Check It Out: The ones that got away
I read a lot of wonderful -- and then again not-so-wonderful -- books this year. And while I don't regret many of my reads, there are always so many that I just never got around to.
Roberto Bolano's 2666 is one of them. Translated by Natasha Wimmer, I've heard the grisly detective novel praised on NPR, in bookstores and newspapers nearly everywhere I've gone. It doesn't sound like the type of book I ususally enjoy -- hundreds of women are murdered in a small Mexican town, while an ensemble cast of characters are drawn to the darkness -- it's been called a darkly humorous masterpiece, written in the last days of Bolano's life. How can you resist a description like that?
The Good Thief, by Hannah Tinti, was first brought to my attention via a postcard sent with one of my One Story mailings. Judging a book by its cover, it looks awesome -- the silhouettes of a piratey man with his hand on a young boy's shoulder, walking away from a rickety house grabbed me right away.
Tinti's tale has been compared favorably to Robert Louis Stevenson's classic Treasure Island. The Good Thief follows a young boy in 19th-century New England. A one-handed orphan, Ren is saved from certain death when his older brother Benjamin comes for him. But is he really Ren's brother? And what does Benjamin want? I don't know! I need to read it!
Toni Morrison's lateste novel, A Mercy, is partially set in Maryland, which always piques my interest. Publishers Weekly loved it, and more importantly, we gave it a great review. Exploring slavery in 17th-century America as seen through the eyes of a young slave girl, I have no doubt it will be as heart-wrenching as Morrison's past novels.
Drew Gilpin Faust's Repubic of Suffering, Tana French's In the Woods and Christopher Paolini's Inheritance trilogy round out my to-be-read list.
And with 2009 so close, and the promise of more great books on the horizon, I know the list will only get longer. Oh, the tribulations of a booklover!
