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By
Published: 2006
Category: Beyond Classification [4]
The Best Books (First Quarter, 2006) [6]
Taxes paid. Flowers blooming. Not yet at war with Iran. I sit in the window seat, breeze flowing over me, the lamp reducing the world to a book and me.
I've got a stack now, books teed up for weeks of Butlers. Lucky me, to be able to call this "work." Lucky you (I hope), to have someone pre-chew your brainfood.
Before lunging forward, I want to take a day to look back at the best books I've read so far this year. They're not necessarily "new" --- when you can order any book online, who cares about the publication date? They're just, in my view, the best.
The best novel: Jean Rhys wrote with a diamond-cutter for a pen. Every word is the right one. Sad? You bet: Her most memorable characters are women whose beauty is fading and whose money is uncertain. Men are important to them for reasons far beyond companionship and affection. Paris and London in the glory years are a bonus and a distraction. The emotion is what you came for. Where to start reading Rhys? After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie [7].
Most romantic novel: Smart high school kids. They grow too close. Welded, in fact. Her father decrees a trial separation. To get everyone's attention, the boy starts a fire. The girl's house burns down. The boy is sent to a mental institution. Think his love has burned out? You'd be wrong. Scott Spencer has written an astonishing story of fidelity --- or obsession --- in Endless Love. [8]
The novel that's most like Chick Lit: Only it's better written. Two best friends --- a gay writer and a heterosexual woman --- share a beach house with friends. Right at the start of the summer, she dies. Her mother --- smart, attractive, grieving --- arrives and moves into her room. Drama ensures. So does merriment. And wisdom. Meg Wolitzer triumphs in Surrender, Dorothy [9].
The best comic-book novel: The movie rocked me, the comic-strip novel rocked me more --- this is no cartoon. Ideas abound. Violence too. And a vision of the future --- or is it the present? --- that's darker than a vault. Alan Moore and David Lloyd revolutionized a genre here in a book that will excite even hardened teenagers: V for Vendetta [10].
Best classic (and DVD): Dickens had a fierce instinct for justice denied, and this novel is the king of that bunch. An endless law case swallows lives whole. Meanwhile, the poor of London suffer. Worlds never meant to meet are connected here; a kind of crude justice is meted out. And the British mini-series is sublime. Of course, I'm talking about Bleak House [11]. [11]
Best Thriller: I avoid the genre. The plotting is beyond me, the characters are beneath me. But every once in a while, there's a smart, well-written one. Remember the name Peter Temple; in addition to this one-off, he's written a great series. But I'll always be partial to this thriller, which starts in South Africa, races to Europe and stops at several hidden disaster zones along the way. Don't be put off by the title: Identity Theory. [12]
Best Book set in Paris: He's just lost his job. She's just had a hit. The war in Iraq is about to start. No matter --- they've got a borrowed apartment in Paris for a week. And so, therefore, do you, in Ronald Fried's evocative and accurate Christmas in Paris, 2002 [13]
Scariest book about America: They know. Everything. And they're watching now. Robert OHarrow Jr. shows you how they do it in No Place to Hide [14].
Most intriguing healing therapy: There's no touch. Just directed energy. Sounds... unlikely. But the results can be amazing. Pamela Miles, the American expert, explains it to you in Reiki: A Comprehensive Guide [15].
Live Longer: You have to sweat 6 days a week. But if you do, the authors say, you can avoid 50% of the diseases that strike the 50+. Do you dare try Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond? [16]
Help Your Kid: Are you building self-esteem? Stop! What you need to build is confidence. And the way to confidence is via failure. Martin Seligman lays out the case in The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children from Depression & Build Lifelong Resilience [17].
Something for everyone, I hope.