Top Ten Books of 2007

In the coming weeks I will bring you a shitload of lists, starting with my top ten books of the year, top 15 cds, top 10 tv shows, top 10 politicians, top 10 films, and ending with my top 100 songs. This first list of books are not necessarily ones that came out in 2007 (although some did, I think), but rather just all books I've read this year. Too much free time? Thought so.

10. The Wonder Spot - Melissa Bank
336 pages

"Up until that moment, I'd been at the earliest stage of love, when you feel it will turn you into the person you want to be. Now, his gentle voice and sage advice took me to a later stage: I felt I needed to pretend to be a better person than I was so he'd keep loving me. This was hard because it made me hate him."

Prepare yourself to fall in love with Sophie Applebaum (if for no other reason than you see some reflection of your life in her, even if you're a dude). And, even better, prepare yourself for a novel by a female author that transcends the "girl chases boy but ends up being a better person theme" that, while amusing for a once-in-a-while read, is an overused theme that begs for its own retirement. I’ve read that author Melissa Bank dislikes the term "chic lit" because it suggests a narrow appeal to a specific female demographic. While I do not necessarily agree with her characterization, kudos to her for penning a novel that doesn’t deserve to be shelved in any specific category but should stand on its own as a beautifully written and enjoying read from start to finish.

Sophie Applebaum is a seemingly ordinary, quirky young girl from Philadelphia who grows up with her share of life’s challenges, most of which are not any more or less exciting than those of the average person. She attends school, begrudgingly attends certain after-school activities, establishes and outgrows friendships, argues with but loves her parents and siblings, works to establish a career, and falls in and out of love. Melissa Bank turns the ordinary trials of a young girl throughout many years of her life into a funny, sarcastic commentary on relationships. Not to mention one of the chapters in this book is probably the funniest thing I've read all year.


9. The Mysteries of Pittstburgh - Michael Chabon
320 pages
"This casual revelation of having slept with Mohammad after the incident at the party was so complex, so wondrous, that it left me simultaneously relieved, curious, confused, nauseated, and admiring."

Michael Chabon writes beautifully and the Mysteries of Pittsburgh, written when he was only 23, is a witty and captivating novel about youth. Set in Pittsburgh, Art Bechstein has just finished college and has the whole summer stretching out before him. He embarks on a series of adventures; pranks and parties, escapades and hangovers with his new group of friends. Unsure of his sexuality, he bounces back and forth between his beautiful and exotic girlfriend Phlox who works at the library and his gay friend Arthur, trying to decide which way he should go. This book is great and ballsy read which captures all the fun, uncertainty and recklessness of youth.


8. Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult
465 pages "By the time you read this, I hope to be dead. You can't undo something that's happened; you can't take back a word that's already been said out loud. You'll think about me and wish that you had been able to talk me out of this. You'll try to figure out what would have been the one right thing to say or do. I guess I should tell you, dont blame yourself; this isnt your fault, but that would be a lie. We both know that I didn't get here by myself. You'll cry at my funeral. You'll say it didnt have to be this way. You will act like everyone expects you to. But will you miss me? More importantly- will I miss you? Does either one of us really want to hear the answer to that question?"

This is a long book that takes a little while to develop. In the opening sequence of Nineteen Minutes, a detective rushes into a high school in the midst of a Columbine-style shooting, directing terrified students toward the exits. The last scared, shaking 17-year-old he rescues turns out to be the killer -- a killer indistinguishable from his victims. This is the moment when any chance for a simple good guy/bad guy crime narrative evaporates. Instead, the way opens for Jodi Picoult, a writer of psychological and ethical dramas, to probe how the explosions of violence we call "asocial" and "abnormal" can stem from the "normal" socialization of boys.
We meet the shooter, Peter, as a child. He is a sweet, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly kind of boy, a lightning rod for bullying. Teachers and parents tell him that he needs to stick up for himself, underscoring the problematic lessons he is already learning from his tormentors: Proper masculinity entails violence; kindness is a weakness to be punished.


7. The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
288 pages
"I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster. It was just afer dark. A blustery March wind whipped the steam coming out of the manholes, and people hurried along the sidewalks with their collars turned up. I was stuck in traffic two blocks from the party I was heading."

The Glass Castle is a memoir of Jeanette Walls. Growing up with parents whose ideals and nonconformity were both their four children's curse and salvation. In the beginning, Rex & Rose Mary Walls and their children, lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts, tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.


6. Special Topic in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
528 pages
"Dad always said a person must have a magnificent reason for writing out his or her Life Story and expecting anyone to read it. Before I tell you about Hannah Schneiders death. I'll tell you about my mother's" 'It had been almost a year since I’d found Hannah dead, and I thought I’d managed to erase all traces of that night within myself. I was wrong.'

This book is not about physics. When I was reading this book, people were all like "wow you are smart." I'm like "no, its not about physics." Special Topics in Calamity Physics is an awesome debut. As teenager Blue van Meer tells her story we are hurled into a dizzying world of murder and butterflies, womanizing and thinking, American Culture, political radicalism and juvenile crushes. Structured around a literal syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class (with hand-drawn Visual Aids), Blue’s wickedly funny yet poignant tale reveals how the imagination finds meaning in the most bewildering times, the ways people of all ages strive for connection, and how the darkest of secrets can ultimately free us.

Basically, if my smart friends wrote a book (you know who you are, the ones I analyze life with) wrote a book, it would be modeled after this.


5. The Tenth Circle - Jodi Picoult
416 pages
"This is how it feels when your child is missing: The pit of your stomach freezes fast, while your legs go to jelly. Theres one single blue bass thud of your heart. The shape of her name, sharp as metal filings, gets caught between your teeth even as your try to force it out in a shout. Fear breathes like a monster into your ear: Where did I see her last? Would she have wandered away? Who could have taken her? And then, finally, your throat seals shut, as you swallow the fact that you've made a mistake you will never be able to fix"

This book litereally made me gasp out loud. Honest to God, I was sitting on my couch and I said, out loud "Oh my God." A few times actually. The Tenth Circle tells the story of Daniel Stone, a successful graphic artist grappling with the fact that his beloved daughter, Trixie, is becoming a teenager. Reinventing himself years later as a work-at-home dad devoted to his only daughter, he's trying to improve a troubled marriage to his wife Laura, a Classics scholar, and is working on a graphic novel where his hero - a father - travels through Dante's Inferno to save his daughter, quite literally, from Hell. When Trixie comes home one night and tells her father that she was date raped at a party, the life he's created for himself slowly begins to come apart. It's a story that asks whether or not it's actually possible to reinvent yourself and whether or not we ever truly lose the people we once were. It's a story about what attracts and repels us in others. And ultimately, it's a story about the bonds between parents and children.


4. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling
784 pages
Do I really need to say anything about this book? Everyone knows what Harry Potter is. HE DIES AT THE END! I'm kidding. He really doesn't


3. Heaven Lake - John Dalton
464 pages
"He was up by four AM, such was his eagerness, and less than an hour later installed on a predawn, air-conditioned express train that hurried south from Taipei through long-drawn neighborhoods of shuttered storefrotns and faintly glimmering apartment houses. What little there was to see had to be viewed through a pall of damp, grainy fog. A few slumped figures were pushing carts or refuse through the alleyways. Flocks of ragged black pigeons settled on a metal boughs of nearby utility towers. And yet for Vincent every dark or shadowed figure of the landscape held a private luster that seemed, in some contrary way, hopeful, auspicious."

Recent college graduate Vincent Saunders leaves his small Illinois town to serve as a missionary in Taiwan. He ends up rooming with a Scot with a fondness for both smuggling and smoking weed. Vincent's troubles begin when he moves to his own rent-free ministry house in the small town of Toulio. For extra cash, he teaches English to small groups, including a class of high school girls; his brief, guilt-ridden affair with one student leads to his brutal beating, and the need for his immediate departure. Consequently, Vincent takes up the offer of the wealthy Mr. Gwa to travel to the mainland, marry Kai-Ling, the young girl he covets, return with her to Taiwan, and then divorce her, leaving Gwa free to marry her himself. Travel restrictions prevent Gwa from carrying out his dream, and he is willing to pay Vincent $10,000 to do it for him.

Vincent sets out on a half-year odyssey to the northwest corner of China—a journey proving to be as personally fulfilling as it is culturally and geographically edifying. He endures countless delays and endless train rides, but gradually realizes this adventure might actually become "the one exceptional undertaking of his life." He begins to soak in every detail, from the vast tenements of Lanzhou to the indescribable beauty of Heaven Lake.


2. Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
352 pages
"I wanted to explore one aspect of myself set against the backdrop of each country, in a place that has traditionally done that one thing very well. I wanted to explore the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India and, in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two."

At the age of thirty-one, Gilbert moved with her husband to the suburbs of New York and began trying to get pregnant, only to realize that she wanted neither a child nor a husband. Three years later, after a prolonged and painful divorce, she embarked on a yearlong trip of recovery, with three main stops: Rome, for pleasure (mostly for food); an place of worship outside of Mumbai, India for spiritual searching; and Bali, for "balancing." These destinations are all on the beaten track, but Gilbert's exuberance and her self-deprecating humor make his book fantastic: recalling the first time she attempted to speak directly to God, she says, "It was all I could do to stop myself from saying, 'I've always been a big fan of your work.'"


1. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
400 pages
"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking int the alley near the froze creek. That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years."

We first meet our narrator, Amir, married and living happily in San Francisco, as he remembers with sadness the Afghanistan of his childhood. Amir, was born into a privileged Pashtun family living in comfort in the last years of the Afghan monarchy. His mother died during his birth, leaving Amir striving constantly to find affection from his stern and aloof father. His best friend, Hassan, was the son of the family servant and lived in a small hut at the back of their garden. Hassan, an ethnic Hazara was despised and oppressed by the aristocratic and powerful Pashtuns.

Despite the difference in their social positions, Amir and Hassan grew up as inseparable friends, only ever apart while Amir is at his school and Hassan must stay at home to complete his servant tasks. Signs of the fragility of their friendship begin to creep in - Amir taunts Hassan over his illiteracy while Hassan remains the ever faithful companion.Kabul's most popular sport is kite battling and Amir is desperate to win in order to gain his father's affection. Hassan is the best kite runner in all of Kabul - the kite runner runs to retrieve the fallen kite after it's string has been cut. After winning Kabul's largest kite tournament, Hassan is brutally beaten and raped by a group of Pashtun teenagers and Amir's cowardly failure to defend his friend, creates a bitter rift in their friendship. Russian troops invade Afghanistan shortly after, and Amir and his father seek politcal asylum in America. It is not until twenty years later that Amir, still haunted by his past shame, finds an opportunity to go back into Afghanistan, now under Taliban rule, to seek out his old friends son and make amends.

The glimpses that the reader sees of a once peaceful and loved culture, of a city fondly remembered, of proud and strong Afghani traditions are contrasted with the shocking visit back to Afghanistan to find a city and the people brought low by cruel and insane violence. Hosseini convincingly portrays the power of racism to poison even the most innocent of friendships.

What is so satisfactory about The Kite Runner is that the pain and the hurt is never sentimentalised and brushed away. The damage done in childhood causes irreversible scars that aren't magically made to disappear. There is no Hollywood sunset ending. Reconciliation and redemption is never easy. But there is hope, a hope that is tinged with the sadness of so much destruction - insane political destruction on a grand scale and on a personal scale, the destruction of one unique and precious friendship. This is a book I will absolutely never forget and will seriously stay with me.