Josh and I love books and are avid readers. We read almost 40 books this year and want to share with you a selection of the dozen best books we read in 2007.
Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen
What Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the
intricacies 
(not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British
mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye.
As usual, Austen
trains her sights on a country village and a few families--in this
case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes
Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy,
who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees
their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five
daughters. Jane Austen considered her character Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as
ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay | Michael Chabon
Like the comic books that animate and inspire it, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
is both larger than life and yet of it, too.
Complete with golems and magic
and miraculous escapes and evil nemeses and even hand-to-hand Antarctic
battle, it pursues the most important questions of love and war, dreams
and art, across pages brimming with longing and hope. Samuel
Klayman--self-described little man, city boy, and Jew--first meets
Josef Kavalier when his mother shoves him aside in his own bed, telling
him to make room for their cousin, a refugee from Nazi-occupied Prague.
It's the beginning, however unlikely, of a beautiful friendship. The whole enterprise seems animated by love: for Chabon's alternately
deluded, damaged, and painfully sincere characters; for the quirks and
curious innocence of tough-talking wartime New York; and, above all,
for comics themselves. Far from negating
such pleasures, the Holocaust's presence in the novel only makes them
more pressing. (With a surprise gay plotline for one character.)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell | Susanna Clarke
It's 1808 and that Corsican upstart Napoleon is battering the English
army 
and navy.
Enter Mr. Norrell, a fusty but ambitious scholar from
the Yorkshire countryside and the first practical magician in hundreds
of years. What better way to demonstrate his revival of British magic
than to change the course of the Napoleonic wars? Susanna Clarke's
ingenious first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, has the cleverness and lightness of touch of the Harry Potter series, but is less a fairy tale of good versus evil than a fantastic comedy of
manners, complete with elaborate false footnotes, occasional period
spellings, and a dense, lively mythology teeming beneath the narrative.
Middlesex | Jeffrey Eugenides
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless
Detroit day in January of 1960; 
and then again, as a teenage boy, in an
emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." And so
begins Middlesex,
the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the
"roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time." The odd but
utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old
hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this
long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and
haunting 1993 debut, The Virgin Suicides, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory.
Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years
of a stained family history, from a fateful union in a small
town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the
early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony
suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story
to modern-day Berlin. When you get to the end of this splendorous book, you may resist finishing
it just so
that this wondrous, magical novel might never end.
Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini
In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do. 
He
manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a
country's political turmoil -- in this case, Afghanistan -- while also
developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional
triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned
over. The Kite Runner
follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman
in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children
in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are
inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories
of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event
changes the nature of their relationship forever. Hosseini has created
characters that seem so real that one almost forgets that The Kite Runner
is a novel and not a memoir. Hosseini offers an honest, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but
always heartfelt view of a fascinating land.
The Devil In The White City | Erik Larson
Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893
Chicago World's Fair 
with such drama that readers may find themselves
checking the book's categorization to be sure that The Devil in the White City
is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories
of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's
construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a
charming doctor. In a short period of
time, Burnham was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous
other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the
fair was built. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is
believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the
fair, devised and erected the World's Fair
Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds
and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure
victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one
book seems like an odd choice, but it
works. The magical appeal and dark side of 19th-century
Chicago are both revealed through Larson's writing.
Atonement | Ian McEwan
We meet 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the summer of 1935, as she
attempts to stage a production 
of her new drama "The Trials of
Arabella" to welcome home her older, idolized brother, Leon. But she
soon discovers that her cousins aren't up to the task, and directorial ambitions
are abandoned as more interesting prospects of preoccupation come onto
the scene. The charlady's son, Robbie Turner, appears to be forcing
Briony's sister Cecilia to strip in the fountain and sends her obscene
letters; Leon has brought home a dim chocolate magnate keen for a war
to promote a new chocolate bar; and upstairs, Briony's
migraine-stricken mother keeps tabs on the house from her bed.
Soon, secrets emerge that change the lives of everyone present. At its heart, Atonement is about
the pleasures, pains, and dangers of writing, and perhaps even more,
about the challenge of controlling what readers make of your writing.
McEwan shouldn't have any doubts about readers of Atonement: this is a thoughtful, provocative, and at times moving book that will have readers applauding.
The Emperor's Children | Claire Messud
Marina Thwaite, Danielle Minkoff and Julian Clarke were buddies at
Brown,
certain that they would soon do something important in the
world. But as all 
near 30, Danielle is struggling as a TV documentary
maker, and Julius is barely surviving financially as a freelance
critic. Marina, the startlingly beautiful daughter of celebrated journalist and hob-nobber Murray Thwaite, is living with her
parents on the Upper West Side, unable to finish her book titled The Emperor's Children Have No Clothes
(on how changing fashions in children's clothes mirror changes in
society). Two arrivals upset the group stasis: Ludovic, a fiercely
ambitious Aussie who woos Marina, and Murray's nephew,
Frederick "Bootie" Tubb, an idealistic college dropout who is determined to live the life of a New York
intellectual. Messud is wickedly observant of
pretensions "intellectual, sexual, class and gender." Her writing is so
fluid, and her plot so cleverly constructed, that events seem
inevitable, yet the narrative is ultimately surprising and masterful as
a contemporary comedy of manners.
Little Children | Tom Perrotta
The characters in this intelligent, absorbing tale of suburban angst
are constrained and defined 
by their relationship to children. There's
Sarah, an erstwhile bisexual feminist who finds herself an unhappy
mother and wife.
There's Todd, a handsome ex-jock and stay-at-home dad known to
neighborhood housewives as the Prom King, who finds in house-husbandry
and reveries about his teenage glory days a comforting alternative to
his wife's demands that he pass the bar and get on with a law career.
There's Mary Ann, an uptight supermom who schedules sex with her
husband every Tuesday at nine and already has her well-drilled
four-year-old on the inside track to Harvard. And there's Ronnie, a
pedophile whose return from prison throws the school district into an
uproar, and his mother, May, who still harbors hopes that her son will
turn out well after all. Perrotta proves
himself an expert at exploring the roiling psychological depths beneath
the placid surface of suburbia.
The Subtle Knife | Philip Pullman
With The Golden Compass Philip Pullman garnered every accolade under the sun. Could the second installment 
of his trilogy keep up this pitch? The Subtle Knife offers everything we could have wished for, and
more. For a start, there's a young hero--from our world--who is a match
for Lyra and whose destiny is every bit as shattering. As the novel opens, Will's enemies will do anything for information
about his missing father. Now Will must get his
mother into safe seclusion and make his way toward Oxford, which may
hold the key to John Parry's disappearance. Throughout, Pullman is in absolute control of his several worlds, his
plot and pace equal to his inspiration. Any number of astonishing
scenes -- small- and large-scale -- will have readers on edge, and many are
cause for tears. It is Philip Pullman's gift to turn what quotidian minds would term the
impossible into a reality that is both heartbreaking and beautiful.
Our #1 Book Picks for 2007:
Josh H: Call Me By Your Name | Andre Aciman
Seventeen-year-old Elio faces yet another lazy summer at his parents'
home on the Italian coast. 
As in years past, his family will host a
young scholar for six weeks, someone to help Elio's father with his
research. Oliver, the handsome American visitor, charms everyone he
meets with his cavalier manner. Elio's narrative dwells on the minutiae
of his meandering thoughts and growing desire for Oliver. What begins
as a casual friendship develops into a passionate yet clandestine
affair. Elio recalls the events of that
summer and the years that follow in a voice that is by turns impatient
and tender. He expresses his feelings with utter candor, sharing with
readers his most private hopes, urges, and insecurities. The intimacy
Elio experiences with Oliver is unparalleled and awakens in the
protagonist an intensity that dances on the brink of obsession. His longing creates a tension that is present from the first sentence
to the last.
Josh K: Fun Home | Alison Bechdel
This autobiography by the author of the long-running strip, Dykes to
Watch Out For, deals with her childhood 
with a closeted gay father, who
was an English teacher and proprietor of the local funeral parlor (the
former allowed him access to teen boys). Fun Home refers both
to the funeral parlor, where he put makeup on the corpses and arranged
the flowers, and the family's meticulously restored gothic revival
house, filled with gilt and lace, where he liked to imagine himself a
19th-century aristocrat. The art has depth and sophistication; Bechdel's talent for intimacy and banter gains gravitas
when used to describe a family in which a man's secrets make his wife a
tired husk and overshadow his daughter's burgeoning womanhood and
homosexuality. Bechdel
presents her childhood as a "still life with children" that her father
created, and meditates on how prolonged untruth can become its own
reality. She's made a story that's quiet, dignified and not easy to put
down.
Summaries excerpted from Amazon.com.
Like many Americans, I think, I thought, "He lied to Oprah! He lied to all of us!" and quietly took A Million Little Pieces off the ol' wish list and didn't expect to hear much, if anything, from him again.
I picked up the New York Times Notable Book Later, At The Bar on the recommendation of a friend, and I'm glad I did. Later is a novel comprised of short stories that unfold in small town New York, following the lives of the patrons of a local bar. Author Rebecca Barry perfectly captures the locals as they drink, make merry (or at least try to be merry, with varying degrees of success), love and long for love. Barry turns up the humanity of her characters as the book comes to a close in the kind of subtle-yet-clear way that makes you realize why The New York Times took notice in the first place.
