5 of my favorite fiction books of the year include surprises, nostalgia
In my house, I have two separate cabinets where I put the books I’ve read in a given year after I’ve read them. One is the cabinet for Biblioracle Book Awards contenders. The other is for … well, let’s not talk about those. They’re not necessarily bad books but they were not books for me.
Twenty-four works of fiction made the contender cabinet this year, and I have room to highlight maybe 10 over the next two weeks. Don’t even start thinking about all the books I haven’t read. The point is, there are lots of great books published every year, and this just happens to be a list of my favorites.
Defeats the Sophomore Slump Book of the Year:
Sometimes a first novel will outshine the second because a writer has put so much time and spirit into securing their breakthrough, and the second hasn’t had as much time to gestate. I fell hard for Weike Wang’s first book, “Chemistry,” but her second, “Joan Is Okay,” is even better, combining Wang’s signature spiky deadpan with a deep exploration of grief, resulting in a book that is both funny and emotionally powerful.
One Sitting Read Book of the Year: Antoine Wilson’s “Mouth to Mouth” is a story nested in a story, as the book’s narrator semi-trapped in an airport lounge conversation, listens to Jeff Cook, an old, mostly forgotten classmate, unspool a story about how he saved a man from drowning and that ultimately led him into the insular and secretive world of fine art dealing. Our narrator does not know why he’s being told the story, but he’s intrigued, and soon the reader too is swept up in the suspense. I read this on a plane and when the plane landed, I let everyone else get off before me so I could get to the final twist.
Book of the Year that Was Actually Published 50 Years Ago: I’ve now heard from three different readers who sought out used copies of Thomas Rogers’ “The Confession of a Child of the Century” after I published my tale of rediscovering this mostly forgotten Chicago writer for myself, and they agree with me, this is a book that deserves to be read today, so consider this another reminder.
Brings the Chicago Suburbs of My Youth Alive Book of the Year: There are a lot of pleasures to be had in Adam Langer’s “Cyclorama,” but the way he captures the feeling of the Chicago ‘burbs in the 1980s in the first half of the book and how the characters’ experiences in that world imprint on their adult lives in 2016 in the second half of the book had me wondering what sort of sorcery had allowed him to dive straight into my own perceptions of the world.
Everyone I’ve Recommended this to Has Loved It Book of the Year: On the surface, a book about the process of a search committee choosing a new minister for their Unitarian Universalist congregation in California seems like it would lack drama and intrinsic interest, but I’ve put Michelle Huneven’s “Search” in the hands of at least a half dozen readers now and every single one of them has testified to the ability of the book to get you invested in seeing whether or not these folks make the right choice. As told by Dana Potowski, food writer, committee member and passionate defender of who she thinks is the right candidate for the congregation, not only is “Search” a very fine novel, but it has a recipe for some of the best chocolate chip cookies you’ve ever had.
Maybe I’ll have room for six more books in next week’s installment.