:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/TSQ6ZSH2ERCRDP55ALRHSLXFDU.jpg)
It’s fiction week for the Biblioracle Book Awards. As always, I read far more books worthy of recognition than I could possibly fit in 600 words, so consider these the crème of some very delectable crème of my year in reading.
Long, Involving, but Totally Worth It Book of the Year
Paul Murray’s “Skippy Dies” is one of my favorite novels, so I knew this year’s “The Bee Sting” would deliver something good, but it was better than good. I wrote earlier this year how the book took me an uncommonly long time (for me) to read, but at the conclusion it was like I’d read four novels, one for each member of the Barnes family who populate the novel, and who are threatening to fall apart both individually and collectively. The momentum with which Murray arrives at his riveting, devastating, but strangely beautiful climax was a reading experience I’ll not forget.
What Are You Giggling About Book of the Year
I read every night before bed, and while I was reading Jen Beagin’s “Big Swiss” this is the question Mrs. Biblioracle would ask every night, sometimes multiple times a night. Greta, somewhat adrift, has washed up in Hudson, New York, living with her friend Sabine and working at transcribing therapy sessions for a local sex coach. When Greta becomes obsessed with one of the patients she nicknames Big Swiss, and then meets Big Swiss in real life, funny (and some not funny) stuff happens.
Haunted Me for Days After I Read it Book of the Year
On the surface, Ron Rash’s books are awfully quiet, but maybe that’s because they spend their energy burrowing deep into you. “The Caretaker,” a story of people doing amazing and horrible things in the name of what and who they love kept gnawing at me for quite a while after I turned the last page.
A Great Ride from First Page to Last Book of the Year
“The Bee Sting” forced me to dig in to connect to what it was laying down, but the winner of this award, James McBride’s “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store” entertains and engages every step. A story about the people of a poor neighborhood in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, some Black, some Jewish, who come together to resist the forces that say they don’t belong. A great novel about what it means to form communities.
People Can Be Genuinely Decent to Each Other and Still Make for Compelling Drama Book of the Year (tie)
Both “The Librarianist” by Patrick deWitt and “Vintage Contemporaries” by Dan Kois eschew the notion that interesting stories require personal antagonism, and the result is a couple of novels that provide comforting, but still involving reading. “Vintage Contemporaries” follows Em as she makes her way through the world of New York publishing from the ‘90s through the 2000s. Think of it as a coming-of-age story when you never stop coming of age. “The Librarianist” is the life story of Bob, an ex-librarian who has lived alone most of his life but is suddenly invested in the strange people populating a senior center where he volunteers. We see both Bob’s present and past unfold, an ordinary man with an interesting story because who doesn’t have an interesting story?
I’ll Read Anything by this Author Book of the Year
Lydia Kiesling’s “Mobility,” her second book after her debut “The Golden State,” confirms her as a master of illuminating people negotiating a world that can seem hostile in small and large ways, and how there’s dignity in putting one foot in front of the other.
See you all in 2024!
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “Holly” by Stephen King
2. “Small Mercies” by Dennis Lehane
3. “The Marriage of Opposites” by Alice Hoffman
4. “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles
5. “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride
— Ginny E., Chicago
Something is telling me that E.L. Doctorow’s melding of true events and fictional narrative, “Ragtime” is the right choice for Ginny’s next read.
1. “Harlem Shuffle” by Colson Whitehead
2. “The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War” by Malcolm Gladwell
3. “Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington” by Ted Widmer
4. “The Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles
5. “Razorblade Tears” by S.A. Cosby
— David F., Homewood
“Cold Mountain” by Charles Frazier is a lasting contemporary classic that David will not be able to put down.
1. “After World” by Debbie Urbanski
2. “Chain Gang All Stars” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
3. “The Guest Cat” by Takashi Hiraide
4. “The Future” by Naomi Alderman
5. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain
— Jeremy Z., Syracuse, New York
The book I really want to recommend to anyone who has recently read “Huck Finn” is “James” by Percival Everett, but that book won’t be out until March. In the meantime, I think Yiyun Li’s “The Book of Goose” will be a good match.
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.