2006 IN BOOKS

I did many things over my weeklong holiday break, but I did not, to my very great shame, get anywhere near the end of The Mill on the Floss. Even after an intensive (and surprisingly absorbing) 100-page cram session on the airplane on December 31, I still have 200 pages left to go. But the joy of setting arbitrary goals for oneself is that when they aren’t accomplished, there are no real consequences. I will persevere, I will finish eventually, I will read a few library books I foolishly placed on hold right before Christmas, and then I’ll get started on the whopping 21 (!) books on the Phase 2 list (to be posted soon).

Speaking of books, here are my favorites of 2006—not necessarily the best-quality books I read, mind you, but the ones that had the most impact on me, the ones I know I’d want to read again.

TEN FAVORITE FICTION BOOKS 2006 (in no particular order)

1. The Secret Country trilogy (The Secret Country, The Hidden Land, and The Whim of the Dragon), by Pamela Dean
2. To Say Nothing of the Dog (mentioned briefly here), Doomsday Book, Lincoln’s Dreams, and Passage, by Connie Willis (I’m calling this a tie, to avoid half my list being Connie Willis books)
3. Arthur & George, by Julian Barnes
4. Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger
5. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey (mentioned in passing here)
6. Pnin, by Vladimir Nabokov
7. Triangle, by Katharine Weber (A fascinating novel about a survivor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. I read it in about a day, it was so horrifying and heartbreaking and suspenseful. I’ve found I really love books [Possession, Easter Island, To Say Nothing of the Dog] in which mysteries of the past impinge upon the present.)
8. The Boy Detective Fails, by Joe Meno (Though very poorly copyedited—I know it’s from a small press, but even with limited editorial resources I expect someone to remember to run spell check—it was otherwise great: a unique, tender, sad, surreal, often funny riff on the Hardy Boys/Scooby Doo kid sleuthing genre. It actually reminded me somehow of The Royal Tenenbaums with its fantastically-talented-child-prodigies-become-depressed-adults-searching-for-love-and-meaning theme, and I decided any movie adaptation should be handled by Wes Anderson.)
9. The End, by Lemony Snicket
10. The Grass Harp, by Truman Capote
11. Honorable mention: Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl. I wanted to like this book a bit more than I actually did, but bonus points for trying and being pretty compelling.
    

Pickings were slimmer in nonfiction (I read less of it, and some of what I read was throwaway material—anthologies like The Best American Magazine Writing that were enjoyable but left little trace in my mind), so I only chose half as many books.

FIVE FAVORITE NONFICTION BOOKS 2006 (in no particular order)

1. Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century, by Laura Shapiro
2. Two for the Road: Our Love Affair With American Food and Roadfood, by Jane and Michael Stern
3. Money, a Memoir: Women, Emotions, and Cash, by Liz Perle
4. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan
5. College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Coeds, Then and Now, Lynn Peril (Entertaining and informative; I enjoy Peril’s “Museum of Femorabilia” column in BUST, own and love her first book, Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons, eagerly awaited the arrival of College Girls at my public library, was the first person to check it out, and thoroughly enjoyed it—except for the back cover, where her bio says, “Lynn Peril is the author of Pink Think: How to Become a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons.” Yeah. W.W. Norton got the title wrong. The title of a book they published. Demerits! Poor Lynn Peril.)
6. Honorable mention: No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog, by Maggie Mason. I didn’t read it straight through, word for word, so it doesn’t officially count, but trust me, it’s good. Great title, too.