The Best Books of 2010

It seems appropriate to end this year with some sort of list. Isn't that what people do? Top ten movies of the year! Ten ten celebrity scandals of the year! Top ten Wikileaks of the year!

Well, without further ado, here's my add to the end-of-the-year fray:

Rina's Favorite Books of the Year

1) Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud by Jonathan Safran Foer: I started 2010 off with an amazing read, and I'd still happily recommend it. A friend once commented that he was hesitant to read Foer because of his pop-celebrity: don't let it deter you.

2) Let the Great World Spin by Colum McMann: The only one on this list that I haven't previously quoted: I wanted to, but I simply couldn't find a passage that encapsulated everything that I loved about the novel. A beautiful tribute to a New York past and, in its own way, a New York present.

3) On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan: Although I'm particularly partial to McEwan, this was absolutely riveting. A couple falls in - and out - of love. Tragedy from misunderstandings.

4) Tales of the City trilogy by Armistead Maupin: After hearing a friend rave about this series for over a year, I finally picked up Maupin's trilogy. It's set in 1970s San Francisco, and while I've had the pleasure of visiting the city on multiple occasions, it made me think about the city's role in transforming cultural norms and the counterculture movement. Also: a really great, (sometimes trashy) scandal filled trilogy!

5) The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar: As I noted in my original post, Dr. Iyengar's book is a fascinating look into how individuals make choices, taking into account factors like cultural factors or cognitive biases. It was a little tedious at times, but four months later, I still find myself re-reading - and quoting - her passages on individualist versus collectivist societies. I rarely read non-fiction, but I would happily pass this on.

Happy holidays! xo

And then you read something...

Happy 2010, everyone. Apologies for the long lag since my last post. I was in a bit of a predicament: I wanted to post, but I was in a reading rut.

First, I went through a series of books that were mind-blowingly inane.

Then, I started 2666, which was fantastic, but I just couldn't finish it. It's a massive tome, and with all of the life changes, I couldn't devote enough time to the novel to truly do it justice.

And then, just when I was giving up hope, a friend lent me Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Have you ever read something that's so incredibly beautiful that it feels like every line is piercing your heart? That you're going to explode from the sheer beauty of the prose? It's been years since I've read something that's moved me so deeply... but it's nearly impossible to excerpt here. There's no one line, no one passage, that jumps out at me: nearly every page had me laughing and thinking. So, with that caveat, here is a sample of how absurdly talented Jonathan Safran Foer is. (By way of explanation, the novel is narrated from the perspective of a nine year old boy.)

"What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet."

And that's just the first page.

Of course, now I find myself in a new predicament: how am I going to read anything in 2010 that tops this novel?