Dear Readers,
I wish you all a healthy and joyful 2021!
2020 was no breeze, but I look back fondly on time with friends and family and lots of reading. I will remember long walks with friends and family, meet-ups with Culann and his parents in nearby parks, chats from the balcony, and all forms of Zooms, including with my New York book club, which I was able to rejoin in its current virtual form. I also discovered new countries, authors, perspectives, and even genres through reading. It’s been quite a year. Here three books that particularly impressed me.
2020: Three recommendations
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (2017)
Description: The protagonist 20-something Frances and her best friend and lover Bobbie meet a 30-year-old poet and journalist and her actor husband. The story evolves from there as these relationships develop in expected and unexpected ways and the characters discover new sides in themselves and others with all the emotional ups, downs and confusions of love, youth, and friendship.
My Take: I absolutely flew through these pages. I myself felt youthful and all the mix of emotions and confusions that the characters felt. The writing style is tremendous, and the dialogue hauntingly beautiful. Rooney is a genius—you won’t even miss the quotation marks.
Bonus fact: During her time at Trinity College Dublin, Rooney became the top debater at the European University Debating Championships.
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019)
Description: The story starts with Ellwood Curtis, a black youth in Florida in the ‘60s, who dreams of college and equality. He mistakenly gets into trouble and is sent to reform school. While trying to stay out of trouble there, his sense of justice and injustice make him a magnet for just that. While this is a work of fiction, it was extensively based on the accounts of survivors of the Dozier School, as well as archaeological findings on the school’s grounds.
My Take: This was a book selected by my book club, and I probably would not have read it after finding Whitehead’s acclaimed The Underground Railroad fascinating, but a little tough to get through. This rather short book uses such beautiful English, it made a devastating story flow from page to page and earned 4 or 5 fingers from all members of the book club. After finishing the book and reading the author’s afterword, I was terrified to learn how much of the fictional narrative was based on real fact. An important story that Whitehead has masterfully brought into the open.
Bonus fact: The Nickel Boys won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize. After already receiving the 2017 Pulitzer for The Underground Railroad, Whitehead is now one of four authors to have won the fiction category twice. Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and John Updike are the other three authors in this group.
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge (2017)
Description: British journalist Eddo-Lodge builds on her viral blog post by the same name, exploring different themes of racism, chapter by chapter, including Britain's involvement in the slave trade, racism and gender, racism and class, and more.
My Take: This book is thought-provoking as are many of the non-fiction works about race and racism that propelled onto reading lists this year. However, of the several books I read, I appreciated this book most for making the reader struggle in a productive way with the implications of the message, while the subject was well-organized, not pedantic, and still flowed well.
Bonus fact: This is written from a British lens and I felt my eyes were opened to nuances of British race history, racism, and anti-racism.
A few honorable mentions
Two books that truly surprised me:
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins tells the heart-wrenching story of a Mexican mother and son’s journey North to flee the cartel chasing them.
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd, beloved author of The Secret Life of Bees, is the fictional story of Jesus’ wife.
Previously mentioned: Where the Crawdads Sing and The Henna Artist, two of my favorite historical fiction reads (issue 11). Invisible Women as my favorite non-fiction read this year (issue 13) and comics as my newest favorite genre (issue 12).
Currently reading: Goldstein, Gereon Rath’s third case in Volker Kutscher’s iconic period mystery novel series set in 1930s Berlin. My favorite mystery discovery of the year.
Now enough looking back, time to look ahead! I have not set myself any big reading goals for the year, though I sincerely hope to keep discovering more books to share with all of you. I wish you a Happy New Year, e guets Nois, und Bun An!