That’s What She Read: Here are the books you should buy
12 December 2008Everyone has their own favorite holiday traditions. My mom’s is eating shrimp and drinking champagne after mass, my dad’s is hanging the yarn christmas ornament he made at summer camp on our tree, his dog’s is eating wrapping paper and then throwing up, and mine is telling people what to buy. We’re conventional like that. I’ve already warned my loved ones that I’m buying them all books for Christmas this year (sorry, Peej, you’re not getting that pony you keep asking for) and while I won’t go into detail as to why (though you can read about it here and hereand pretty much everywhere) I will reiterate what everyone has already said a thousand times– what you buy right now is important, as is where you buy it from. Great books make great gifts. Also, Christmas is in two weeks– if you’re still drawing a blank on certain present ideas and are about to throw a hail mary, you might as well do it in a meaningful way.
And so– here’s what Many Trusted Professionals say qualifies as a Great Book, followed by some of the ones I loved over the last year. Off you go:
Part I. It’s My Job To Think About Books All Day So I Know What’s Up: Media, Publishing, and Bookseller recommendations
NPR’s roundup of books that make great gifts, as chosen by bookstore owners. I hadn’t heard of that Economist Book of Obituaries, but now I want it like woah. Way to mix my morbid fascination withrituals surrounding death with my obscure fascination with How People Choose To Represent Themselves And Others When Space Is Limited (this is why I read the classifieds section before any other part of the newspaper, and why I’m so into the twitter feeds, facebook statuses, and online dating profiles of others. It’s purely academic, I swear).
If you live in New York, McNally Jackson has their holiday tables up in the store. If I weren’t so madly in love with a certain children’s independent bookstore in my hometown that gets all of the credit/ blame for me winding up in publishing instead of living on the streets or working at US Weekly or something, this would be my favorite bookstore in the world. They are brilliant in their book selection, and they have fantastic author signings all the time. One of their employees, whose campaign to bring an indie bookstore to Ft Green I blogstalk all the time, recently did a round-up of her favorite books of 2008, and not only does she have excellent taste in books, she’s also hilarious in her category choices (“Favorite Book Featuring Vampires and Teenagers…” and it’s not Twilight! You had me at hello).
Also on the indie side, here’s where you find a composite list of best sellers across independent book sellers, as well as search for stores near you.
If you’re looking for something more impersonal, the Times also recently did its yearly You’re Not As Literate As You Think You Are, Loser list. Every year this comes out and I think it’s going to be some benchmark by which I can prove how much more well-read (better-read?) I am than most people, and every year I fail miserably. Last year I’d read one of them (the Harry Potter) and this year I read half of one and listened to half of one on audio. For someone who works in publishing, I feel like this is the emotional equivalent to buying one of those Nascar stickers for the back of the car I don’t own instead of picking up the latest Newbery winner. I should be ashamed, but instead I’ll just lie and tell myself that they must have bad taste. It certainly can’t be because I only read books aimed at 14 year olds. But wait– they also picked their 8 favorite children’s books, so if you don’t want to take my suggestions you can always go with theirs. And maybe find another blog to read in your free time. And if you want to see what their book reviews are buying as presents this year, that’s here as well. And if you can’t deal with 100 books, they narrow it down to 10 for you (which looks a heck of a lot like the Knopf catalog. Well played, 20th floor!).
I’m way more comfortable with this Top 100 list, which covers ’83-08. And was compiled by Entertainment Weekly. What can I say. I’m also way better at the People Magazine crossword puzzle than I am at the Sunday Times one.
Speaking of Publications I Love For Their Crosswords Among Other Reasons: NY Magazine also has really good taste in books.
USA Today also has condensed lists for Kids Books, Gift Books, Holiday Books, etc. I love anyone who pulls David Sedaris’ Holidays On Ice out from the backlist, and has David Shannon in their Kids Book section. If there’s a male in your life between the ages of 4 and, uh, 35 or so who has the attention span to handle reading a picture book, you should get them No, David!, which is now and will always be one of my favorites (and a favorite of The Fee, as well, I believe).
Publishers Weekly picked their best of the year back in November- I particularly like their kids’ fiction choices and, you know, they’re PW so they probably know some stuff about books.
Part II. It Is Also My Job To Think About Books All Day But Here Are Some I Would Love Even If It Weren’t: What I’m Buying For People This Christmas
I know- Way to break new ground, Cristin, no one will ever know about that massive best seller unless you blog about it! What a revolutionary. Still. I know if you read a lot you’ve probably already burned through this at lightning speed the way the majority of my friends have but if not, HOLY GOD IS THIS BOOK GOOD. Part of me doesn’t even want to get into the premise because I know I’ll never do it justice but when has that ever stopped me before so here you go: A dictatorship now exists where NorthAmerica used to be, and each year its districts compete for food (and serve this unending penance at the hands of the government for the failed uprising against the capitol years ago) by offering two teenagers from each district, chosen through a lottery, to the hunger games, which are both televised national entertainment and a 23/24thschance of violent death for the contestants, as the only way to win is by BEING THE LAST PERSON ALIVE. So all these 16 year olds are running around KILLING EACH OTHER. When I first heard about this book I was like “there’s no way they actually die– I’m sure they all get into the games and then there’s some loophole that allows someone to win without getting blood on their hands, like how Harry was able to kill Voldemort without actually casting a killing spell.” But they totally do. Kill each other, that is. And it’s awesome. It’s awesome because the author created this world so perfectly, down to the corporate sponsorships that the contestants can get from doing things that drive ratings (like killing each other. Or making out), that you find yourself wondering how you would react if you were in that situation, which is a situation I think I can safely say that I will never find myself in (Hello, Fate, I’d like to tempt you! Why don’t you swing by Sunset Park and rip me out of this state of complacency by forcing me to hunt people for sport?). After I finished this book it was all I could talk about for days– not just how great the book is, though I certainly had plenty to say on that topic, but what I would do if I were in the Hunger Games. Workfriends Jen & Sarah had the unfortunate luck of having lunch with me the day after I finished it and all I could talk about was how I didn’t think I would have a problem killing people if it came down to it. “I could do it. I could kill the two of you if you were in there with me,” I kept repeating over and over oh-so casually as I ate my buffalo chicken wrap in our office cafeteria. “I’m bigger than you are, and you’ve seen what happens to me when I decide I want to win something.” Jen and Sarah were appropriately taken aback by this, but I think that’s just because they didn’t have the lunch table conversations that my friends did in high school. As a point of follow up, the next day I asked High School Friend Jordan “Hey, do you remember that time in high school where we spent a week talking about whether or not we’d be physically and emotionally capable of killing a deer with a hammer?” and without a second’s worth of hesitation he went “Yup.” (Before you call PETA on me, you should know that my answer then, as it is now, was as follows: If the deer was threatening my life or the life of someone I loved, or even didn’t hate, and if we were in a confined area and the deer was robotically attacking, zombie-style, and showed no signs of retreating or abandoning his cause then, yes, I think I could kill a deer using only a hammer. But I wouldn’t like it). Stop looking at me like that, you know that you’ve played the Ridiculous Hypothetical Question Game before. If no one ever played, the world would be without How Many Five Year Olds Can You Take In A Fight, and that’s not a world I want to live in.
This book is amazing, and I look forward to it winning a Printz and will be suitably outraged if it doesn’t.
Is Kind of Like: The Handmaid’s Tale + the Uglies books + The House of the Scorpion
But Is Really More Like:a WWE Battle Royale Pay-Per-View special + The Road + The Most Dangerous Game (one of my favorite short stories of all time and yes, it annoys me that Vince Vaughn is referencing it in his 4 Christmases trailers with his “I’d rather be stuck on an island with some deranged billionaire hunting me” comment, as much as I love the Vaughn) + The Giver on an Outward Bound trip.
Is Good For: Anyone between the ages of 13 and, let’s say, 60. Maybe not for your grandma and maybe not for any young relatives that still put Lisa Frank unicorn stickers on their homework folders, but should be inhaled and loved by anyone else.
You know how you have that one friend from college who will occasionally write these emails to you and 5 of your other best friends from college and you read them and think “god, she should write a book?” Now make her even funnier and an even better writer and put her in the city where you live working in the industry that you work in and give her a book deal. You should hate her, right? On paper, I should hate her a whole ton. Instead, all I want to do is be her facebook friend and call her up every time I do something ridiculous like when the time warner guys came to give me cable and asked where the jack was and I said “I don’t know, don’t you have something that, like, detects it? Like one of those things the Ghostbusters use, except for cable?” I think there’s a significant difference between loving a book and loving a book while wishing you had written it, and for me I don’t frequently run into that second combo, but this was definitely a book that I loved enough to read twice in the first weekend I had it, and a book that I was envious of. I don’t think there are enough contemporary female essayists writing something other than criticisms (I’m trying to name some now and coming up with zilch. And no, I don’t count Chelsea Handler. Fine, Sarah Vowell. I’ll give you her. But then I’ll take her back because I love her and can’t live without her) and it makes me enormously happy that this book showed up and it wasn’t stamped chick lit (it’s not) or dismissed as not being literary (it is) just because the writer has ovaries, isn’t writing fiction, and opens the book with a story about her collection of toy ponies. This is going to be one of my favorites for a long time, and I can’t wait to see what she writes next.
Is Kind Of Like: A nonfiction Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing + a less pretentious Chuck Klosterman.
But Is Really More Like:A keenly observant and slightly hyperactive love child of Dorothy Parker and Nora Ephron.
Is Good For: Chicks in your book club, chicks from your sorority, chicks who just moved to new york, any chick who has made you be her bridesmaid.
When teachers tried to get me to read historical fiction in elementary school I was generally like “Whatever, lady. If I wanted to learn something I’d ask my dad to recite the presidents in chronological order AGAIN for me. Don’t try to fool me into learning about something just because you know I love reading. You hang onto that My Brother Sam Is Dead and that Number The Stars and I’ll be over here with The Westing Game or any number of these assembly-line series books about girls and ponies, thankyouverymuch.” This is an attitude that has remained relatively unchanged up until this day. Fiction is for reading and nonfiction is for learning, unless you count the 80 or so books I have about pirates and dinosaurs since those count as proof that learning and enjoying are not mutually exclusive. For me, anyway. I shouldn’t have even brought up the historical fiction thing, I should have just gone with what I always say about this book which is that it’s like the authors wrote it as a valentine to people who love books and who love reading and that in a world where there are painfully few instances of pure joy (among which I count the song All I Want For Christmas Is You, cherry JellO, and finding money in pants that you haven’t worn for awhile, but you might have a different definition and I can respect that) this book is absolutely one of them without being cheesy or at all grating. And it did make me learn things without realizing that I was learning, which I grudgingly admit is more of a bonus than a drawback. I knew exactly nothing about the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands and it’s such a beautiful story that I almost didn’t notice what an important piece of history it was covering.
Is Kind Of Like: One of the few books written for adults that you could call “charming” without a hint of irony.
But Is Really More Like:If Ann Patchett wrote a historical fiction love letter to every book club, ever.
Is Good For: Everyone. Seriously. My 9 year old cousin saw her mom reading this and promptly burned through it (though she is a bit advanced for her age in the literary arts. Not uncommon to my family. Just sayin’). Particularly good for mom types and for anyone who refers to their spare room as “the library” instead of “the den.”
I went on an essayist kick this summer that grew out of my EB White obsession that showed up after this New Yorker article and the all Things Considered segment on Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web that you should not listen to at work unless you want your associates to walk in on you crying to a radio show that’s describing how White narrated the audio for the book himself and how it took 18 takes for him to be able to record the scene where (SPOILER ALERT) Charlotte dies because he was crying too hard, hypothetically speaking, of course. That NPR segment lead me to the EB White New Yorker collections– one of which, about the death of one of his farm animals, also made me cry like a baby–which lead me to other New Yorker writers from the 60s which, at the suggestion from a reading friend who has never steered me wrong, landed me at Calvin Trillin. This is a short book and a quick read that would have been even quicker if I wasn’t flipping it over every 15 or so pages to stare at the picture of the couple on the back jacket to try to figure out who this woman was that she was so desperately loved by everyone in her life, and who this man was that he not only knew exactly how lucky he was to have had her, but was able to write about it so well. Also, it took me awhile to get through because I was crying through most of it, and because I kept putting it down to give myself mental space to think about things he had said. He talks a bit about how hard it is for a lot of male authors to keep writing after they’ve lost their wives, and how he realized after he lost his that everything he had written was an attempt to try to continually impress her, even long after they’d been married, and how it was hard to write anything when she was gone and he no longer had that goal. It’s beautiful and sad and hopeful and I loved it.
Is Kind Of Like: If Don Draper on Mad Men stopped screwing around on his wife and admitted to actually having feelings for her.
But Is Really More Like: Reading the eulogy your grandpa wrote for your grandma, as long as your grandpa was James Thurber or Mark Twain.
Is Good For: People who think that subscribing to the New Yorker makes them better than people who don’t; People who have been in love for years; People who have just gotten married; People who either believe or want to believe that there is more good than bad out there.
And now, for something completely different! You know how that majority of entertainment consumed by women in their twenties is actually intended for 16 year old girls? No, really. I’m not just saying that because I have yet to graduate to a 10th grade reading level. Everything that we get fanatically obsessed over, ironically or not– The OC, Michael Cera, texting, paranormal romance novels about The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name between teenyboppers and Draculas, Veronica Mars, Americas Next Top Model, Facebook, Gchat–was meant for the at-least-a-decade-ago version of us. We’re all regressing. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, I just think we need to acknowledge it, face it head on, and relish in it. I mean, let’s just belly flop into a pool of teensploitation and not think any less of ourselves for it. You own 10 Things I Hate About You on DVD and VHS and sometimes, when you think no one else on the subway can see your iPod screen, you don’t immediately skip over that Fall Out Boy song. Don’t be shy now. Come on in– the water’s fine!
I love these books. They could crank out one a month and it wouldn’t be fast enough for me. This is another book that unintentionally made me learn things (you’ll be hearing from my lawyer, Ms Godbersen), as after I finished the first one all I wanted to do was read Age of Innocence and anything I could get my hands on about the Astor family. Here’s all you need to know: it’s Manhattan in 1899 and there are rich socialites running around ruining each others lives and reputations. Like Pride and Prejudice but cattier in a million awesome ways (and, fine, 85 years later and an a different continent).
Kind of Like:Trapping Paris Hilton in a Libba Bray novel.
But Really More Like:If Edith Wharton came back to ghostwrite (heyo! dead author puns!) Gossip Girl.
Good For:Your friend who only recently busted out “Have you read any of these Twilight books? They’re soooooo good!;” Anyone who doesn’t stare at you blankly when you say “dan and serena;” Anyone who can tell you what newspaper publishes Page 6; Your friend who got drunk and threw up at her own debutante ball.
Once you decide that you’re getting everyone books for Christmas (which you were all planning on doing anyway), you’re going to run into the “Yeah, I don’t really read,” response from a lot of people. The first thing you should do is get new friends and relatives, because that is bullshit. The second thing you should do is retaliate with “oh, is that so? Well, I know of PLENTY of books that don’t require reading. Except in the most literal sense.” And then you give them this book, and then they flip through it laughing while you dance around them going “Oh, yeah? Who doesn’t read now??!? How’s THAT TASTE??” I love this book. I love the blog it came from, and I can’t think of many books that I love as much as the blogs they were based on that I already loved (notable exception, of course, for the Kittehs). The blog, and the book, are exactly what they sound like: an examination of things white people love. Making you feel bad about not going outside. Bad memories of high school. Arrested Development. David Sedaris. Girls With Bangs. Halloween. Really, I have never so enjoyed being reduced to a punch line, and I think it’s because he’s right, at least in his Identification of Generalizations As They Apply Directly To Me. Because, come on. Who am I to deny that I love Public Radio and Playing Children’s Games As Adults? No one, that’s who.
Kind of Like: If Chris Rock had gotten a degree in cultural anthropology from Yale and then taken a job writing for Slate.
But Really More Like: The outline Michael Jackson made for himself before he got that skin lightening surgery.
Good For: Anyone under 35 or terminally hip aging hipsters.
It’s not too frequently that my Book Club really Throws Down about something– we’ve been together for… 5 years? Is that possible? Jesus. I should get them a gift. Anyway. We read this one this year and pretty quickly fell into three different camps: People who had never worked in an office setting who didn’t really get what the big deal was; people who worked in stressful office settings who got enough of the drama at their job and didn’t want to encounter it in fiction; and the rest of us, who had days at the office that made us say things like “sometimes, I genuinely hope that there are hidden cameras following me around” or “when the Waiting For Guffman People make a movie about publishing, I really hope they call me in to consult.” I think a lot of us have had moments among coworkers that are so ridiculous that you find the one person who you know thinks it’s ridiculous as well and as your eyes meet for half a second you have to think of dead puppies to keep yourself from laughing out loud, as that would be unprofessional. This really has nothing to do with Your Job and everything to do with Jobs In General. (Unless you’re like me and earlier this year you decided to play a game where you picked an idiom to use unnecessarily over and over in meetings just to see if you could make one other person eventually pick it up– in that case, you’re asking for it. And yes, 6th floor, this was why I was prefacing my opinions with “I’m no doctor, but…” for all of April. Would it have killed one of you to use it ONE TIME so that I could have felt victorious? No. No, it wouldn’t have). I don’t like it when people say “It’s like a book version of The Office!” because, well, yeah, it’s hilarious in that “Oh, my god, that’s exactly how my department reacts when someone puts out cookies or bagels” but it also shows something that I had never really thought about before in its depiction of how the people you work with know you in a way that’s completely different from people you’ve never worked with. And it’s not necessarily better or worse or more or less important than any of your other relationships, the ones you had more control over entering, but it still shapes your life for 8 hours a day at least– more if you’re not one of those self actualized people who can Leave It All At The Office. Since reading this I’ve frequently found myself thinking about the version of themselves people choose to project at work (why are there 8 potato heads in my office but no photographs of anyone?) and the versions that wind up getting out there unintentionally (why do people I’ve never spoken to before at work know about the pirate fascination?), all of which is handled wonderfully and subtly in this novel. It’s a really interesting writing style and narrative choice and it makes you feel smart to have read it.
Kind of Like:The screenplay your intern was working on while you thought she was updating some database you hadn’t touched for six months.
But Really More Like:Jonathan Safran Foer gets a sense of humor and a temp job.
Good For: People who love their jobs but recognize that there is inherent and unavoidable humor in spending 5 days a week in what basically amounts to an ant farm; Literature snobs (though they may have already read it); Dudes who have read and enjoyed at least one work of fiction in their adult lives.
At this point, I pretty much consider it my life’s work to get to make sure that everyone I ever speak to knows how much I love this book (something for you to look forward to, Ms Dental Hygenist and Mr Guy Who Sells Me Bananas From A Street Cart). Last week at the office I got to talkin’ zombies with someone I hadn’t known was a fellow zombie enthusiast, and I got so wrapped up in talking about how much I loved this book that I started re-reading in that night. This is another one where I felt bad for the people around me as I was reading it because all I could stand to talk about was zombies. Someone would mention gas prices and I’d go “My favorite image in World War Z is when he describes the abandoned cars on the highway and how some of the infected had died and regenerated behind the wheel, so as you try to take the highway north to safety you realize that it’s dotted with cars containing zombies pressed up against the windows drooling at you because the damage to their brains has rendered them unable to work the car door handles. And thank god for that, you know?” Or when I first moved into my apartment, whenever someone would come over I would open with “Just off the top of your head– if there was a zombie attack, what do you think I could use as a weapon? I’m trying to figure out if I need to buy something or if I already have something that would serve in that capacity.” (Answer: Fire extinguisher). Some time last year I was freaking out about a first date and one of my friends gave me the gentle advice of “Maybe try to go a whole night without bringing up the zombie thing.” That is what this book does to you. Everyone should read it.
Is Kind Of Like:Exactly what the subtitle says it is- an oral history of the zombie war. Badass.
But Is Really More Like: The Things They Carried + Shaun of the Dead.
Good For:Anyone. In particular, anyone says “The original, or the one with Mekhi Pfeifer?” when you say you’ve just bought Dawn of the Dead on DVD; Anyone who saw Evil Dead: The Musical during its all-too-brief stint in NYC; Anyone with a specific interest in military history or tactics; Anyone who saw Cloverfield in the theaters.
I was going to end on that note, but I’m having way too much fun doing this– will hopefully do Part II next week. In the meantime– buy some books!
8 Responses to “That’s What She Read: Here are the books you should buy”
December 12th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Beautiful. You have just given me a gift idea for someone else, and several for myself. I thank you
December 12th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
fee approves this message. and anything by david shannon.
i still think one of my favorite books of 2008 is my most excellent year. remember? with the baseball and the gay best friend? love.
December 12th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Hey, I need to borrow that, Katie!
And I second the appreciation of this list. I think The Hunger Games is a totally legit recommendation for grown ups because even though everyone we know has read it, I’m sure no one outside of the “biz” or who does not regularly attend a scholastic book fair has ever heard of it, and they should.
December 14th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I haven’t read it yet. Just put it in my library queue.
December 15th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
World War Z was the shit! Good call. I will be checking out those first 2 books.
December 15th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I’ve heard of Hunger Games! Can’t remember where… EW? Or maybe just an old conversation with one of you. But I remember thinking it sounded kind of like an old Stephen King, in a good way. Will have to try it.
You have to read Tana French’s The Likeness and Into the Woods. Been recommending them left and right since I read them. Oh, and The God of Animals was the book I was talking about on Saturday with horse world minutiae.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Stop making ME cry with the About Alice rave!! Many, many years ago, when you were probably losing your first tooth, I went to a reading at Three Lives in the Village by Calvin Trillin, having just read….Alice, Let’s Eat, I think it was. And Alice walked in with Calvin, and all I could do was gawk at her and think wistfully, here is a woman that is adored, with a capital D. The two of them were just perfect together, the Platonic ideal of love and marriage. I miss Alice almost as much as I miss Laurie Colwin.
December 18th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Thanks for making me read Hunger Games, Cristin. I would have skipped it otherwise and it was really engrossing. But NO thanks for not telling me it would turn into a series.
I second the recommendation for Tana French books, which kept me up until 4 AM a couple weeks ago reading them. If you like her, you might also like Kate Atkinson.
I’m giving the Sloane Crosley as a gift to my brother-in-law’s girlfriend and he gets the newest Sedaris. I figure they can trade humor books on the airplane when each is done. Do you ever read Jen Lancaster? I think they are for similar readers.
Finally, I did not love About Alice but could not explain why. I don’t remember, but it did not charm me.