LAVA Discussion Book Candidates for 2017

 

These candidate books come from several sources, including suggestions from LAVA members, lists of award-winning books, favorites of other book clubs, the Harvard Bookstore’s best-seller list, literary blogs, etc.  Several were carried over from the previous voting list.  There are 24 books on this list, but we will choose only 8 of them in this balloting, which unfortunately means that many worthwhile books will be excluded from next year’s reading schedule.  As before, the most popular runners-up will be included in the next list of candidates.

 

Why do we need to choose only 8 books to cover 12 meetings?  We don’t read a book for January because that month is occupied with choosing the next list of books.  In March we read the book chosen by Writers and Books for their "Rochester Reads" program.  In July and September we see a film at The Little Theater instead of discussing a book.  That leaves us eight books to choose for the year.

 

LAVA members are encouraged to research these book candidates in bookstores, libraries, on the web, etc.  Bring this list and your thoughts to the special January meeting at Bill and Andi's house on Saturday, January 14, which will be devoted to sharing information and opinions on these books (and sharing good food).

 

After the January meeting and prior to the voting deadline of Sunday February 5, please "mark your ballots" and return them to Bill.  First review the guidelines for choosing LAVA discussion books, which reflect some of the things we have learned about choosing books over the years.  Then, using a system similar to the one used in the Olympics, rate each book individually on a scale of 1 to 10, using 10 to indicate books that you think would generate the best Lava discussions.  The system works best if you provide a rating for every book on the list.  If you wish, you can write your rating for each book in the margins of this document.  Members often rate each book as we discuss it during the January meeting and then hand in their marked list before they leave, but you can use any method you prefer as long as you get your ratings to Bill by the voting deadline.

 

The candidates are divided into three groups: shorter fiction, shorter nonfiction, and longer works.  This division doesn’t affect how you cast your vote, but it does affect how the final schedule is created.  If no nonfiction book is among the top vote-getters, the most popular nonfiction book will go on the list anyway to assure that we get a little variety in our reading.  Any of the longer books among the top vote-getters will be assigned to the August and October meetings because that will give us two months to read them.

 

 

Candidates for Regular Meetings (fiction)

 

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.  314 pages, 2014. This novel is based on a true story about a woman convicted of murder in Iceland who, for lack of jails, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.  The farm family, at first horrified at the idea of sharing their house with a murderer, learn that there is another side to her story. New York Times: "[A] gripping tale about what Agnes was actually guilty of." Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Kent brings a bleak beauty to this grim tale, her prose illuminating the stark landscape of the far north and the deepest recesses of a woman's soul." Washington Post: "Bleak and beautiful.... Kent handles her starkly austere story with uncanny precision and an utter lack of sentiment." Christian Science Monitor: "A sensation among book reviewers drawn to its depiction of the struggles of a gritty people and a doomed woman amid a harsh landscape."  The New Yorker: "Gorgeously atmospheric.... [with] memorable, complex characters." Review in the Washington Post.  26 copies in the library system.

 

The Condition by Jennifer Haigh.  390 pages, 2008.  Publisher's description: "Unaware of the long-standing grievances harbored by their divorced parents, three adult siblings embark on a tumultuous summer when the oldest, a successful Manhattan doctor, investigates his sister's chromosomal disorder against his mother's wishes."  New York Times: "Ms. Haigh has a great gift for telling interwoven family stories and doing justice to all the different perspectives they present... A remarkable accomplishment."  Washington Post: "Haigh’s characters are layered and authentic... Haigh is such a gifted chronicler of the human condition."  Kirkus Reviews: "Filled with genuine insight and touching lyricism."  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "The central question of the story—how a child whose genetic condition keeps her physically immature can finally be allowed to grow up—is compelling."  List of reviews.  LAVA read Faith by the same author in October 2013.  Suggested by Joyce.  Held over from last year.  25 copies in the library system.

 

A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron.  335 pages, 2010.  This novel is about a dog who is reincarnated five times.  Able to understand human speech, the dog ponders the purpose of existence while displaying an amazing capacity for loving and protecting humans.  This is the first of a series of six books (so far).  It was on the New York Times Best Seller list for over a year.  Temple Grandin, an expert on animals and the author of the best-selling Animals in Translation, said: "I loved the book and I could not put it down. It really made me think about the purpose of life. At the end, I cried."  Publishers Weekly describes it as an "unabashedly sentimental tale" that is told in a "touching, doggy first-person."  Review and plot summary in Kirkus Reviews.  Suggested by Ken.  28 copies in the library system.

 

Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich.  361 pages, 2001.  An elderly Catholic priest (who is secretly a woman living as a man) has served on an Ojibwe reservation for decades.  The Vatican sends an envoy to investigate stories about a woman on the reservation who is possibly a false saint. The author of this novel is Ojibwe herself.  New York Times: "A deeply affecting narrative … by turns comical and elegiac, farcical and tragic."  Kirkus Reviews: "The result is a remarkably convincing portrayal of Native American life throughout this century—with the added dimension of an exactingly dramatized and deeply moving experience of spiritual conflict and crisis. The question of Sister Leopolda (a paragon of charity who may also have been a murderer) is posed unforgettably... Comparisons to Willa Cather (particularly her Death Comes for the Archbishop) as well as Faulkner now seem perfectly just. That's how good Erdrich has become." Publishers Weekly: "Her narrative is interspersed with dozens of comic, tragic and all-too-human stories that illuminate her lively, complex and often bizarre Ojibwe people and the priests who come to convert them and minister to their needs."  This novel was a finalist for the National Book Award.  Review in the New York Times.  Held over from last year. 23 copies in the library system. 

 

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout.  191 pages, 2016.  Lucy Barton, a thirty-something mother who is in the hospital after an operation, discusses her life, with its longing and missed connections, with her mother.

 A #1 New York Times best-seller, this novel was long-listed for the Booker Prize.  LAVA read Strout's Olive Kitteridge in 2010 and The Burgess Boys in June of 2016.  Miami Herald: "Much of the joy of reading Lucy Barton comes from piecing together the hints and half-revelations in Strout’s unsentimental but compelling prose, especially as you begin to grasp the nature of a bond in which everything important is left unsaid... Strout paints an indelible, grueling portrait of poverty and abuse that’s all the more unnerving for her reticence. With My Name Is Lucy Barton, she reminds us of the power of our stories—and our ability to transcend our troubled narratives." San Francisco Chronicle: "It is Lucy’s gentle honesty, complex relationship with her husband, and nuanced response to her mother’s shortcomings that make this novel so subtly powerful... My Name Is Lucy Barton—like all of Strout’s fiction—is more complex than it first appears, and all the more emotionally persuasive for it." Review in The Nation.  About 50 copies in the library system.

 

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri.  291 pages, 2004.  After an arranged marriage in India, a young couple moves to Cambridge, Massachusetts and names their newborn son after a Russian writer.  Boston Globe: "[A] tricultural collision awaits Gogol from his first few days of life.  He has to endure a Russian name he cannot bear in an America he cannot penetrate with Indian parents he cannot fully accept or understand.  All these ambiguities make for a novel of exquisite and subtle tension, spanning two generations and continents and a plethora of emotional compromises in between."  New York Times: "The Namesake is that rare thing: an intimate, closely observed family portrait that effortlessly and discreetly unfolds to disclose a capacious social vision."  Washington Post: "This is a fine novel from a superb writer.... In the end, this quiet book makes a very large statement about courage, determination, and above all, the majestic ability of the human animal to endure and prosper."  Lahiri's collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize.  Several reviews.  Suggested by Vicki.  Held over from last year. 43 copies in the library system. 

 

Outline by Rachel Cusk.  249 pages, 2014. Publisher's description: "Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and stark, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing during an oppressively hot summer in Athens... The people she encounters speak, volubly, about themselves: their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face a great loss."  New York Times: "[A] lethally intelligent novel... Spend much time with this novel and you'll become convinced that she is one of the smartest writers alive."  Chicago Tribune: "There are dozens of observations in Outline unexpected enough to stop you on the page... Outline has a terribly charged atmosphere, the kind very few novels achieve."  Despite the rave reviews, several Amazon readers complain that the book is boring.  Apparently, part of the problem is that the reader is expected to notice what isn't said as much as what is said.  This novel was named as a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and The Guardian.  It was short-listed for the Folio Prize, a new competitor to the Booker Prize.  Review in the Guardian.  13 copies in the library system.

 

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. 287 pages, 2006.  Amazon: "A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind...Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there... it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation."  This novel won the Pulitzer Prize.  San Francisco Chronicle: "His tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful. It might very well be the best book of the year, period."  New York Times: "Illuminated by extraordinary tenderness... Simple yet mysterious, simultaneously cryptic and crystal clear. The Road offers nothing in the way of escape or comfort. But its fearless wisdom is more indelible than reassurance could ever be." Suggested by Connie. List of reviews.  More than 50 copies in the library system.

 

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin.  260 pages, 2014.  A widowed bookstore owner whose business is failing, Fikry drinks too much and isolates himself from his friends after his rare collection of Poe poems is stolen. The sudden appearance of a two-year-old orphan on his doorstep transforms his life.  Kirkus Reviews describes it as, "a narrative that is sometimes sentimental, sometimes funny, sometimes true to life and always entertaining."  Washington Post: "Zievin has done something old-fashioned and fairly rare these days. She has written an entertaining novel, modest in its scope, engaging and funny without being cloying or sentimental." Globe and Mail: "The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, the wonderful, thoughtful and touching new novel from Los Angeles writer Gabrielle Zevin, is not, however, about the darkness of Fikry’s existence. Rather, it’s about the power of life to surprise, about how plans – and lives – change in the barest of moments." Suggested by Robert.  Review in the Washington Post.  About 50 copies in the library system.

 

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen.  382 pages, 2016.  Amazon: "The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as five other awards, The Sympathizer is the breakthrough novel of the year... The narrator, a communist double agent, is a 'man of two minds,' a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love". Wall Street Journal: "This is more than a fresh perspective on a familiar subject. [The Sympathizer] is intelligent, relentlessly paced and savagely funny." New York Times: "Mr. Nguyen is a master of the telling ironic phrase and the biting detail, and the book pulses with Catch-22-style absurdities." Booklist: "Nguyen’s probing literary art illuminates how Americans failed in their political and military attempt to remake Vietnam—but then succeeded spectacularly in shrouding their failure in Hollywood distortions. Compelling—and profoundly unsettling."  New Yorker: "The novel’s best parts are painful, hilarious exposures of white tone-deafness... [the] satire is delicious." Review in the New York Times.  16 copies in the library system. 

 

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, 209 pages, 1958, which is to be read together with Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, 78 pages, 1899.   Both are classics.  Things Fall Apart, which LAVA read in 2004, has sold over 8 million copies in 50 languages.  Kirkus Reviews: "This novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness.  But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers... One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children."  Review in the Washington Post.   In Heart of Darkness, Marlowe is sent by his employer to the upper reaches of an African river to bring back Kurtz, a rogue ivory trader who has descended into savagery.  Review in the Independent.  Suggested by Connie, who says it would be interesting to compare Achebe’s insider’s view with Conrad’s outsider’s view.  Held over from last year.  The library system has a few dozen copies of each.

 

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht.  338 pages, 2011.  Publishers Weekly: "Natalia Stefanovi, a doctor living (and, in between suspensions, practicing) in an unnamed country that's a ringer for Obreht's native Croatia, crosses the border in search of answers about the death of her beloved grandfather, who raised her on tales from the village he grew up in, and where, following German bombardment in 1941, a tiger escaped from the zoo in a nearby city and befriended a mysterious deaf-mute woman. The evolving story of the tiger's wife, as the deaf-mute becomes known, forms one of three strands that sustain the novel, the other two being Natalia's efforts to care for orphans and a wayward family who, to lift a curse, are searching for the bones of a long-dead relative; and several of her grandfather's stories about Gavran Gailé, the deathless man, whose appearances coincide with catastrophe and who may hold the key to all the stories that ensnare Natalia."  Washington Post: "That The Tiger’s Wife never slips entirely into magical realism is part of its magic... Its graceful commingling of contemporary realism and village legend seems even more absorbing."  This novel was widely expected to win the National Book Award in 2011, which went to Salvage the Bones (which LAVA read in 2016) instead.  Several reviews.  Suggested by Judy.  42 copies in the library system.

 

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. 320 pages, 2016.  In this imaginative story, the underground railroad is not a metaphor for a network of paths and people who help slaves escape to the north, but literally a railroad beneath the ground with the same purpose.  Publisher: "Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day."  Washington Post: "Far and away the most anticipated literary novel of the year, The Underground Railroad marks a new triumph for Whitehead."  The Guardian: "I haven’t been as simultaneously moved and entertained by a book for many years. This is a luminous, furious, wildly inventive tale that not only shines a bright light on one of the darkest periods of history, but also opens up thrilling new vistas for the form of the novel itself." This novel won the National Book Award.  Suggested by Judy.  More than 50 copies in the library system.

 

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks.  308 pages, 2002.  Inspired by a true story, this novel is about the outbreak of plague in an isolated English village in 1666.  Some of its inhabitants add to the community's disintegration by engaging in witch-hunting, which induced a housemaid with healing skills to take the lead in dealing with the crisis.  New York Times: "She gives us what we want in historical fiction: a glimpse into the strangeness of history that simultaneously enables us to see a reflection of ourselves."  The Guardian: "Year of Wonders is a staggering fictional debut that matches journalistic accumulation of detail to natural narrative flair."  LAVA has read several novels by Brooks: March (which won the Pulitzer Prize) in 2008, People of the Book in 2011 and Caleb’s Crossing in 2013.  Review in the Guardian.  Suggested by Connie.  Held over from last year.  45 copies in the library system.

 

 

Candidates for Regular Meetings (non-fiction)

 

Alcott, Louisa May.  For this discussion, LAVA members would have the choice of reading any biography of Louisa May Alcott.  When you vote, you will be rating this proposal, not each individual book in it.  The author of Little Women, Alcott had an idealistic father who was part of the brilliant Transcendentalist circle in Massachusetts but who found it difficult to get his own life organized enough to support himself and his family.  In 2008 LAVA read March by Geraldine Brooks, a novel whose main character is loosely based on Alcott's father.  Held over from last year.  Suggested by Tess.  These recent biographies are recommended:

 

 

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel Brown.  370 pages, 2013.  This is the true story of a rowing team from the University of Washington. Composed of blue collar students, it beat traditional championship teams from the East Coast and Britain and went on to defeat the Nazi team at the 1936 Olympics. The story centers on a farm boy from who had been abandoned as a child during the Great Depression.  The Seattle Times: "The individual stories of these young men are almost as compelling as the rise of the team itself… The narrative rises inexorably, with the final 50 pages blurring by with white-knuckled suspense as these all-American underdogs pull off the unimaginable." Associated Press: "Readers need neither background nor interest in competitive rowing to be captivated by this remarkable and beautifully crafted history.  Written with the drama of a compelling novel, it's a quintessentially American story that burnishes the esteem in which we embrace what has come to be known as the Greatest Generation."  This book was a New York Times number one best-seller.  Review in the New York Times.  Suggested by Paula.  Held over from last year.  Over 50 copies in the library system. 

 

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan.  252 pages, 2012.  The true story of an investigative reporter who developed a rare and deadly brain disorder.  After being correctly diagnosed only at the last moment, she recovered and later used her parents' journals to write about her descent into paranoia and violent psychosis.  Washington Post: "Cahalan's tale is told in straightforward journalistic prose and is admirably well-researched and described... This story has a happy ending, but take heed: It is a powerfully scary book."  New York Times: "Cahalan's prose carries a sharp, unsparing, tabloid punch in the tradition of Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin."  Journal of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology: "...a superb case study of a rare neurological diagnosis; even experienced neurologists will find much to learn in it."  Review in the Guardian.  Held over from last year.  26 copies in the library system.

 

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson. 353 pages, 2015.  During World War I, an ocean liner called the Lusitania, sailing from Great Britain to New York, was sunk off the coast of Ireland by a German submarine with a loss of nearly 1200 lives.  At the time, had many believed that the conventions of warfare would protect civilian lives.  It's sinking had much to do with the eventual entry of the U.S. into the war.  Publisher: "It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era."  Washington Post: "This enthralling and richly detailed account demonstrates that there was far more going on beneath the surface than is generally known... Larson's account is the most lucid and suspenseful yet written." LAVA has read two of Larson's books: Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts.   Review in the Guardian.  Suggested by Ken.  More than 50 copies in the library system.

 

Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance. 272 pages, 2016.  After World War II, Vance's parents moved from the poverty-stricken mountains of Kentucky to Ohio, where they raised a middle-class family. Even though their son went to Yale, things did not go smoothly for them.  Amazon: "We learn that J.D.’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history."  Globe and Mail (Toronto): "What explains the appeal of Donald Trump? Many pundits have tried to answer this question and fallen short. But J.D. Vance nails it."  The American Conservative: "The most important book of 2016. You cannot understand what’s happening now without first reading J.D. Vance." Review in the New York Times.  Recommended by Leah, who says it’s a quick read that should be required reading for all public school teachers. 24 copies in the library system.   

 

Mount Allegro: A Memoir of Italian-American life by Jerre Mangione.  285 pages, 1941. Thinly disguised as fiction at the insistence of his publisher, this is actually Mangione's memoir of growing up in a neighborhood of Sicilian immigrants in Rochester, NY in the early 1900s.  The author is the uncle of musicians Chuck and Gap Mangione. San Francisco Chronicle: "One of the best books yet published in its field--a book in which you will learn more about the making of an American than in the most solemn or fictional volumes that purport to tell you all about the subject."  Mangione's obituary in the New York Times includes a discussion of the book.  Suggested by Robert, who says it would be instructive to compare an actual historical work from that period with a work of fiction set in the same period, such as Euphoria, which LAVA recently read.  Held over from last year. More than 50 copies in the library system.

 

The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert.  269 pages, 2014. This book won the Pulitzer Prize.  Bill Gates: "Natural scientists posit that there have been five extinction events in the Earth's history (think of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs), and Kolbert makes a compelling case that human activity is leading to the sixth."

Barak Obama: "[The Sixth Extinction] is a wonderful book, and it makes very clear that big, abrupt changes can happen; they're not outside the realm of possibility. They have happened before, they can happen again." Obama included this book in his summer reading list for 2016.  New York Times: "Ms. Kolbert shows in these pages that she can write with elegiac poetry about the vanishing creatures of this planet, but the real power of her book resides in the hard science and historical context she delivers here, documenting the mounting losses that human beings are leaving in their wake."  Review in the New York Times by Al Gore.  24 copies in the library system.

 

 

Longer Books (suitable for August and October)

 

We read no more than two books in this category per year, and we reserve these for our August and October discussions, which gives us two months to read them.  This does not imply that our August and October books must come from this section.  If all the top choices are shorter books, that is what we read all year.

 

& Sons by David Gilbert.  434 pages, 2013.  Publisher's description: "A famous reclusive writer and his three sons find their bond tested by the weight of long-held secrets and a cumbersome legacy shaped by boarding school, Hollywood, and the elite circles of the publishing world."  New York Times: “A contemporary New York variation on The Brothers Karamazov, featuring a J. D. Salinger-like writer in the role of Father, and a protagonist who turns out to be as questionable a tour guide as the notoriously unreliable narrator of Ford Madox Ford’s classic The Good Soldier... The novel is smart, funny, observant."  NPR: "Smart and savage... Seductive and ripe with both comedy and heartbreak, [& Sons] made me reconsider my stance on... the term 'instant classic.'"  New Yorker: "In terms of sheer reading pleasure, my favorite book of the year."  Named as one of the best books of the year by several major newspapers.  Suggested by Andi.  Review in the New York Times.  17 copies in the library system.

 

Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, by Carl Safina.  409 pages, 2015.  Through narrative portraits of elephants, wolves and dolphins, the author examines their rich social environment and their capacity for perception, thought and emotion. He combines those observations with the latest findings on the human brain, which leads him to question previously held distinctions between humans and other animals.  Safina, a recipient of the MacArthur "genius grant," is a professor at Stony Brook, who hosted a PBS series called "Saving the Ocean."  New York Review of Books: "Along with Darwin's Origin and Richard Dawkins's Selfish Gene, Beyond Words marks a major milestone in our evolving understanding of our place in nature."  Psychology Today: "Wise, passionate, and eye-opening at every turn, Beyond Words is ultimately a graceful examination of humanity's place in the world… Dr. Safina's book truly is a gem."  New York Times: "Dr. Safina is a terrific writer, majestic and puckish in equal measure, with a contagious enthusiasm."  Review in the New York Review of Books.  Suggested by Connie. Held over from last year. 10 copies in the library system.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  657 pages, 2009.  Twin brothers born from a secret love affair between an Indian nun and a British surgeon come of age in Ethiopia, where their love for the same woman drives them apart.  One is studious and the other is a moody genius. The latter narrates their "long, dramatic, biblical story set against the backdrop of political turmoil in Ethiopia, the life of the hospital compound in which they grow up and the love story of their adopted parents, both doctors... The boys become doctors as well." San Francisco Chronicle: "An epic tale about love, abandonment, betrayal and redemption, Verghese’s first novel is a masterpiece of traditional storytelling. Not a word is wasted in this larger-than-life saga that spans three countries and six decades." San Antonio Express-News: "I feel changed forever after reading this book, as if an entire universe had been illuminated for me." It won the Indie's Choice Book Award, which is given by owners of independent book stores.  Several reviews.  Suggested by Ken.  28 copies in the library system.