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No single
person can read the thousands of new books every year
— let alone pick 10 best. Luckily, there are helpers
who, like Santa’s elves, divvy up the work.
Every
December, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch compiles a list of
some of the best books of the year after quizzing
freelance reviewers, polling a few book sellers and
considering some of the books chosen by other
publications or award committees.
This
year, a look at other best-book lists reveals as diverse
a selection as seen in a long time. Few books seem to
show up on every list, unlike last year’s endorsement
of several heavy hitters, such as “Autobiography of
Mark Twain,” Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom” and
Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit From the Goon Squad.”
And of
this fall’s widely reviewed novels, such as Haruki
Murakami’s “1Q84” and Chad Harbach’s “The Art
of Fielding,” critics were wildly divided (our
reviewers weren’t wowed by either book).
In fact,
Nikki Furrer, owner of Pudd’nhead Books in Webster
Groves, Mo., says she was underwhelmed by fiction this
year: “I call it the year of nonfiction because I was
disappointed by some of the big novels and surprised by
how well-written and well-told the nonfiction was. I’m
not one for biographies, but I’ve got three on my
‘Best of’ list.”
Vicki
Erwin of Main Street Books in St. Charles, Mo., also
says that “overall, not that much stood out.” Still,
even average years have plenty of appealing titles:
Don’t hesitate to ask the Big Elf for novels, poetry
or whatever you’d like this holiday season. Next week,
we’ll feature big coffee-table titles and some
children’s books.
FICTION
We
don’t know why, but several fascinating novels seemed
to take place outside of cities and deep inside dark
woods.
Daniel
Woodrell’s first collection of short stories, “The
Outlaw Album” (Little, Brown), is a stunner. Woodrell
has the rare ability to tell compelling stories rooted
in familiar soil that are simultaneously simple and
complex, local and universal, funny and tragic.
Another
riveting book set in the Ozarks is University of
Missouri-St. Louis professor John Dalton’s second
novel, “The Inverted Forest” (Scribner). Dalton
daringly sets his unusual, low-key story in a summer
camp for mentally disabled adults.
Two
children who were struck mute by the vicious murder of
their mother are pursued by the killer — their
stepfather — in Charles Frazier’s gripping
“Nightwoods” (Random House). Frazier masterfully
evokes the interaction between man and nature as the
taut but elegant novel of suspense unfolds in the
Southern Appalachians.
In
“Once Upon a River” (Norton), Bonnie Jo Campbell’s
heroine is a teenager who grows up quickly after her
father is killed and she navigates the Michigan river
landscape looking for her mother and modeling herself
after self-sufficient sharpshooter Annie Oakley.
Not every
good story involved scary woods, but a novel about a
family that quotes Shakespeare does have an inherent
risk: putting your prose next to the Bard’s dialogue
could just serve to remind the reader that you’re no
Shakespeare. Eleanor Brown, however, uses the device to
great effect in “The Weird Sisters” (Putnam), a
story of three daughters of a Shakespeare scholar who
return home after their mother is diagnosed with cancer.
Also
inspired by classic English literature is Jeffrey
Eugenides’ “The Marriage Plot” (Farrar, Straus
& Giroux), which follows a college love triangle a
la Jane Austen or Henry James.
Eleanor
Henderson was inspired by 1980s youths with her first
novel, “Ten Thousand Saints” (Ecco), in which bored,
drug-using Vermont teens dream of escaping to New York.
Irish
writer Sebastian Barry tells an intimate story of a
family through the memories of one woman in “On
Canaan’s Side” (Viking).
In the
superb “You Believers” (Unbridled Books), Jane
Bradley explores a mother’s search for her missing
daughter.
Steven
Millhauser remains one of the best short-story stylists
around, as demonstrated by his new collection, “We
Others” (Knopf). Other good collections came from Don
DeLillo with “The Angel Esmeralda” (Scribner) and
St. Louis University’s Richard Burgin in “Shadow
Traffic” (John Hopkins).
Horror
writer Stephen King outdid many literary writers with
his brilliant alternative history, “11/22/63”
(Scribner), which explores what would happen if a man
could go back in time and stop John F. Kennedy’s
assassination.
Alice
Hoffman reached far back into history with “The
Dovekeepers” (Scribner), a historical novel of four
strong Jewish women holding out against the Romans in
the desert. A mix of mysticism, romance, deception and
death makes it hard to put down.
Yet
another important moment in history became a sober novel
with “Nanjing Requiem” (Pantheon). Ha Jin
fictionalizes the Japanese army’s 1937 destruction of
Nanjing in this story about several Chinese and American
women who provide sanctuary for desperate women and
children.
The real
meets the unreal when Colson Whitehead offers a smart,
funny, literary story with a zombie cast in “Zone
One” (Doubleday).
“The
Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday) takes
readers inside a circus without a seedy side — full of
magic, moonlight and romance between two competing
magicians.
Like
“Night Circus” “A Man of Parts” (Viking) evokes
Victorian England as part of its story. David Lodge
portrays the real-life science fiction writer H.G.
Wells, whose randy personal life was no prissy British
stereotype.
NONFICTION
One of
the most popular history books this year is “In the
Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson (Crown). An account
of the first year of William Dodd’s ambassadorship in
Nazi Germany (1933-34) and a tale of his daughter
Martha’s coming of age in Berlin, it offers something
for both serious students of the 1930s and for lovers of
charming stories.
Candice
Millard also weaves a fascinating history in “Destiny
of the Republic” (Doubleday), the story of the
assassination of President James Garfield, who might
have survived a bullet if doctors had washed their hands
and taken a few other precautions.
Many
historians are examining the Civil War, marking its
150th anniversary. But with “A World on Fire”
(Random House), Amanda Foreman focuses on a new angle:
Britain’s crucial role.
A
prominent journalist and a leading foreign policy
scholar team up to assert that contemporary America has
lost its edge and needs to get it back quickly — and
they show how in “How We Can Come Back” (Farrar,
Straus & Giroux) by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael
Mandelbaum.
More
fodder for worry is “Retirement Heist: How Companies
Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American
Workers” by Ellen E. Schultz (Portfolio).
James
Carroll has applied his writer’s skills and scholarly
mind to the conundrum of one of the world great
metropolitan areas: Why does a 3,000-year-old city holy
to the three Abrahamic religions have such a wretched,
bloody history? He discusses the modern importance of an
ancient city in “Jerusalem, Jerusalem” (Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt).
President
Dwight D. Eisenhower gets most of the credit for
America’s system of interstate highways. But in “The
Big Roads” (Mifflin Harcourt), author Earl Swift
credits Franklin D. Roosevelt as first to propose the
network.
Against
all odds, writer Simon Garfield makes type fonts sound
fascinating in “Just My Type” (Gotham Books). If you
liked “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” back in 2003,
you’ll like “Just My Type.”
Maureen
Stanton also makes the common uncommonly interesting
with her look into flea-market America in “Killer
Stuff and Tons of Money” (Penguin Press).
BIOGRAPHY
AND MEMOIR
“Catherine
the Great” by Robert Massie (574 pages, Random House,
$35) is a logical successor to Massie’s biography of
Peter the Great, as the author seems to be working his
way through the Romanov rulers of Russia, not all of
whom were so great. In Catherine’s case, the
transformation of a nervous, relatively poor German girl
into a confident, imperious empress was the marvel of
the 18th century.
In “The
Oil Kings,” Andrew Scott Cooper deals with the kings
of Saudi Arabia and Iran in the 1970s and our policy in
that part of the world. Much, naturally, is relevant
today.
Not all
crises take place halfway around the world. “The
Wizard of Lies” by Diana Henriques (Henry Holt) tells
the fascinating story of the rise and fall of Bernie
Madoff, crook extraordinary. The sums that he stole
through what now seems rather transparent fraud are
unequaled in our time.
The
mercurial genius behind Apple died this fall, and, soon
after, Walter Isaacson’s intriguing “Steve Jobs”
(Simon & Schuster) made it to the top of best-seller
lists.
One
best-selling memoir this year was by Eric Greitens, who
has been both a humanitarian (as a volunteer abroad) and
a warrior (as a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan and Iraq). He
tells his two-sided story in “The Heart and the
Fist” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
Edmund
Morris wraps up his three-volume biography of Theodore
Roosevelt with “Colonel Roosevelt” (Random House).
This final episode recounts Roosevelt’s busy life
after handing the White House over to his successor.
After
World War II, the State Department’s George F. Kennan
devised the containment strategy that held the Soviet
Union within bounds. In “George F. Kennan”
(Penguin), John Lewis Gaddis recounts the life of this
undersung hero.
Boston
professor Julie Winch delves deeply into an early St.
Louis family with “The Clamorgans” (Hill &
Wang), uncovering an interesting history of race and
money.
In the
elegantly written, extensively researched “The Great
Heart of the Republic” (Harvard) Adam Arenson looks at
Civil War St. Louis and tells how it was unable to set
aside sectional differences to transform itself into a
truly national city.
St. Louis
hero Stan Musial gets a well-deserved biographical pat
on the back in “Stan Musial: An American Life” (Ballantine).
New York Times sportswriter George Vecsey says Musial
deserves more retrospective glory than he has received.
Meanwhile,
a St. Louis professor, Richard M. Cook of UMSL, burrows
into a New York literary life by editing “Alfred
Kazin’s Journals” (Yale University Press).
Memories
of her daughter’s death haunt Joan Didion’s “Blue
Nights” (Knopf), the follow-up to her remarkable “A
Year of Magical Thinking.”
Annia
Ciezadio’s “Day of Honey” (Free Press) follows the
author’s life in Baghdad and Beirut as a lovely,
unusual “memoir of food, love and war.”
MILITARY
Military
writers made the year interesting for history buffs. One
of the best-selling books of the year was by a Vietnam
War veteran. Karl Marlantes, author of the epic Vietnam
novel “Mattterhorn,” tells of the complex reactions
of men who go to war and how values are affected for the
rest of their lives in “What It Is Like to Go to
War” (Atlantic Monthly Press).
In
“Brute” (Little, Brown), author Robert Coram draws a
compelling portrait of Marine Gen. Victor Krulak, the
man who stood up to Lyndon Johnson over Vietnam — and
tells why Krulak got the nickname “Brute.”
Writer
Adam Hochschild uses “To End All Wars” (Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt) to explain the antiwar movement in
World War I Britain. He stresses the war’s role as the
key to all that followed in the 20th century.
Three key
American generals in World War II — Dwight Eisenhower,
Omar Bradley and George Patton — get a close-up look
from author Jonathan W. Jordan in “Brothers, Rivals,
Victors” (NAL Caliber). They make for a fascinating
triangle.
In “A
Soldier’s Dream” (NAL Caliber), William Doyle tells
how Travis Patriquin came to be known as “America’s
Lawrence of Arabia.”
The six
months after Pearl Harbor are recalled by Ian W. Toll in
“Pacific Crucible” (Norton). What started as a
disaster on Oahu ended in triumph off Midway — a
battle that gets too little attention.
St. Louis
University professor Timothy J. Lomperis arrived in
Vietnam as an Army officer just in time for a major
enemy assault in 1972. In “The Vietnam War from the
Rear Echelon” (University Press of Kansas), Lomperis
reflects on why his war ended as such a mess.
Behind
much of the mess in Vietnam was Gen. William C.
Westmoreland. In “Westmoreland” (Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt), Lewis Sorley offers a highly critical
biography of the photogenic general.
(EDITORS:
BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
REGIONAL
Readers
who like books with a local or regional flavor had some
good choices this year.
For the
central character of the novel “Dancing With
Gravity” (Blank Slate Press), Kirkwood writer Anene
Tressler chooses a Catholic priest. He serves in St.
Louis — and must come to grips with a personal crisis.
Tressler makes it work.
In
“Make, Take, Murder” (Midnight Ink), former
Chesterfield resident Joanna Campbell Slan splashes a
lot of local color into a murder tale that unwinds in
Webster Groves and Richmond Heights.
In
“Time Guardians” (AuthorHouse), novelist Jeff Quinn
of St. Charles gives readers two time travelers — a
woman born in England in 1910 and her chosen successor,
a Kirkwood boy who’s 16 in 1990. Their mission: Do
good while leaving the actual course of history
undisturbed.
You’d
think this year’s tornado was pain enough for Joplin.
But now comes Joplin resident Larry Wood with
“Desperadoes of the Ozarks” (Pelican). It’s a
retelling of long-ago criminal violence in the Ozarks,
with a lot of the real-life action set in or around
Joplin.
In
“Abolition and the Civil War in Southwestern
Illinois” (The History Press), Alton native John J.
Dunphy takes readers through a troubled time. His book
shines with anecdotal gems — for example, the founding
of the Metro East sin city of Brooklyn by runaway slaves
filled with idealism.
“Founding
St. Louis, First City of the New West” (History Press)
by J. Frederick Fausz begins with the aristocratic
upbringing of St. Louis’ founder, Pierre de Laclede,
in southern France and goes on to explain the
establishment of St. Louis in 1764 and the village’s
growth through the introduction of American authority
and attitudes after the Louisiana Purchase.
East St.
Louis celebrated its first 150 years this year, and 15
essays explore various issues in “The Making of an
All-American City,” edited by Mark Abbott (Virginia
Publishing).
For
residents of Ladue, Charlene Bry unearths years of
history and photographs in the coffee table-worthy
“Ladue Found” (Virginia).
Harlan
Steinbaum went beyond Missouri while writing “Tough
Calls From the Corner Office” (HarperCollins), but no
doubt most St. Louis readers will hone in on stories
from local executives such as Sanford McDonnell and
Maxine Clark.
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OPTIONAL TRIM)
CRIME
THRILLERS
Readers
enjoyed a bumper crop of crime thrillers. One of the
best was “Damage” (Dutton), in which author John
Lescroat takes a challenging approach. Right away, he
identifies the bad guy in a series of San Francisco
killings. Even so, Lescroat holds readers fast for
almost 400 pages.
In “The
Collaborator” (Overlook), Briton Gerald Seymour mixes
the Mafia and deadly toxic waste. In this book, his
characters rise to a level of literature that goes far
above the genre.
Wyoming
native C.J. Box brings his home state to literate life
in “Cold Wind” (Putnam), another in his series
starring game warden Joe Pickett. As this tale opens,
Pickett finds a murder victim in an unlikely place:
chained to a vane on a big wind turbine.
In
“Field Gray” (Putnam), British author Philip Kerr
brings back Berlin detective Bernie Gunther. In a tale
that runs from 1931 through 1954, Gunther must deal with
nagging ethical questions in pursuing a cop killer.
Another
long-running character is author John Sandford’s Lucas
Davenport. In “Buried Prey” (Putnam), two corpses
turn up when a house is torn down. Davenport must fight
a turf war with other police officials as he tracks down
the killer.
Michael
Connelly may be the best thriller writer we have. He
shows why in “The Fifth Witness” (Little, Brown).
It’s a dandy courtroom drama starring Connelly’s
ethically challenged Lincoln lawyer, Mickey Haller.
David
Anthony teaches English at Southern Illinois University
in Carbondale and has written a black-comedy thriller,
“Something for Nothing” (Algonquin). In this tale,
an unlikable hero is forced to smuggle drugs — and to
deal with a surprise of a villain.
Similarly,
Scott Phillips gives the starring role to a cad in
“The Adjustment” (Counterpoint, 217 pages, $25). In
postwar Wichita, Kan., his cad pimps for a corporate
bigwig — but finds his own wife in peril because of
his wartime misdeeds.
In
“Silent Enemy” (Putnam), author Thomas W. Young has
his hero flying an Air Force C-5 that’s carrying a big
problem: a bomb that will go off if the plane descends
to land. This tale has wings.
POETRY
While the
summertime shuttering of Borders might have given
readers a sense that books are in diminuendo, American
poets chorused powerfully for one of their best years.
Midwesterners showed especially strongly with worthy
entries from Rodney Jones, Carl Phillips, Devin
Johnston, Joseph Harrington, Tony Trigilio and many
others. This year’s roundup features two from that
list and four others from across the country.
Rae
Armantrout’s static feedback, often fragmentary and
playful, (“Give a meme/ a hair-do”), belies an
underlying peacefulness of contemplation: “It’s
well/ that things should stir/ inconsequentially/ around
me.” “Money Shot” (Wesleyan) is a fine followup to
Armantrout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Versed.”
No one
has suffused poetry with music, especially jazz, more
breathtakingly than Yusef Komunyakaa, whose collection
“The Chameleon Couch” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
stands as one of his finest.
Not
everyone who wins the Yale Younger Poets Award goes on
to become a literary legend, but Adrienne Rich, who won
it in 1950, has done that. Her place in our canon is
secure. Every reader can find a place in declarations
like “I do not give/ simplehearted love and nor/ allow
you simply love me” from “Tonight No Poetry Will
Serve” (Norton).
Thick
with religious language, rural symbolism and literary
allusion—and barbed with surprising music—Rodney
Jones’ poetry is becoming a national treasure, too.
“Imaginary Logic” (Houghton Mifflin) is his best
book in years.
Devin
Johnston, who teaches at St. Louis University, is
emerging as a new sort of old-school imagiste. In
“Traveler” (FS&G) he begins one poem with “In
the subdivisions of the dead/ a Plum Blossom cigarette/
stuck upright,” and, in another, mentions Schnucks.
A single,
book-length poem might not seem appealing to today’s
impatient reader. Anselm Berrigan obviously doesn’t
care and proves he doesn’t need to in “Notes From
Irrelevance” (Wave), which sings easily through 65
pages with (in the author’s words) “upscale pop
sexiness.” Love all the cultural references.
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