BOOK CLUBS TAKE NOTE: THE BEST READS OF 2017
Check out the list of titles — as chosen by Denver Post staffers — that will keep you turning pages. We all can’t be wrong .»
In the last year, I chose two titles for my book club: “Lincoln in the Bardo” by George Saunders and “Sing, Unburied, Sing” by Jesmyn Ward. “Lincoln” later won the Man Booker Prize (in October). A month later, “Sing, Unburied, Sing” took the National Book Award.
Yeah, somebody was (quite obnoxiously) feeling pretty full of herself at the book club’s December meeting.
And now, both titles are among the best reads of 2017, as chosen by Denver Post staffers. We all can’t be wrong, you know. (I’m talking to you, ladies in my book club who didn’t like “Lincoln in the Bardo.”) — Barbara Ellis
An American War by Omar El Akkad (Knopf Publishing Group)
In Omar El Akkad’s debut novel, the destruction of the United States after the second civil war feels all too real. After climate change has caused the oceans to swamp the coasts, the country’s population has migrated to the middle of the country. The U.S., like most countries has abandoned — and outlawed — fossil fuels. But the South refused and kept drilling and burning. That intransigence leads to war and chemical weapons reduce the coun- try to a thirdworld power. But what gives the novel its power — and what makes it truly terrifying — is the transformation of main character Sarat Chestnut from a happy child living in rather deplorable conditions with her family to a hardened warrior who’s determined to wreak her vengeance no matter the cost.
— Sara B. Hansen
Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout (Random House)
Elizabeth Strout’s latest feels like a meeting with a neighbor from your hometown who fills you in on all the small-town gossip. She’s got all the nasty, unseemly goods — the details on who’s having an affair, who’s abusing their kids, who’s on the verge of a crackup and who’s succeeding beyond their neighbors’ expectations. The book isn’t a sequel to the equally excellent “My Name is Lucy Barton,” but it brings back many of the same characters. But unlike many books that seem to romanticize small town living, Strout’s book makes Amgash, Ill., seems like a miserable place to live. It’s definitely not a place you’d want to visit and if you were unlucky enough to grow up there, once you escaped you’d be unlikely to want to return for a visit. — S.H.
The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris (Little, Brown and Company)
An elderly widower receives a prostitute and blue pill for his birthday. A childless couple gets stood up in the most extreme way for a dinner party. A woman wrestles with the shortcomings of her marriage as she plans a date. A wife butt-dials her husband, who overhears fragments of conversations with her lovers.
These are plots among the 11 short stories in this book. The stories dwell on tragedy, drama and craziness in ordinary lives, and they are rich in detail and character. — Noelle Phillips
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead)
In an unnamed Middle Eastern country that bears an awful resemblance to Syria, civil war is tearing gashes into the fabric of the city Nadia and Saeed live in, just as they’re falling in love. The young couple feels trapped until they hear about strange doors appearing all around the city that whisk those who cross the threshold off to … who knows where, but any place is better than here. This twist of magical realism distributes refugees of all nationalities all over the world, creating familiar crises and turning Hamid’s tale into a meditation on the turmoil inherent in the experience of human migration. — Jenn Fields
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Harpercollins)
First-time author Angie Thomas tells the compelling story of 16-year-old Starr Carter, who witnesses a cop kill her child- hood friend Khalil. She finds herself at the center of the investigation, court case and neighborhood protests that ensue. A no-holds-bar look at what it means to be young and black in America today, and what white privilege and white alliance look like. Expect to see this book on the year’s Young Adult book prize lists, but it’s meaningful reading for adults as well. — Polly Washburn
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (Harpercollins)
Roxane Gay, the belovedly honest and brash essayist behind “Bad Feminist,” ate and ate to protect her body after something horrible happened to it. To her. The stories of deep trauma and everyday slights as a woman who happens to be “fat” — her preferred term — are shot through with in-depth cultural criticisms that extend far beyond sideways glances at the body positive movement, for example, or quips about the humiliations of airline travel. This is Gay at her most intimate and vulnerable — and at the height of her prowess as a writer. — J.F.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (Random House)
Don’t expect a traditional narrative from “Lincoln in the Bardo.” This Man Booker Award winner will be one of the most unusual novels you’ve ever read — or listened to (which I’d recommend, since Saunders joins
David Sedaris, Nick Offerman, Susan Sarandan, Don Cheadle, Megan Mullally and scores of others in reading one or more of the 160-plus parts).
President Abraham Lincoln has lost his young son, Willie, to typhoid fever. In mourning, he makes frequent trips to a Georgetown cemetery where his son’s body is interred. While there, Lincoln is surrounded by the spirits that hover in the bardo, an intermediate state between one life and the next. The conversations between these spirits over the course of a single evening provide insight into life, death, morality and the power of love. It’s truly unforgettable. — Barbara Ellis
Pachinko by
Min Jin Lee
(Grand Central Publishing)
Sunja is a teenager from a poor family in preworld War II Korea who is seduced by a Japanese yakuza and becomes pregnant. A missionary who is staying at her mother’s boarding house offers to marry her and take her to Japan rather than have her bring shame to the family. In Japan, Sunja raises two sons and holds her family together, through poverty, war and tragedy. This sweeping tale of four generations of Koreans touches on enduring issues of displacement, regionalism, culture clashes and prejudice. Ultimately, Lee gives us a tale of survival that should be familiar to immigrants everywhere who just want to accepted. — B.E.
The Power by Naomi Alderman (Little, Brown and Company)
In a story that couldn’t have better timing due to the string of sexual harassment accusations sweeping the nation, Naomi Anderson conjures a world in which women have all the power. A genetic anomaly causes women to develop a skein, an electrical force that can stun, maim, kill. With power like that, it’s only a matter of time before there is a shift in control and men start to become the weaker sex. While “The Power” is difficult to read at times (especially the rape scenes), this dystopian tale in the vein of “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a page-turner that leaves you wondering: What if ? It’s gender role reversal at its most sinister. — B.E.
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore (Sourcebooks)
Reading the beginning of “The Radium Girls” is like watching a horror movie. You know something terrible is going to happen and you’re powerless to stop it. The women featured in the book will break your heart. They enthusiastically take factory jobs
— using radium to paint watch faces — that pay better than nursing, teaching or any other posts women could hold in the early 20th century. Once the women become sick, the book becomes a fascinating look at the fight the women face to hold their employers accountable. Ultimately, the story of how their plight changes safety regulations and workers’ compensation laws makes for compelling reading. — S.H.
The Rooster Bar by John Grisham (Doubleday)
In John Grisham’s latest, three disillusioned law students abandon their subpar law school in the spring of their final year. Burdened by overwhelming debt, with no promising job prospects and a growing certainty that their education hasn’t even adequately prepared them to pass the bar exam, they instead decide to game the system. They set up fake identities and start practicing law by soliciting DUI clients and begin their quest for the big score that will set them up for life. As always Grisham’s powerful plotting keeps you turning the page, even if the scrapes Mark, Todd and Zola find themselves in increasingly perilous — and less believable situations. Consider this fast-paced fun read a pleasant little Christmas vacation diversion. — S.H.
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The past echoes through generations and across continents in poet Hala Alyan’s debut novel, which follows a Palestinian family through Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon and beyond. There are premonitions of love and loss from the start, when Alia’s mother reluctantly reads her daughter’s future in the dregs of her coffee before her wedding. Diasporic stories naturally carry their own drama, but it’s the psychological precision with which Alyan crafts the family’s relationships that drives this narrative. — J.F.
Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane
(Ecco)
Fast-paced book that combines two mysteries. The first is Rachel’s quest to find her birth father. The second is how she winds up shooting her husband after discovering she’s been living a lie with a man she doesn’t really know. With plenty of twists and turns along the way, you’ll be surprised to see Rachel re-emerge from her self-imposed seclusion to become stronger, smarter and much more devious than you ever imagined. Although I like my books with definite endings, the cliffhanger here gives me hope we’ll see more of Rachel Childs in the future. — S.H.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner/simon & Schuster)
There’s a reason this book won the 2017 National Book Award for fiction.
Through descriptive and sometimes visceral writing, Jesmyn Ward addresses America’s long and complicated history of race through the story of 13-year-old Jojo, a boy who lives in southern Mississippi with this maternal grandparents, his toddler sister and their drug-addicted mother. While life is hard for Jojo and his family, it also is full of love and caring.
Most of the story takes place during a road trip where Jojo and his sister travel with their mother to Parchman Farm, a Mississippi penitentiary where their white father has been serving time.
Ward said she was inspired by other “odyssey” novels such as “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Huckleberry Finn” but wanted to reflect the realities of being black and poor in the Deep South. In her acceptance speech at the National Book Foundation awards ceremony, she said she often hears from reluctant readers who feel they don’t have anything in common with a poor, black 13-year-old boy. Her answer to them, “Plenty.” She is correct. — N.P.
Transit by Rachel Cusk (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Faye is a keen listener, and strangers and friends alike take advantage of her tendency to think far more than she speaks. The pieces of her story come out little by little, mostly through others — who, despite their engagement in their own internal conflicts and emotional distress still manage to shed light on Faye’s divorce, career and children. With a move to London and the separation, she’s midchaos right now, and in this second book of a planned trilogy, it’s feels right that everyone she meets seems to be in transit as well. Cusk’s unusual, spare style is warmed by the humanity of everyone Faye encounters; it’s strong scotch hitting the belly. Read “Outline,” Cusk’s first in the trilogy, and “Transit” now so you’re ready to sit down with that highball when the third arrives. — J.F.
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti (Dial
Press)
Samuel Hawley is a small-time hood who has killed a bad guy or three. He has a pretty big collection of weapons, a drinking problem, and lots of scars from bullet wounds. All he needs on the road to salvation is a little love, which Tinti provides via
Hawley’s wife,
Lily, and daughter, Loo. The chronological narrative is interspersed with chapters that describe the dozen times Hawley suffered bullet wounds — a technique that could have been jarring, but instead builds the suspense and deepens our affection for the title character. It’s a story of love, loss and redemption. — B.E.
Unbelievable: My Front-row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History by Katy
Tur (Dey Street)
NBC reporter Katy Tur’s fascinating, surreal and disturbing account of 16 months on the Trump campaign trail, from announcement to victory party. Tur covers memorable moments such as Trump singling her out at rallies and giving her an impromptu kiss at a press event, and her stories of her parents’ and her own news careers are no less captivating. A few anecdotes about reporter hijinks help lighten the otherwise exhausting glimpse into what it takes to cover the news 24/7. — P.W.