NOTABLE

The only end-of-year list that I look forward to is the annual New York Times 100 Notable Books. I look forward to it both for the additions to my reading list that may be gleaned and also as a bit of scorecard by which to judge my own reading year. I am always curious to see if any of the books I have read have made the list.

Click here for the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2012.

This year, there are far more titles here that I will be adding to my reading list than I can chalk up to having read. For the ones that I have, though, my favorite book of the year is on the notable list: Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones. It is difficult to choose just one favorite, of course, but this one stands out even as it was one of the earliest books I read. It is a remarkable work from a very young author and has stayed with me because of the authentic way Ward writes of the stark human suffering in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and also for the way she illuminates the deeper issues of class involved in that tragedy.

Junot Diaz's This is How You Lose Her is on my bedside stack as I write, and I am about a third of the way through it. It is a perfect bookend for my reading year along with Ward's novel, as they both are books about people different in so many ways from me. This is How You Lose Her is also a collection of short stories, a genre I especially enjoy reading and one that I feel like I see more and more of lately.

I am a fan of any and all biographies and books about American presidents and Jodi Kantor's The Obamas was also one that I enjoyed. Of course, many of these kinds of books can be nothing but sheer propaganda, but Kantor's coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign was notable in and of itself and I know her work to be widely respected. In my own opinion, no matter your own views of our president's policies or politics, I think you have to admire his and his wife's approach to parenting and to their obvious value of family. This is a theme of Kantor's book and a starting point for her compelling portrait of the impact of the campaign and the presidency on the Obama family. David Maraniss' Barak Obama: The Story, on the other hand, was one that I could not stomach for long. I am a fan of the details of American government and the stories of its players and important figures, but this one was a bit too detailed for me. Maraniss states in the introduction that he does not even come to the birth of his subject until the seventh chapter and, though I gave it a shot, I could not dig my way first through the life stories of the president's grandparents and so did not even make it through the second chapter, much less all the way to the seventh.

A book that I am pecking away at is Jim Holt's Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story. Obviously an exploration of the central human question, the subject matter of this one is meaty to say the least. Nevertheless, it has not yet proven to be headache-inducing, so we will see where it leads. I am finding, though, that it is not a book best suited for bedtime reading. 

As for the books on the list that I will be adding to my reading list, I am most excited about the latest from Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior. It, too, is on the bedside stack, waiting for me to complete the Diaz book and a novel called In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner. I first read Kingsolver in college, beginning with her book of essays called High Tide in Tuscon. While I believe that every book I read changes the way I see things or at least adds to my perspective in imperceptible ways, Kingsolver's Tuscon is one that left a lasting impact on me at a time in my life when I was looking for ways in which to see more clearly through the muddiness of the world. I have read Kingsolver's work from the very beginning of her writing career and have enjoyed watching her writing evolve and become ever sharper and tighter with each book. Her last novel, The Lacuna, was a work of ambitious scope and breadth, I thought, and so I am excited to see what her creativity has wrought forth this time. Her novels stand out among contemporary fiction in the way her stories offer broad avenues of exploration of the large and looming questions.

A Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash looks promising, if only for its inviting title, as does the Kevin Powers book, The Yellow Birds. The others that will be put on my list are Richard Ford's Canada, NW by Zadie Smith and Blasphemy by Sherman Alexie. From the nonfiction portion, I look forward to Jon Meacham's Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power as well as David Nasaw's The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy.