This year I didn't enjoy any book as much as my top three from last year -- maybe because I wasted too much time getting sucked into the endless supply of articles chronicling the idiocy of our current administration -- but I still read some good ones. Here are my favorites.
The White Darkness -- I'm listing this article first because it was amazing. It later came out as a book, which I haven't read, but definitely will.
Kitchen Confidential – hilarious peek
into the restaurant world. (Here's the original article.)
Chemistry – light, funny, unique perspective (a student pursuing a PhD in Chemistry.)
Spoils – nicely detailed Iraq war story.
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things – novel about an unlikely
connection.
Honorable mentions:
Fortune Smiles – A short story collection that I considered
putting down after the first two, but the rest turned out to be good.
Dark Matter – for the beach.
Acclaimed books that were good, but may have been victims of high expectations:
Exit West – Good writing and potential to be an epic,
but cut some corners and left me imagining the ways it could have been better. It’s short, so you won’t regret reading it, and again, it is good, and relevant, but it was a
letdown after all of the glowing reviews.
The Return – Informative book centered around the true story of the author's father, and definitely worth reading--especially if you’re interested in the Middle East--but the writing felt loose and unfocused at times.
Go, Went, Gone – A James Wood recommendation. Important
subject matter (African refugees in Germany) but should have cut a quarter of it and
revised the rest. It was informative, with plenty of flashes of good writing,
and I’m glad finished, but it was a slog at times.
Less – A Pulitzer Prize winning comic novel about a mid-life crisis—which
should be right up my alley, but I found it to be a slog almost the entire way through. Lots of little witticisms, funny at times, and a
worthy theme, but just never got going for me.
