Best of 2011 Countdown: #1

We've arrived at our #1 books of 2011!  Pop the bubbly and raise a glass (of Diet Coke, of course, as it sure as hell tastes better than champagne).

Gianna:

The Tiger's Wife
Tea Obreht
Random House

Okay, so you’re not surprised. You had to be a little surprised that a first novel is at the top of my list (or at least surprised that so many first novels were in the list to begin with). 

Tea Obreht

I’ve talked about this book so much that I almost thought it was a 2010 book. I know I’ve said this before but I rarely read a book more than once, and certainly don’t read a book more than once in the span of just a few months. But that is exactly what I did with The Tiger’s Wife. I don’t know if I did it because I wanted to check myself; I had been going on and on about this book to anyone who would listen and maybe wanted to verify it before I looked like a complete idiot. Yeah, turns out I missed so much of this magical, layered, rich, beautiful book the first time around that a second reading just made me talk about it even more. Annoying right? [Incredibly.] In short, this novel is about a young doctor trying to navigate her way after the death of her beloved grandfather who was once a well respected doctor himself. It is filled with amazing stories, fables, and history. This is a novel that you will never forget; it will live on your shelf forever (and I am sorry but this is a book you must have in physical form, some books are just too good for e-readers only…and I will die on that hill).

Tea Obreht is an extraordinary writer, a genius.

This was one of the last books I sold when I was with Random House, and I just can’t help but think how incredibly lucky I was to have that opportunity.


Liz:


Galore
Michael Crummey
Other Press


For those people not in the book industry or unfamiliar with the various alignments of publishing houses, allow me a moment of explanation.  In my capacity as a district sales manager for Random House Inc, I sell both publishing groups owned by Random House--Knopf, Doubleday, Vintage/Anchor, etc--and I also sell books from independent presses that contract with Random House for distribution services.  Other Press is one of those smaller presses, one that specializes in literary fiction and nonfiction.  The press publishes books that challenge readers as well as entertain and educate, and the team working for Other Press regularly manages to find surprising, wonderful books from around the world.  My top pick for 2011 is one of those books.

Michael Crummey

Sometimes as a reader you just have to let go of the reins and go where the story takes you.  In the case of Galore, that place is Paradise Deep, a remote fishing village in Newfoundland so removed from the rest of the country that the only Bible in town is half a book that was found inside a fish that was obviously hungry for the Word.  Galore starts with a beached whale, and as the citizens of Paradise Deep begin to break down the beast, they find a man, naked and bleached, inside of the belly.  While they stand around making fun of the size of the man's genitalia (and you know that's what Gianna and I would be doing), the man moves.  He is alive, he smells like rotten fish, and he has no back story.  The people name him Judah--after a debate about whether Jonah or Judas was the biblical whale bait and a compromise--and he becomes a constant in this story of multiple generations and diverse characters.  I compare Galore to other favorite books--the storytelling magic of The Hakawati, the folklorish charm of Maritime Canada in The Shipping News.  The wonderful cast of characters reminds me of the town people in the Dutch movie Antonia's Line, one of my favorite movies ever.  


While Galore was published in the United States in 2011, it was an earlier release in Canada. There it won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best Book, the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award, and was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction.  It's full of mythology and sea yarns and terrific characters.  It's a book that I would love to see illustrated because Michael Crummey creates so many amazing images that have lingered in my mind all year. Oh, and you know I love my Canadian fiction.  Galore is my favorite book of the year.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #7

Gianna:

Blood Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
Gabrielle Hamilton
Random House

I am not a “foodie." I have no obsession or even great love of food. I don’t ever have conversations about it or dream about what I am going to make for dinner. I don’t wax poetic about recipes…and no, I don’t take pictures of my meals (unless I suspect that the $4.99 Chinese buffet I came across on the road may come back to haunt me. In that case I take a photo of the buffet, the health inspection, and the manager on duty).   Now before you think I am complete animal…I do believe I enjoy a large bowl of pasta (every night if I could) more than the average person. I’ve never read a food memoir…no not even Ruth Reichl or M.F.K. Fisher. I did however read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and my literary senses tell me Roald Dahl was the Anthony Bordain of his time. [Having traveled and eaten with Gianna for years now, let me state this: she's Italian and she LIKES the Olive Garden.  Let that sit on your tongue and dissolve for a bit.] 

Gabrielle Hamilton...
who's lost her shoes?

So why, Gianna, why do you love Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones, and Butter so much? I mean, it’s your #7 for the love of pasta! Well, first of all Hamilton is an amazing writer.  She earned her MFA from the University of Michigan and she has written for The New York Times, GQ, Food & Wine, and The New Yorker. Her work has been included in six volumes of Best of Food Writing. In other words, she has writing chops (get it “chops”? Like pork chops or some other food chop…or just chopping…? Hilarious). [Kill me, you hateful punner.]

Hamilton writes beautifully about her parents, particularly about her mother (who she credits with giving her the love of food), and the parties they would throw. It seems their house was never empty, and the year’s highlight was their annual spring lamb roast where they would have over 200 guests.  Hamilton’s parents divorce, and her life changes quickly and dramatically. She and her siblings are left alone an entire summer foraging for their own food and, left to their own devices, Hamilton discovers drugs at the age of 13.  The book picks up again as we follow Hamilton through the kitchens of her life, ending with her own restaurant, Prune, in New York City.

This memoir is lyrical, honest, funny, thoughtful and a bit dark (Hamilton has not spoken to her mother in about 20 years). For me the read was The Liar’s Club meets The Glass Castle meets the best food writing you’ve ever experienced.  [...Like the instructions on a Hot Pocket?] Don’t take my word for it (always a mistake); here is what Anthony Bourdain says: “ Magnificent. Simply the best memoir by a chef ever. Ever.” 

Liz:

The Tiger's Wife
Tea Obreht
Random House

I can't remember a year more heavily dominated by terrific first novels.  Just looking at my list, have five in my top ten, and I'm not alone.  Of The New York Times Book Review's five best fiction works of 2011, four were first novels with Stephen King as the noted veteran.  One of those NYT best books is Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife.


Since the beginning of the year, I've engaged in an ongoing debate with a bookseller friend about which book--The  Tiger's Wife or Swamplandia! by Karen Russell--would win the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.  He was right--The Tiger's Wife was a finalist for the National Book Award (and I still think that Swamplandia! will win the Pulitzer).

Tea Obreht

The 25 year-old Tea Obreht writes much more maturely than her age suggests, and The Tiger's Wife is the novel most writers never manage to achieve.  It is splendid--a literary work with passion and memorable characters and beautiful storytelling.  Blending history, family, and folklore, The Tiger's Wife tells the story of a young doctor, Natalia, grieving for her grandfather's death through the memory of his stories.  Interwoven is the history of the Balkans from World War II to the present, her grandfather's love of Kipling's The Jungle Book, and of the tiger wandering through the darkness.  This is a book of secrets and family and love.  It's a masterpiece.

Julie Otsuka--Little Books, Big Books

Julie Otsuka

The 2011 National Book Award is announced this week and two Random House titles--The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht and The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka--are nominated for the prestigious fiction prize.  I (Liz) had read The Tiger's Wife back in March, and it is generally considered the odds favorite.  I'd overlooked reading Julie Otsuka's work, though, and this weekend decided that I should catch up with one of the books last year's winner, Jaimy Gordon, predicted might be an upset winner.  Being the crazy book fiend I am though (see: Operation Chuck), I read both The Buddha in the Attic and Otsuka's earlier book, When the Emperor Was Divine.

How to read two books in just over 24 hours?  It helps when both books are under 150 pages in length.  I'm not a speed reader--really, I'm not.  I just don't sleep.  I started with When the Emperor Was Divine, Otsuka's earlier book.  Emperor has become a classroom favorite along the lines of Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird, and it's not difficult to see why.  This is the story of a family of Japanese Americans who are evacuated to internment camps in World War II.  These characters--a mother, son, daughter, and absent husband who was taken to an enemy combatant camp--are relatively anonymous, archetypal.  The experiences they face are characteristic of those endured during one of the greatest civil rights atrocities in US history, and the absence of character names makes these stories feel universal and profound in their ordinariness.  I was also struck by Julie Otsuka's ability to write beautiful sentences with relatively simple vocabulary.  I'm not a language lover like the wannabe poets out there; my book love usually is character-related.  Still, I noted the vocabulary of this book and the beauty of her sentences.  This is a book that a high school student can read and appreciate, a book that challenges and educates and moves.

After finishing When the Emperor Was Divine, I picked up Otsuka's NBA-nominated, new novel, The Buddha in the Attic.  In one sense, Buddha is a prequel to Emperor, in that the time frame involved begins in 1919 and moves up to the Japanese internment in World War II.  However, while Emperor used a family to relate a more universal experience for Japanese Americans, Buddha uses a different tact.  This is a novel without specifics--it's the story of a whole group of Japanese women who come to the United States as mail order brides.  They are city girls, country girls, educated girls, innocent children, old maids, younger sisters too plain to become geishas.  They come to the US to meet husbands who were allegedly bankers, lawyers, business owners...but who are farm hands, day laborers.  These are women learning to survive in a foreign land.  In 120+ pages, Julie Otsuka manages to capture 25 years of struggle and strength for an entire subset of the population, and again she's captured beauty.  This little book is great.  If it manages to win the National Book Award, I won't be protesting, but even if it doesn't, The Buddha in the Attic is worth reading.