Third Anniversary: 10 Best Books of the Year!

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Cover for The LuminariesThis weekend is the third anniversary of this blog. As I have done the first two years, I have put together a list of what I consider the ten best books I reviewed this year. To get the list down to ten books, I had to make some tough decisions. For example, if I picked more than one book by the same author as a Best Book during the year, I will only put one of them on the list, and which one I pick may be fairly arbitrary. They are not listed in the order of preference but in the order I reviewed them. This year’s list is unusual for me, because it contains one book of poetry (The World’s Wife) and one nonfiction book (Giving Up the Ghost).

Day 646: The Marriage Game

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Cover for The Marriage GameAlthough I have read several of Alison Weir’s meticulously researched histories and historical biographies, I feel her gifts are more for nonfiction than fiction. In her novel The Marriage Game, she concentrates on the struggles and power plays around the issue of Queen Elizabeth I’s marriage during the first years of her reign. Unfortunately, Weir focuses on this subject so much to the exclusion of others that you would think it was the only item of concern in the realm. For example, Elizabeth sends Cecil away to broker a peace with Scotland, which is almost the only mention of a war.

The novel begins right after Elizabeth hears of her sister’s death and takes the throne. Her advisor William Cecil almost immediately raises the issue of her marriage. Elizabeth, determined not to lose her hard-won power to a husband, finds her repeated statements that she will not marry either not believed or met with the opinion that her remaining unmarried would not be good for the kingdom. Elizabeth takes a flirtatious stance, refusing to be pinned down to a decision but forever pretending she’s considering a suitor.

Confusing the issue is Lord Robert Dudley, for whom she has a decided preference. But he is already married. Still, she heeds no one’s warnings about her reputation. She keeps him with her even when his wife is dying, and at least in this novel, their physical relationship includes everything except actual penetration. Just whether the Virgin Queen was a virgin is a subject of debate, and this seems to be Weir’s (perhaps unlikely) compromise. The mystery of what happened to Dudley’s wife seems much less important than it actually was at the time.

http://www.netgalley.comWeir has not chosen to make this story romantic or even depict the two main characters sympathetically. Neither is fully formed, but both are selfish, ambitious, demanding, and conniving. Although the novel is well written and should be interesting, it eventually devolves into repetitious arguments, with Dudley’s ambitions thwarted and Elizabeth incensed because he has overstepped his bounds. If there is an arc to the plot, I couldn’t discern it. I couldn’t help thinking that a novel about Elizabeth that was a little broader in scope would be more interesting. After reading most of the novel, I finally decided I was finding it tedious and quit reading it. Very disappointing, especially considering Weir’s excellent biography of Mary Boleyn.

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Day 645: The Secret Rooms

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Cover for The Secret RoomsWhen British documentary producer Catherine Bailey began looking through family archives at Belvoir Castle, she was searching for information about the men from the area who served in World War I, including the 9th Duke of Rutland. What she didn’t find surprised her. Not only did she find few letters from the war, surprising for a family who wrote each other and others often, but the letters were missing from two other periods—when John Manners, later the 9th Duke, was nine years old and in 1909, when he was serving the ambassador in Rome.

Soon, Bailey learned that Manners spent the last days of his life, when he was dying of pneumonia, working among the archives in the room, that he died there, and that the rooms had been locked up ever since he died. It became clear that he was destroying correspondence and other papers. Further, she learned that the rooms had been broken into shortly after his death, the thief being identified later as John’s mistress, Hilda Lezard.

Bailey realized that without the letters for World War I, she could not complete her original project. However, she then decided to try to find out what happened during those three periods of the Duke’s life that he wanted hidden.

The result is a story as fascinating as any mystery novel. Although the entire truth of these periods will never be known—in particular, exactly what happened to the Duke’s brother Haddon when they were boys—the search is  as interesting as any modern crime story. The truth involves cruelty, duplicity, and a completely unscrupulous parent.

The Secret Rooms is an entertaining and interesting book. I highly recommend it.

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Day 644: The Wives of Los Alamos

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Cover for The Wives of Los AlamosA little note from me: I noticed that for awhile WordPress applied a feature to my blog that showed related posts at the bottom of the page. Then yesterday I noticed that the feature disappeared at some time. I couldn’t figure out a way to implement it on my blog automatically, but I was amused at its choices sometimes. So, a new feature of my blog is that every time I review a book, I’ll try to find three other reviews that share something in common with it, whether it’s the subject matter, the setting, the author. The reviews are links at the bottom of the page. Let me know how you like it!

* * *

The Wives of Los Alamos takes an unusual approach to historical fiction. It is narrated collectively, in first person plural, by all the wives of the scientists at Los Alamos during World War II. Of course, this approach has its disadvantages, as there are no characters who stand out from one another. Still, it is a fascinating way to point out what these people shared—and did not share.

The novel begins as the wives depart their former lives. They know nothing about where they are going or what their husbands are going to do when they get there. What little they know, they are not allowed to say. The novel tells their story throughout the war and their reactions when they finally learn what their husbands have created.

At times we see these women as selfish and privileged, especially when they become bored with the restrictions and begin gossiping and complaining about the “help.” But other times we realize how difficult their situation is, shipped off to a primitive environment where their housing is not even ready when they arrive, unable to learn what is going on, subject to restricted movements and stringent security even though they know very little.

http://www.netgalley.comThis is an interesting book that touches on topics that emerged during the war and after—like equal pay for equal work, the ethics of creating this powerful weapon, and family relationships and roles.

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Day 643: The Orenda

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Cover for The OrendaBest Book of the Week!
The Orenda is a powerful novel about the death of a people. At times it is difficult to read, but do not let that stop you from experiencing this novel.

Father Christophe, one of the first French priests to evangelize the Indians of Canada west of Kebec, finds himself at the beginning of the novel captive to a group of Huron warriors. The group is returning from a trading expedition, but they recently attacked a family of Ojibway, their enemies. Bird, the leader of the party, is seeking revenge for the killing of his wife and daughters by the same group. He keeps one young girl, Snow Falls, to be his daughter but kills the rest of the family.

The novel is narrated in turn by Bird, Father Christophe, and Snow Falls. Father Christophe, whom the Hurons call the Crow, finds life in the village brutal and the customs of the people barbaric, but he is determined to learn the people’s language and convert them.

Bird continues to grieve for his wife and addresses his sections of the book to her. He is concerned about the problems of the village and his people, and not least with his difficult new daughter.

Snow Falls is determined to escape and to at all times demonstrate her defiance.

The novel covers about ten years, during which things go well and then badly for this group of Huron people. A combination of disease from contact with the French and the hostilities between the Hurons and their enemies eventually have results that presage what will happen on a larger scale throughout North America.

The novel paints a fascinating picture of the daily life among the Huron and of the misconceptions and misunderstandings between the native people and the Europeans. It is a wonderfully involving book.

Day 642: The Silkworm

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Cover for The SilkwormThe Silkworm is Robert Galbraith’s second Cormoran Strike mystery. It picks up about a year after private investigator Strike solved the murder of the famous supermodel Lula Landry. Since then, he has gained a lot of business, mostly from wealthy or famous clients. So, he does something unexpected when he kicks an entitled client out of his office to take on an apparently simple job of finding the wandering husband of the downtrodden Leonora Quine.

Owen Quine, Cormoran learns quickly, is prone to drama and disputes and is not very likable. He long ago wrote one notable novel but since then has been considered second rate. He is known for his attention-seeking disappearances, but this time Leonora thinks he’s been gone too long, ten days.

Strike finds that Quine disappeared after a loud, public fight with his agent, Elisabeth Tassel. Quine has just finished a book that he considers his masterpiece, Bombyx Mori, named after the silkworm. Leonora reports that Tassel was encouraging Owen and telling him it was his best. But Tassel says that when she read it, she was appalled. It grotesquely defames almost everyone Quine knows in the publishing world, including Tassel herself, Quine’s editor Jerry Waldgreave, a famous writer and ex-friend Michael Fancourt, Quine’s publisher Daniel Chard, Quine’s girlfriend and writer of erotic romances Kathryn Kent, and Quine’s student from a creating writing class, a transgender woman named Pippa Midgely. Although Quine’s manuscript was suppressed, all of these people had an opportunity to read it. Leonora, also ridiculed in the book, is the only one who claims not to have read it.

Cormoran is unable to find a trace of Quine, and he begins to feel odd about the situation. When he learns that Quine co-owns a house with Michael Fancourt that neither of them ever visit, he goes there immediately. He finds the house marred by acid and Quine’s body, tied up and disemboweled.

Strike’s old friend Richard Anstis is head of the investigation, but the police are not happy to have Strike involved since he made them look bad when he solved Lula Landry’s death as a homicide after they declared it a suicide. In any case, Anstis is inclined to suspect Leonora.

Meanwhile, the date of Strike’s assistant Robin Ellacot’s wedding is approaching, and she has still not managed to reconcile her fiancé’s dislike of her job with Strike. She is hoping Strike will train her to be a detective, but she is worried he has relegated her to being a secretary.

In my review of Galbraith’s first novel I complained of a dirty trick. I’m happy to report that there were none in this novel and the murderer was difficult to guess. I haven’t figured out yet how much I like Cormoran Strike, though, and I hope that his yearning after his bitch of an ex-fiancée is not going to continue in every novel. Whether she would follow through with her own wedding was a minor plot point of this novel, but I’m already tired of her and wish she would go away. Ditto with Robin’s tiresomely jealous fiancé.

Rowling as Galbraith continues to be a very good writer who keeps the story moving, but she has not quite engaged me on Strike’s behalf as yet.

Day 641: Remarkable Creatures

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Cover for Remarkable CreaturesRemarkable Creatures is based on the true stories of Elizabeth Philpot and Mary Anning. These were two women of the early 19th century who collected fossils along the sea near Lyme Regis, beginning before fossil collections became wildly popular. Some of their finds resulted in discoveries about evolution and extinction. The novel is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of the educated upper-class Elizabeth and the uneducated working-class Mary.

Elizabeth Philpot already realizes she will be a spinster when her newly married older brother nudges her and her two sisters to look for a less expensive place to live away from the family home in London, perhaps in some genteel seaside resort. The women choose Lyme Regis, and their brother soon finds them a comfortable but small stone cottage.

Louise Philpot becomes interested in gardening and Margaret busies herself with the town’s social scene, but Elizabeth realizes she must find something to occupy herself. When visiting a carpenter’s shop, she meets Mary Anning, at the time a child, and sees the fossils Mary has collected and is trying to sell. She is fascinated particularly by the fish and decides to look for fossils herself, doing much to help label herself and her sisters as eccentric.

Mary Anning finds and sells fossils to support her family, but she is also fascinated by them. After she begins her acquaintance with Elizabeth, she starts learning more about the scientific theories behind her work. When she discovers the fossil of a previously unknown animal, she does not know that her discovery challenges the beliefs of conventional religion that every animal created by God is currently alive on Earth.

Philpot and Anning, who made significant contributions to the science, both eventually find themselves frustrated by the lack of recognition for their contributions. It is worse for Mary, for she is not only a woman and uneducated, she is considered just a fossil hunter.

I found the subject matter of this novel interesting but feel Chevalier was probably struggling with the difficulties of depicting real people in fiction. Although she depicts two distinct women, they do not seem fully formed to me. I couldn’t help contrasting this novel with the wonderful The Signature of All Things, which is a similar story although completely fictional. There I got a sense of a strong, fully realized individual. To contrast, Chevalier gives each of her main characters a few signature traits—for example, Elizabeth judges people by what part of their physique they “lead with”—and we don’t get a sense of fully formed individuals.

 

Day 640: The Enchantment of Lily Dahl

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Cover for The Enchantment of Lily DahlBest Book of the Week!
Lily Dahl is a 19-year-old making a living as a waitress in a small-town cafe and living in an apartment above it. Although she is saving for college, what she really wants to be is an actress.

Lately she has been fascinated by Ed Shapiro, an artist living in a room across the street. He is in his thirties, recently deserted by his wife. At night she can’t keep herself from watching as he paints in his underwear.

Lily’s next-door neighbor, an old lady named Mabel, is helping Lily with her part of Hermia in a local production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Lily has also made friendly overtures to Martin Petersen, even though he seems very odd, because she remembers they used to play together as children. Martin stares at her and stutters, but he becomes a different person when acting his part of Cobweb in the play.

As Lily gets to know Ed Shapiro, she becomes aware that someone is watching her apartment and has even entered it when she wasn’t home. She suspects Hank, the boyfriend she broke up with when she realized she liked Ed.

Odd things begin to happen around town. Martin has left her some bewildering gifts and told her things that don’t make sense. She has heard rumors of someone seen near the river carrying a body and people seeing something that looks like an angel. Lily begins to fear that someone may have been killed.

This novel is an eerie one, and Lily, although at times naive, makes a strong and daring heroine. Occasionally, the novel seem almost dreamlike as it explores the differences between appearance and reality. You may find it hard to put down the novel, which in its look at the underbelly of a small town in Minnesota, reminded me a bit of the movie Blue Velvet, although the novel is gentler.