medellia,

I'd love to read your review of A Suitable Boy.

avaland & dchaikin:

'Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.' Love that quote!

Lois - As you wish... (that line was a bit late in coming, no?)

"You keep using that word!" the Spaniard snapped. "I don't think it means what you think it does." (for anyone, if this doesn't ring bell, then you have a gaping hole in your cultural literacy. I expect you to immediately go search this movie out and watch it.)

"But you wouldn't have ever known I was going to kill you if I hadn't been the one to tell you. Doesn't that let you know I can be trusted?"

Look. I'm not about to tell you this book has a tragic ending, I already said in the very first line how it was my favorite in all the world. But there's a lot of bad stuff coming up, torture you've already been prepared for, but there's worse. There's death coming up, and you better understand this: some of the wrong people die. Be ready for it. This isn't Curious George Uses the Potty. Nobody warned me and it was my own fault (you'll see what I mean in a little) and that was my mistake, so I'm not letting it happen to you. The wrong people die, some of them, and the reason is this: life is not fair. Forget all the garbage your parents put out. Remember Morgenstern. You'll be a lot happier.

'Who kills Prince Humperdinck? At the end, somebody's got to get him. Is it Fezzik? who?'
'Nobody Kills him. He lives.'
'You mean he wins, Daddy? Jesus, what did you read me this thing for?'

'I'm not a witch, I'm your wife."

"Don't pester him so many questions. Take it easy; he's been dead."

>39 dchaikin: Bravo! (btw, "As You Wish" is on the inside of my wedding band, bet you're now wondering what's on the inside of his...)

While I am tempted to respond in kind, I will refrain from further diverting this thread from its original purpose.

I'll add two terrific graphic books:
1. exit wounds love and families in a state of conflict
2. the photographer:Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors without Borders The title says it all - a documentary photographer accompanies a MSF mission into hill country during the Soviet invasion. Harrowing and very moving. Words, drawings and photos.

After long consideration, I have to conclude that the best book in Q2 for me was Infinite Jest. In spite of having read some Dostoevsky masterpieces, as most of them were rereads, I have decided they do not count.