Two Excellent Books

I love it when books give me new eyes with which to see the world. Adam Black's THE PRANK was one of those books*.

THE PRANK was written as though the reader were finding out about a breaking news story through internet news sources. The way it was written as well as the story it told brought questions to my mind about the value of how we ingest media and how that informs how we perceive truth. I loved it.**

       

And now there's BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK.

Billy Lynn is back on U.S. soil, traveling on a victory tour with his squad of fellow soldiers. This after a dangerous mission in which some of their company were killed. The Bravos are heroes. They are traveling with a movie producer who, while they are traveling, is trying to work a deal to get their story made into a movie. As the culmination of their victory tour, they are invited to participate in the spectacle of a Dallas Cowboys football halftime show.

Written from Billy's point of view, BLLHW juxtaposes the harshness of being a combat soldier with the comfort and excesses of American life.

       

How does a soldier fighting in Iraq, daily battling dirt and blood and fear and enemies, missing family and home, reconcile the lavishness of American life? How can civilians even partially conceive of the difficulties and challenges faced by soldiers in combat?

Fountain gets us inside Billy's head as he and the other Bravos travel together, and by so doing, exposes the stark contrasts between the life of a combat soldier and life in the U. S. of A.

BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK is brilliant. Fountain gets us to examine soldiering and American life, which allows us to take a deeper look at our own lives. And isn't that ultimately the point?

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*See my blog post about this most excellent book here (you'll have to copy and paste the link, but it's worth it):
http://notthenewyorktimesbookreview.blogspot.com/2011/11/the-prank-by-adam-black.html

**No, really, read the blog post about this book:
http://notthenewyorktimesbookreview.blogspot.com/2011/11/the-prank-by-adam-black.html

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Books Read in 2012

Happy New Year!

While I always like to look ahead at what's next on my reading horizon, I also like to look back and remember...

Below is a list of the books I read in 2012. I like looking over the list and remembering reading (and enjoying!) the books. It's like recalling visits with good friends.

It was a Gillian Flynn year and a John Green year, since I read several titles by both of them and they were amongst my favorites.

Some delighted me...Redshirts was very fun, and so was Alif the Unseen and Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore. I also really liked Libba Bray's Beauty Queens (don't be deterred by the cover!)

There were a few disappointments...I was interested to read more about Irene Pepperberg's experiences with her highly intelligent grey parrot, but the book didn't read as well as the subject. Or maybe just as not as well as I wanted it to. And The Twelve, the second in a trilogy after The Passage, didn't hold my interest.

A few had amazing writing that stopped me in my tracks...The Dog Stars was one. I have written blog posts about some of these books...and there will be a few more blog posts about some of these! Keep an eye out!



Read in 2012:
Extra Virginity by Tom Mueller
The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay
Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann
Defending Jacob by William Landay
Man Seeks God by Eric Weiner
The Sensualist by Barbara Hodgson
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Losing Clementine by Ashley Ream
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (audio)
Primacy by J.E. Fishman
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Drop Dead Healthy by AJ Jacobs
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen
In One Person by John Irving
The Anatomist's Apprentice by Tessa Harris
Some Assembly Required by Anne and Sam Lamott (audio)
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller
The Plaza by Guillermo Paxton
I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Redshirts by John Scalzi
The Prospect of My Arrival by Dwight Okita
Are You My Mother? by Allison Bechdel
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson
The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
Alex and Me by Irene Pepperberg
Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
Paper Towns by John Green
A Million Heavens by John Brandon
Son by Lois Lowry
Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Likeness by Tana French
If I Stay by Gayle Forman
The Twelve by Justin Cronin
The Death of Sweet Mister By Daniel Woodrell
The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin
Sex, Lies, and Handwriting by Michelle Dresbold
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

       

I'm already reading a great book to start off the new year (Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain).

Here's to 2013, a year of great reading!

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