At
the close of each year, the media seems to report on the very best of
everything every opportunity they get: 100 best books, 50 best movies, 25
significant events.
This
week, the New York Times published their 100 Notable Books of 2013. The same
day, National Public Radio announced their Book Concierge – or Your Guide to
2013’s Great Reads (an interactive online tool to finding the best book out of
more than 200). Huffington Post,
Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and Entertainment Weekly have their own lists as
2013 nears to a close.
In
fact, lists seem to dominate the Internet these days. Indie Wire, Rotten Tomatoes and Film.com all
have lists of the top 10, 20, and 100 films of the year. Billboard has the top
100 hits and Apple lists their top 100 music downloads.
In
this week's column, I will simply share
with you a few of the 20 Best Reads of the staff here at the Morrill Memorial
Library.
Once
a month, members of the library staff meet to discuss the books they are
reading. With coffee or tea mugs in
hand, (and a sweet breakfast treat on the table), we meet early in the morning
in the Trustees Meeting Room of the top floor of the library. There are usually 10-14 of us in the room,
and many of the staff have attended at one time or another.
I’ve
always invited the staff to rate the book on a five-star scale during these
monthly gatherings. Surprisingly, many
of the books fall into the five-star rating. I guess we recognize what we like.
And we love to read.
Perhaps
the most suitable book for this column is one of my favorite 2013 books, Will
Schwalbe’s “The End of Your Life Book Club” which was printed in 2012. During Schwalbe’s mother’s fight with a
terminal illness, he asked her what she was reading. That question sparked a journey between
a mother and son and a private book club that I found incredibly
inspiring. I was moved, in fact, to read
some of the classics listed in the book: the very short story by John O’Hara,
“Appointment in Samara” (1934), and Joan Didion’s memoirs “Blue Nights” (2011)
and “Year of Magical Thinking” (2005).
Non-fiction,
memoirs and biographies are preferences among the members of
staff. One of these this year was “Lots of Candles, Plenty of
Cake”, a 2012 memoir by Anna Quindlen. Quindlen writes deeply and humorously
about her childhood, her womanhood, friends, marriage and family.
Jill
Bolte Taylor’s 2006 memoir “My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal
Journey” (2006) made the list this year as more and more staff became aware of
this astonishing story Taylor, a Harvard-educated neuroscientist. A blood vessel exploded in Taylor’s brain
when she was 37 years old. Her journey
through the stroke, her recovery, and beyond is simply amazing. Taylor’s TED Talk in 2008 rocketed her to
stardom. She is currently the national
spokesperson for the Harvard Brain Resources Center.
Another
pick was Sonia Sotomayor’s autobiography published just this year in 2013: “My
Beloved World.” Sotomayor’s childhood
began in a Bronx housing complex. She
moved quickly and resolutely through a stellar high school experience to
Princeton and then Yale Law School and became the third woman to be appointed
to the Supreme Court. A Hispanic,
Sotomayor is also a diabetic. She is proof that courage and fight are what
dreams are made of.
In
Carol Burnett’s 2010 memoir, “This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection”, the
comedian, actress and singer shared stories and anecdotes of her prolific and
long career. She also reflected on her
relationships with the other famous people in her life, specifically Cary Grant
and Julie Andrews.
Of
course, not all of the five-stars were non-fiction. Stories by Isabel Allende (“Zorro”, 2005),
Melanie Benjamin (“The Aviator’s Wife”, 2013), and William Martin (“The Lincoln
Letter”, 2012) are based on historical fact.
Allende explores the real life of Zorro, or Diego de la Vega born to a
Spanish father in Alta California in 1790.
Benjamin describes the life of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a glider-pilot in
her own right, who was married to the irresistible and charismatic Charles
Lindbergh. Martin examines the intimate
thoughts of Abraham Lincoln after the Civil War.
More
non-fiction five-star reads included “On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the
Legacy of a Nazi Childhood” by Irmgard Hunt (2005), “When We Were the Kennedys:
A Memoir of Mexico, Maine” by Monica Wood (2012), “Manhunt: The Twelve-Year
Chase for Lincoln’s Killer” (2005), and “A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary
Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France” (2011) by Caroline
Moorehead.
Of
course, many of your choice fiction bestsellers are also on the list. “Light Between the Oceans” by M. L. Stedman
(2012) is the poignant and tragic story of a lighthouse keeper and his wife
who, at first, seem to find the answer to their prayers. Later they find that only that “justice for
one person is another’s tragic loss".
Other five-stars were “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” by Rachel
Joyce (2012). The book explores the
“what ifs” in an unsatisfied life … until that life finds the acceptance it
needs. Other fiction included “The Toss of a Lemon” by Padma Viswanathan
(2008).
We
don’t stop at adult books, of course. Five-star recommended young adult read
and children’s books are “Iqbal” by D’Adamo (2005) and “There Goes Ted
Williams” by Matt Tavares (2012). My
favorite picture book, “Press Here”, is an amazingly fun delight by Herve
Tuillet (2011). Who needs an electronic gadget when you
have an interactive reading experience in this book!
