Best Books of 2009
Posted December 17, 2009
We will be taking a blogging break over the holidays, but first let’s take a look at some of the best books of 2009. We perused year-end lists in magazines, newspapers and online to uncover the best of the year in both fiction and nonfiction. We were happy to see a graphic novel and a graphic memoir both making several lists. Not surprisingly, there were National Book Award and Booker nominees and winners represented, several biographies and, as always, a few surprises. And the year was not without controversy: Publishers Weekly was criticized for neglecting female authors in their best of the year list. We chose a dozen fiction and nonfiction titles that we think represent the best of what this year had to offer. So check out some of these titles over the holidays, and we’ll be back blogging soon.
Here is some of the best fiction of the year:
A Gate At The Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy
Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
Financial Lives of Poets by Jess Walters
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenduddin
The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis by Lydia Davis
Love and Summer by William Trevor
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dryer
Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
And some of the best nonfiction:
Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey
Lit by Mary Karr
First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke The World by Liaquat Ahamed
Stitches by David Small
A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit
Lost City of Z by David Grann
Asterios Poylp by David Mazzucchelli
Abraham Lincoln: a Life by Michael Burlingame
The Third Reich at War by Richard J. Evans
Columbine by David Cullen
A New Literary History of America edited by Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors
We’ve Got It Covered
Posted December 15, 2009
Bold, eye-catching, lovely, striking, humorous, sublime: book covers. Sure, they’re advertising of a kind, but at their best they’re also functional works of art in their own right. They entice and inform us, amuse and alert us. They can enliven a visit to a library or bookstore, making the experience more like a trip to a posh art gallery. As we approach the end of the year, we’d like to pause and celebrate some of our very favorite book covers of 2009. For a closer look at any of the following, click on the cover to go to the book record, then click on the cover again for an enlargement.
Happy Birthday, Second City!
Posted December 10, 2009
Second City celebrates its 50th anniversary this weekend with a sold-out series of reunion performances, panels and screenings. Not one of the lucky few to get a ticket? Don’t worry, we have lots of alternative ways you can celebrate. (For starters, check out the cool “Utterbacks” on the SCFifty website.) First, we’ve got a list of books about Second City, with a few books on the improv method thrown in for good measure. Second, a partial list of movies starring (or directed by) various famous Second City alumni so you can “improvise” your very own film fest.
Books about Second City and Improv Comedy
The Second City: backstage at the world’s greatest comedy theater by Sheldon Patinkin
The Second City unscripted: revolution and revelation at the world-famous comedy theater ed. by Mike Thomas
Days and nights at the Second City: a memoir, with notes on staging review theatre by Bernard Sahlins
The Second City: a backstage history of comedy’s hottest troupe by Donna McCrohan
Whose improv is it anyway?: beyond Second City by Amy E. Seham
The Second City guide to improv in the classroom: using improvisation to teach skills and boost learning by Katherine S. McKnight and Mary Scruggs
The ultimate improv book: a complete guide to comedy improvisation by Edward J. Nevraumont et al.
The Art of Chicago improv: short cuts to long-form improvisation by Rob Kozlowski
Movies featuring Second City Alums
Freaky Friday (Barbara Harris)
Little Miss Sunshine (Alan Arkin, Steve Carell)
Best in Show (Fred Willard)
Young Frankenstein (Peter Boyle)
The Blues brothers (Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi)
Groundhog Day (Bill Murray, d. Harold Ramis)
Wayne’s World (Mike Myers)
My big fat Greek wedding (Nia Vardalos)
Strangers with candy (Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert)
Baby Mama (Tina Fey & Amy Poehler)
Debuts of 2009
Posted December 8, 2009
Every year we can look forward to some great new voices in literature, but before turning to those anticipated debuts of 2010, we’d like to round up some of the noteworthy first novels of this past year. We’re sure most of you have at least heard about The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It has spent 35 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, making Stockett the breakout author of the year, and the interest in her book doesn’t seem to be waning. Set in the early 1960s American South, the novel explores the racial divide through the lives of the women who lived it. It has been called “magical,” “original” and “poignant,” and we are hearing positive feedback from our patrons. In a starred review Publishers Weekly noted, “Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it.” It seems they were right.
Although The Help seems to be the must-read debut this year, there are several other books that we’d like to recommend. Chicagoan Patrick Sommerville recently received the 21st Century Writers’ Award from the Chicago Public Library. In his debut novel, The Cradle, a man trying to track down an antique cradle for his pregnant wife brings up memories of his own unhappy childhood. Booklist noted that “Sommerville, evincing an impressive command of language, psychology and structure for a first-time novelist, interweaves Matt’s unsettling saga with the trials and tribulations of Renee, a famous children’s author.” Mathilda Savitch, the first novel from poet and playwright Victor Lodato, has been getting buzz as well. Narrated by a young girl after the death of her sister, Publishers Weekly states, “Mathilda’s observations read like a finely crafted epic poem, whose themes and imagery paint an intricate map of her inner life. She’s a metaphysical Holden Caulfield for the terrifying present day.”
Here are some more 2009 debuts worth checking out:
The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee
Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley
Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim
American Rust by Philipp Meyer
Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan
Commencement by Courtney J. Sullivan
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Seasons Readings
Posted December 3, 2009
Logs for the fire? Check. Eggnog? Check. Plenty of books to read? Check! It’s such a busy season, but we hope you all find some time to relax and enjoy some fun reading time. If you celebrate Christmas, you should know that this year the publishing industry has decided to play Santa and bring us scores of tantalizing Christmas reads. Whether you like romance, mysteries both cozy and grisly, inspirational tales or subversive humor, we’ve got the perfect gifts for you. The following is just a sampling of the latest seasonal offerings. (Sorry, hot apple cider not included.)
The Gift by Cecelia Ahern
You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas by Augusten Burroughs
Deep Kiss of Winter by Kresley Cole
A Wee Christmas Homicide by Kaitlyn Dunnett
Christmas List by Richard Paul Evans
Plum Pudding Murder by Joanne Fluke
Home in Time for Christmas by Heather Graham
Home for Christmas by Andrew M. Greeley
Merry, Merry Ghost: A Mystery by Carolyn Hart
Ice by Linda Howard
Knit the Season: A Friday Night Knitting Club Book by Kate Jacobs
Memory Quilt: A Christmas Story for Our Times by T. D. Jakes
A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor
Wishin’ and Hopin’: A Christmas Story by Wally Lamb
Hot for the Holidays by Lora Leigh
Matchless: A Christmas Story by Gregory Maguire
Christmas Clock by Kat Martin
Rumpole Christmas: Stories by John Mortimer
The Body in the Sleigh by Katherine Hall Page
Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman
A Christmas Promise by Anne Perry
The Christmas Secret by Donna VanLiere
Around the World With Mysteries: India
Posted December 1, 2009
We have been on a mystery hiatus since June, but we are back on the move and traveling to India. And India is a literary hot spot right now. Vikas Swarup is one Indian author who is certainly in the limelight. His novel Q & A was adapted into last year’s blockbuster and winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, Slumdog Millionaire. His new novel, Six Suspects, has been called “a Bollywood version of the board game Clue” and Library Journal noted, “Enriched by the sights and smells of contemporary India, this mystery shows Swarup to be a skillful prose stylist and deft handler of plot who’s likely to win more readers.”
For fans of series fiction, we’d like to highlight a new and promising series by Taraquin Hall starring Vish Puri, the portly Super Sleuth in charge of New Delhi’s Most Private Investigators. In the recently published The Case of the Missing Servant, PI Puri is hired to find a missing housemaid; when she turns up dead, his client is arrested. The book has been called “entertaining” and “lively,” and Entertainment Weekly stated that “India, captured in all its pungent, vivid glory, fascinates almost as much as the crime itself.” We can’t wait to see which case Vish Puri tackles next.
If you are fond of historicals, four installments of the popular Joe Sandilands series by Barbara Cleverly are set in 1920s India with Sandilands, a Scotland Yard Detective, assisting the Bengal police force. The series began with The Last Kashmiri Rose in which Sandilands is trying to track down a serial killer. In the most recent installment, The Bee’s Kiss, Sandilands has returned to England and is trying to solve the murder of the influential Dame Beatrice Joliffe. Fans of whodunits will enjoy Cleverly’s style; Publishers Weekly compared her work to that of Agatha Christie.
If dark and gritty is more your thing, we recommend Delhi Noir, a collection of 14 short stories set in India’s capital, which Publishers Weekly calls “briskly paced, beautifully written and populated by vivid, original characters.” Bon Voyage, mystery readers!