Books, with oversimplified descriptions

31 books read in 2017.  

1. Elena Ferrante,  My Brilliant Friend - A girl has a charismatic friend who is a jerk, but she has a reason for being a jerk, possibly.  Maybe it had been oversold to me, but I just didn't love it the way I had hoped I would.

2. John Burnside, The Summer of Drowning - Teen girl lives on a northern island with her mother who is a painter.  People drown; things and people are unsettling and unsettled.  I don't think Burnside can write fiction that doesn't haunt the reader in some way.

3. Jean Shepherd, In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash - This is the collection of stories from which the movie A Christmas Story is taken.  I was not fond of this book.  It felt depressing to me, and the author is kind of a jerk.

4. Kate Atkinson, One Good Turn - This is a crime novel, but it doesn't matter what it is about because Kate Atkinson has not written a bad book.

5. John Burnside, I Put a Spell on You - This is a good autobiography with digressions on words and ideas.  Sometimes I enjoyed the digressions more than the autobiography.

6. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Oleander Girl - Woman raised by grandparents.  Mysterious father stuff.  I don't remember it very well.  I know I liked it, but the ending wasn't my favorite.

7. David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks - I loved this one, and I have no idea how to describe it.  Time hopping, body switching, environmental warnings... this book has a lot going on.

8. Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant - Fable of people who are living under a fog which makes memories dim.  I expected more from this book.  It was good but not great.

9. Patrick Süskind, The Pigeon - Man sees pigeon, things fall apart for him.  Insane, both the story and the main character.

10. Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Using old, trick photographs, a story is created about children with special abilities.  Interesting children's book.  Good, but I can't imagine reading all the books in the series.

11. Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (repeat) - Sadly, not as good as I remember.  Read it to the boys.

12. Peter Benchley, Beast (repeat) - Big squid is hungry and angry.  Solid airplane fiction.  Obviously, it loses a lot of the thrill the second time.

13. Seamus Heaney, Beowulf - I'm almost two decades behind the rest of the world in reading this translation.  Read it to the boys; loved it.

14. Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum - This was one of my favorites of the year.  I love all her books.

15. David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon - The true story of white men taking advantage of and murdering Native Americans for their oil money.  The subject matter is not easy to read but the prose is.  I'll read anything by David Grann.

16. John Steinbeck, The Red Pony (repeat) - I first read this when I was 10ish and again in early marriage.  Read it to the boys, and I love it even more now.  I really don't understand people who don't like Steinbeck.

17. Andrea Camilleri, Game of Mirrors -
18. Andrea Camilleri, A Beam of Light -
19. Andrea Camilleri, Treasure Hunt - I love the character of Inspector Montalbano.  I never remember what the mysteries are from one book to the next, but that's not a problem for me.

20. Donna Tartt, The Secret History - A great book about terrible, murderous people.

21. Andrea Camilleri, Angelica's Smile - see 17 through 19

22. JRR Tolkien, The Children of Hurin - The title gives it away; it's about the children of Hurin.  Talk about a downer.  Better than I was expecting, but it's definitely a tragedy.  Read to the boys.

23. Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump - Written by a young, autistic boy about his feelings and point of view.  Not great, but interesting.

24. Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - True story of a man who had a stroke which resulted in locked-in syndrome.  An emotional gut punch.  It is very short, and I highly recommend it.

25. Daniel Ostendorff, Militancy, Moderation, and Mau Mau - This was an editing job.  It's important research which I really hope gets published.

26. Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (repeat) - There were students in Jesse's freshman comp class who didn't know what this book was about.  There are cartoons which reference this book; there are college students who cannot understand Looney Toon jokes.  Heaven help us.  Read it to the boys.

27. Michael Crichton, Next - People are stupid and selfish and greedy.  Reading Crichton always makes me hate/fear the world a little.

28. Rodrigo Hasbún, Affections - Hard to describe.  Fictionalized account of a real family.  There is a simplicity to the story, but at the same time it feels very intense.

29. Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone - A girl's meth-making father goes missing, and she's about to lose the house.  I saw the movie before I saw the book.  Pretty much the same, except that the book is slightly grittier.  In the end, I preferred the movie.

30. Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (repeat) - The narrator (the governess) really annoyed me this time around.

31. Erich Kästner, Going to the Dogs - Life in Berlin prior to the Second World War.  Excellent book.