Jan

6

2008 Best Books

Filed Under I'm a Bookie 

2008 Books

The following list details my top-five fiction, old and new, read in 2008, I encourage everyone to check out. My criteria for my select reads include, exceptional writing, profound understanding of man’s imperfections, and development of original story. Also, all books must be initiatory worthy: the kind of books that deserve to be reread time and time again.

The Wednesday Wars, Gary D. Schmidt
Absolutely everything is in this book. Love, care, learning, becoming. A coming of age story, set in the 1960s, America, from the perspective of a young boy who is already an old soul, but doesn’t know it. It’s The Wonder Years in print; the human spirit in real life. It will not disappoint.

Away, Amy Bloom
A read so authentic you could swear it’s historical fiction. A young mother, separated from child, who is determined to reunite with her daughter. The plot traverses from coast to coast, Russia to America, then back again. The Atlantic is the distance only a mother’s love can submit, and endure. This is what it feels like to be tormented by loss with every imagined appeal for hope.

Boy Toy, Barry Lyga
Highly controversial. A young boy is sexually abused by his teacher. The content is graphic, and the many layers building among the characters involved not entirely flushed out. But there is extreme care in the maturity of the story. The introspection is little and feels forced. Some may argue the book suffers for it; I think it describes the inner struggle with sincerity. (How many times do we wish to silence the voices in our head?) Read it and let me know your thoughts.

His Illegal Self, Peter Carey
This is a book that takes one moment and stretches it into pages and pages of narrative. A mix-up in the meeting of a woman and a young boy, leads innocently to an abduction which has both characters on the run. Here begins the story behind the story of a time where revolution was prohibited and its leaders are punished. Sentence structure eclipses storyline. Astounding.

Everyman, Philip Roth
How can such a slender book hold not only a story of a life but of many lifetimes? A man’s life lived is literally condensed to a point, or rather, a “hole.” The strength lies in the telling of shared aspects of everyone’s individual story–love, loss, deceit, confusion, and more–and yet no one person’s story in particular. An extraordinary exposition of humans, and human nature.

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