Books: My favourite 16 books this year

My favourite 16 books this year:

Now that the year is ending the time has come to reminisce a little.

Here is my very own best book list of this year: 

“Leaving the Atocha Station“ by Ben Lerner

“Normal People“ by Sally Rooney

“On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous“ by Ocean Vuong

“The Vegetarian“ by Han Kang“

“The Blind Assassin” by Margaret Atwood

“Lanny“ by Max Porter

“The Maytrees” by Annie Dillard

“Less” by Andrew Sean Greer

“The Last Gentleman“ by Walker Percy

“The Sea” by John Banville

“As A Friend“ by Forrest Gander

“The Man Without a Shadow“ by Joyce Carol Oates

“Of Human Bondage“ by W. Somerset Maugham

“The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie“ by Muriel Spark

“Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont“ by Elizabeth Taylor

“A Little Life“ by Hanya Yanagihara

“Leaving the Atocha Station“ by Ben Lerner:

This is a young American‘s tale of his alienated descent into Spain. In a constantly distorting mirror Adam is visiting the Prado and stands in front of Roger van der Weyden's “Descent from the Cross“, hoping for "a profound experience of art" that never takes place: "The closest I'd come to having a profound experience of art was probably the experience of this distance, a profound experience of the absence of profundity." 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, very intelligent and unusual. It also introduced me to Ben Lerner, his other 2 novels (“10:04” and “The Topeka School”) and his poetry books.

“Normal People“ by Sally Rooney:

Feel like delving into more of relationship’s arduous, bittersweet dramas?

Here comes "Normal People" by Sally Rooney. An exploration of Young Adult first, intense love across social classes in contemporary Ireland. The energy and excitement of the story comes from the the inner lives of the couple, what they see, imagine, read, from their sensibilities. - Enjoyed it very much!

"On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous“ by Ocean Vuong::

Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original – poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a gripping and shattering portrait of a family. 

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. 

In his late twenties, the narrator, Little Dog, starts a letter to his mother, telling all he was not able to tell so far and reveals the history of a family which began before he was born, in Vietnam.

it is a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity, asking central questions of our time, immersed as it is in addiction, violence, and trauma. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the bitterness of not being heard.  How to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, this powers this brilliant novel. - Beautiful, emotional, honest!

"The Vegetarian“ by Han Kang:

Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and body and renounce eating meat. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms. Scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. 

In sensual and violent images the book tells of the disturbing changing of Yeong-hye. The book shifts in language, moving between the baffled irritation of the husbands first-person narration, the controlled prose of the sister’s world, the dark and bloody narrative of Yeong-hye’s dreams, and the seductively sensual descriptions of living bodies painted with flowers, in states of transformation or wasting away. - Loved it, especially the tale of the artist, Yeong-hye his muse, he her lover!

"The Blind Assassin" by Margaret Atwood:

A delightful and cunning novel in a novel in a novel. Here Atwood sketches, with fascinating mastery of period detail, of costume and setting, of landscape and sky, of odor and texture, of mood and voice and dark humor, the story of the sisters Iris and Laura and their coming-of-age between the world wars in Canada. A book full of life’s dramas and cruel jokes, philosophical, wise, observant, mesmerizing. -  One of the best books I’ve read in the last 2 years, one that deserves to be called ‘Good Literature’. A marvel!

"Lanny" by Max Porter:

In this short novel Max Porter, in an exciting, experimental way, merges poetry and prose with beautiful, mesmerizing results. Lanny, a sweet, dreamy, strange and otherworldly, nevertheless lively, charming  boy, whom everyone likes, goes missing one evening in his English village, 150 km from London. 

The police suspect an 80-year old local artist, who, living an isolated life, has struck up an unusual friendship with Lanny. The small-minded villagers cannot accept that an old man can simply be friends with a young boy, and assume Pete must be a paedophile and, now, a murderer.  -  

Lanny is a wonderfully gripping, suspenseful, touching novel. Highly recommend!

7. "The Maytrees" by Annie Dillard:

In elegantly sophisticated, spare prose, Dillard tells the tale of the Maytree family, a tale of love, extraordinary friendship and maturity, a tale of intimacy and loss, against a background of the vastness of nature in province town Cape Cod. - A moving, intelligent, warm and hopeful novel!

"Less" by Andrew Sean Greer:

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Arthur Less, a struggling minor novelist, middle-aged, finds himself all of a sudden single again after the young man with whom he spent the last 9 years suddenly announces his engagement to someone else. 

To avoid his ex’s wedding, Arthur embarks on a world-tour which develops into a funny, tragicomical journey with a parade of colourful characters and a voyage of self-discovery.   -  Funny, witty and rewarding!

“The Last Gentleman" by Walker Percy:

A jaded young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with the help of an unusual family. 

After moving from his native South to New York City, Will Barrett‘a most meaningful human connections come through the lens of a telescope in Central Park, from which he views the comings and goings of the eccentric Vaught family. 

He meets the Vaught patriarch and accepts a job in the Mississippi Delta as caretaker for the family's ailing son, Jamie. Once there, he is confronted not only by his personal demons, but also his growing love for Jamie's sister, Kitty, and a deepening relationship with the Vaught family that will teach him the true meaning of home. - Walker Percy deserves to be read more and be republished!

“The Sea” by John Banville:

In this brilliant, Man Booker Prize winning novel about love, loss, and the unpredictable power of memory, John Banville introduces us to Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who returns to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child to cope with the recent loss of his wife. It is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-off family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time. - 

Gorgeously written novel - a true Banville! Psychologically dense, full of insight, with an almost painterly use of prose!

 "As a Friend" by Forrest Gander:

At 106 pages, it is a short book. Yet its shortness is an asset, lending the book the same shifty qualities as its subject, the doomed, magnetic Les. 

Les is a young poet and surveyor whose intensity and brilliance stands out among the residents of this remote Arkansas town. Les tries to live a nineteenth-century devotion to friendship with a 1970s approach to monogamy, with devastating results.

A beautiful, touching book about friendship and loss, love and hurt!

"The Man Without a Shadow" by Joyce Carol Oates:

An astounding psychological thriller that develops into an examination of the ways in which we define ourselves in terms of relationship, work, exploitation, ethics and morals.

Margot, a young neuropsychologist, is drawn to Eli, one of her case studies, a handsome man who, for various reasons, is unable to retain memories or new information for more than 70 seconds and so is trapped in perpetual presence and haunted by an image from childhood of a girl’s body floating in a lake. Over 3 decades her fascination with Eli deepens and begins to stray into unethical, obsessive, territory and builds up to a disturbing, heart-rending climax.

A true J. C. Oates, it examines the nature of passion, affection and, above all, the loneliness that permeates even the longest and most intimate relationships.

"Of Human Bondage" by W. Somerset Maugham:

In this modern classic the life of Philip, an orphaned boy, hungry for love and experience, a young person coming of age, unfolds. It is and is not a Bildungsroman (yes, for the protagonist’s increasing intellect, and no, for the final decision he makes) and it is clearly one of the best in its gripping storytelling, its minute dissection of the limitations of individual freedom, its insight in the emotional and why we do things and hurt others when we don’t really want to. -  A true masterpiece of the 20th Century!

"The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie“ by Muriel Spark:

A masterpiece of narration, a Scots classic from 1960. A light, short and bittersweet read with dialogues full of Scottish wit. It was adapted 1969 into an Academy Award–winning film starring Maggie Smith.

The novel is set in 1930s Edinburgh and follows the downfall of Miss Brodie, an eccentric, matriarchal, romantic and lonely teacher „in her prime“ at a girls’ school, who manipulatively cultivates the minds and morals of a select handful of pupils, the so-called Brodie set.  - Light, profound and tragicomical!

"Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont“ by Elizabeth Taylor:

(a book by Elizabeth Taylor: No, not the actress but the British author who died in 1975 and who is just being recognized again and which made it onto the list of the 100 best books.)

One rainy Sunday in January Mrs. Palfrey, a widowed „tall woman with big bones and a noble face, who sometimes, wearing evening dress, looked like some famous general in drag“, arrives at the Claremont Hotel where she will spend her remaining days. Here she meets the other residents and it is with sharp wit and exquisite subtlety, teetering on the edge of a sitcom, that Taylor depicts them and their relationships. 

This is a very “British“ book in the ever present humor which deals lightly even with the sombre tunes of a life coming to a close, very touching!

“A Little Life“ by Hanya Yanagihara:

It may be dark and traumatic, and it was published in 2016, but it is one of the most moving books I’ve read in the last years, it is heart-wrenching, gripping, at times unbearably sad and yet so full of love, beauty, compassion and friendship. 

Four young college friends move to New York to incredibly successful careers: as an artist, architect, actor, and Jude as a litigator. The story focuses on Jude: broken, full of secrets, his body a web of scar tissue.

Yanagihara shows how queerness can still be an act of extreme shame that suffers in silence and self-destruction. The soothing balm to all that suffering and anxiety is friendship.

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