My Year in Reading 2006

Here's a small sampling of the books I've read (and in one case, listened to) this year, with attendant superlatives:

Longest book: Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. This book both enthralled me and scared the bejeezus out of me. It enthralled me because it's a marvelous story -- I got caught up in it to the point that it became another world for me, and I was sad when it ended. It was hard to say goodbye to the characters, particularly Lata, Pran and Savita, Maan, and Kabir. On the other hand, the book scared the bejeezus out of me because the dang thing is 1500 pages long, I tended to read it in bed of an evening, and if I'd dropped it on my head, well... I just don't want to think about what would have happened. Ah, but these are risks we readers must take, and they are worth it.

Best book: Gerard Jones's Audio Book of Ginny Good. A delight. I'd already read and loved the book-book, but the audio book is simply not-to-be-missed. The musical clips Gerard includes throughout enhance both the story and the from-the-gut emotional reactions you'll have to whatever you're listening to, whether hilarious, sad, or both, and Gerard is one of those rare and magical storytellers who'll have you laughing your ass off even as you're crying your guts out at life's joys, tragedies, mundane horrors, and absurdities.

Most Mind Blowing Book: Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos. About theoretical physics, relativity, superstrings, and the space-time loaf. Well, there isn't actually a space-time "loaf": rather, it's a highly effective metaphor -- thought experiment -- that Brian Greene uses to get across the idea that in the mathematics of advanced physics, space-time isn't just an ephemeral construct but an actual something which has reality and which can be shown, mathematically, to possess that reality. Greene goes on to show how, because of relativity and the specifics of relative motion, all slices of the space time loaf, no matter how wackily they may be sliced, will exist for all time, in all space in a "reality" of all-time-and-all-space that human beings, confined to our ephemeral existence, cannot perceive save for small, small slices. In other words, this moment, in which you're reading this post, shall always exist, frozen as it were-was-and-ever-will-be on an infinitesimally small part of the space-time loaf. Don't believe me? Well then, read the book for Einstein's sake!

Most Romantic Book: A. S. Byatt's Possession. I just loved how the Victorian poets fell in love via their mutual admiration for one another's art, one another's minds. All the rest came after, later. And the book isn't only about people falling in love with each other; it's about people falling in love with books, with words, with story, and with that part of all of us humans which is called mind, imagination, inspiration, transcendence.

Saddest book: Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. An outstanding novel, but oh my goodness gracious with a box of tissues on top, how heartbreaking! It didn't just make me "cry"; it made me sob. As in boo-hoo. I don't want to say too much about what happens because pretty much anything I could say would be a spoiler and some of you might want to read the book, but it's gorgeously written and devastatingly sad, and it'll rip your heart out by its aorta, then you'll want to turn around and read the dang thing again. How many authors are capable of engendering such a reaction? Not many, that's how many. But Arundhati Roy is one of 'em.

Most fun book: Yann Martel's Life of Pi. How can you not love a story where a ferocious tiger goes by the name of Richard Parker? I loved Pi's character, but I have to say my very favorite character was the tiger. Richard Parker made me happy. Every time I read his name, it made me happy. Must be my love for cats. If Shadow and Starlight, the kittens in my carport, are Nanoballicai, then Richard Parker is, of course, a Megaballicus. In all seriousness, though, this book is great fun, excellent food for thought, and even though you might not know, storywise, if what seems to be going on is really going on, it doesn't matter in the end because this book asks you: what's the better story? Well, Richard Parker, naturally.

Worst book: Dean Koontz's The Taking. I read my first Dean Koontz book when I was a kiddo of fourteen. I've enjoyed his books over the years -- many are fun, page-turning reads -- but this one was just... well, suffice it to say, I got the feeling he was trying to write it wayyy too quickly. It had a paint-by-numbers feel, well -- the book version of such a thing. I got bored with the book half-way through, skipped ahead to read the ending, and ACKETY ACK, how cheesy and disappointing it was: even worse, in my opinion, than, "it was all a dream."

And here, looking ahead to 2007, are the four books which are coming up next on my (long) To-Read List:

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan, edited by Ann Druyan

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier