book list 2008
I'll update to list those I've read most recently at the top. (Related 2008 lists: movie list 2008, restaurant list 2008) List of Books I Read in 2008- Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004): there's a line in Paul Simon's "Slip-Sliding Away" in which a father longs to tell his son "all the reasons for all the things he done." In a small town in Iowa in 1956, a septuagenarian preacher dying of a heart disease does just this, via a series of letters to his 7-year-old boy, in which he relates his legacy and memories; the letters comprise the whole of the story.
This is the most beautiful book I've read in a long time: the old man relates his thoughts and experiences with grace, serenity, and the cleanest, simplest words there are, and there is poetry and wonder on every page. Themes of fathers and sons, and prodigal sons, and different interpretations of faith, and the nature of forgiveness and love and sin, all intermingle with events occurring in the last year or so of the preachers's life.
Metaphor is abundant: one of my favorite passages recalls a memory during the preacher's youth when his father (also a preacher) helped to tear down a church that had been struck by lightning; the men were covered with ash mixed with rainwater, the women sang hymns to keep everyone in good spirits. The Bibles that were too damaged were buried. The boy recalls that his father, blackened with grime, had no food to offer his son but an ashy biscuit he pulled from his breast pocket.
I can't say enough about this book. I need to read this one again. What a treasure.
- The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger (2004): the tale of an involuntarily time-traveling man and the woman who loves him. For me, although the development and story arc of the romantic plot seemed a little saccharine near the end (and yeah, I cried), I was more impressed with the author's solution of how to solve the problem of presenting two non-chronological chronologies in a linnear narrative.
Raises some deep questions about destiny and free will, but doesn't really answer them. Much of the exposition was awash in minute details ... possibly to give the story more realism, but to me it seemed a little tedious. Overall, however, I enjoyed it.
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, Lynn Truss (2006): I think the negative review of this book comes from those interpreting it to be a definitive punctuation manual -- but it's not; it's a guide explaining theory, origin, and use, and it's a plea for at least some thought to go into writing. Plus, it's funnier than anything I've read on the subject. I can't believe it's taken me so long to get a copy.
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