December Books

"When you're a young writer, you subtract the birthdates of authors from their publication dates and feel panic or hope. When you're an old writer, you observe the death dates of your favorite writers and you reflect on their works and their lives." (Gail Godwin, The New York Times Book Review, December 12, 2010)

These are some titles from last month's New York Times Book Review section (and Stephen King's year-end list from Entertainment Weekly magazine) that I might like to read at some point:

Fiction

Anathem - Neal Stephenson; "Delights in the language and etymology he has designed for his fictional world . . . and in the 7,000 years of detailed history he has given it."

The Finkler Question - "A mugging prompts a quest for self-discovery in this tale of anti-Semitism, friendship and wisdom; winner of this year's Man Booker prize."

The Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman; "Journalists, long taught to never make themselves the story, now have Tom Rachman do it for them. His alternately acute and poignant debut novel, about the dramatic follies at a Rome-based English-language newspaper, is divided into chapters dedicated to different characters, each as distinct as a newspaper section."

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simonson; "Set in an English village, Simonson's first novel wraps Old World sensibility around a story of multicultural conflict and romance. A retired major - the starchy widower Ernest Pettigrew - is mourning the recent death of his brother and frustrated by his materialistic son. Gradually he's drawn to Mrs. Ali, a shopkeeper of Pakistani descent who shares his love of Kipling but is regarded by village society as a permanent foreigner."

Rich Boy - Sharon Pomerantz; "The ambitious son of working-class Jewish immigrants gains entree into a world of pedigreed wealth and privilege through charm and smarts alone - but will he always be defined by where he came from? A gripping narrative that doubles as a sweeping rumination on the American class system."

Stephen King's Top Five Books of 2010

1. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace; "To my mind, there have been two great American novels in the past 50 years. Catch-22 is one; this is the other. For pop culture vultures like me, the central plot is fascinating: The late James O. Incandenza has created an 'entertainment' - Infinite Jest - so irresistible you can't stop watching it. Three dozen terrific characters spin out from this, my favorite being Joelle Van Dyne, a.k.a. the P.G.O.A.T.: Prettiest Girl of All Time. But it all comes back to that lethal film - because for guys like me, irresistible entertainment, lethal or not, is the holy grail."

2. Freedom - Jonathan Franzen; "If you haven't met Walter and Patty Berglund of St. Paul, it's time. Franzen chronicles their ups and down (mostly downs) with a cold mind and a warm heart. Two wedding rings go into the toilet over the course of this novel, but there's a measure of redemption for both of those who do the casting away. I finished uplifted and energized by Franzen's storytelling ability."

3. I'd Know You Anywhere - Laura Lippman; "The best suspense novel of the year. Eliza Benedict has got a nice house and a nice family, and has managed to put the trauma of her life behind her. At least until the serial killer who kidnapped and raped her - but let her live - when she was 15 gets in touch from death row and says he wants to see her."

4. Savages - Don Winslow; "Chon and Ben, the antiheroes at the center of this novel that's every bit as savage as its title, aspire to be kinder, gentler drug dealers, but when the smoke clears, one is tempted to quote Sarah Palin: 'How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for ya?' This is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on autoload. Winslow's stripped-down prose is a revelation."

5. Last Night in Twisted River - John Irving; "It starts with the accidental killing of a Native American woman (the youngster who brains her with a skillet mistakes her for a bear). Father and son take off, pursued by the relentless Constable Carl for nearly 50 years. There's a lot of Canada here, a lot of cookin', and a lot of gorgeous (and cynical) Americana. Irving's best since Garp.

Nonfiction

Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of Elegant Delights - Jessica Kerwin Jenkins; "This gilded, graceful book is nothing less than a miniature encyclopedia of style, exploring everything from the origins of badminton to the art of origami."

How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less - Sarah Glidden; "Vivid dialogue and deceptively simple line drawings that are shaded with delicate watercolors, resulting in a graphic memoir of subtlety and understated wit."

The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War - James Bradley, "whose Flags of Our Fathers recounted how his father helped plant the American flag on Iwo Jima, here contends that William Taft's covert 1905 diplomatic mission to Japan helped set the stage for World War II in the Pacific, the Chinese Communist Revolution and the Korean War. With each port of call, Bradley assesses the effects of American race-based foreign policy calculations in Asia; the brutal counterinsurgency in the Philippines, the forced annexation of Hawaii, the betrayal of promises to protect Korea from Japanese expansionism."

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void - Mary Roach; "Much more interested in the small steps for man than in the giant leaps for mankind, chronicling all of the niches and pecularities of exploring the outer reaches . . . simultaneously informative and get-strange-looks-on-the-subway hilarious."

Yours Ever: People and Their Letters - Thomas Mallon; "Intended as 'a kind of companion volume to A Book of One's Own,' Mallon's 1984 study of people and their diaries, this exploration of the art of letter-writing embraces old friends - Flaubert, Freud, the Mitfords - and plenty of unknowns."