Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (2014)

Amazingly thought-provoking book that explores the everyday interactions of race, in lovely, spare, poetic writing. 

Chilling and effective, with interesting illustrations (and helpful notes about them in the back). It feels like a book you should read slowly and thoughtfully, which is not something I do very often. Wonderful discussion starter. 

Here's a tip: listen to Claudia Rankine read her work. It helps to have her voice in your head as you read. I particularly love the vignette on page 131 that starts: "On the Train."

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (2015)

Getting lots of buzz as this year's Gone Girl, I have to say, it's a pretty darn good thriller. 

Lonely, alcoholic Rachel rides the train every day, pretending to go to the job that she lost. She gazes out the window and into the windows of the houses she passes on her way, making up stories about the people who live there. But one day she sees something very mysterious and gets involved with a murder investigation.

Told by various characters, this was an interesting, well-written, great characterized novel. Plus, and not insignificantly, a fascinating look at alcoholism. Also, the end is so suspenseful that I kept putting it down, not wanting it to be over.

The Dolls by Kiki Sullivan (2014)

Eveny Cheval just moved back to Carrefour, Louisiana from Brooklyn with her aunt. Many secrets await, including the cliquey new group to which her family has mysterious ties.  

Long story short: Eveny is a voodoo queen, possibly the most powerful one of all! And the super handsome guy she likes? Generations of his family have protected hers so they can never be together! And her mother's suicide?  Possibly not a suicide! 

That said, it was great mythology and a fun read that, despite the fact that it's no doubt the first in a trilogy, stood alone just fine on its own.

How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon (2014)

The story of a young black man, shot dead on a busy street by a white man. Told through the viewpoints of his friends, his family, his friends' families, bystanders and shopkeepers in the area.  

Beautifully evokes so many people's stories through this one event. Fabulous book. Read voraciously in one night. Excellent book for thoughtful discussions.

Saga: Volume One by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (2012)

Unbelievably absorbing graphic novel about two cultures at war and two people from those cultures who have fallen in love and had a baby. Begins very much in media res.

Fabulous world creation, super dreamy lead guy (despite the horns), kick ass lead girl, and wonderfully vivid supporting characters.  Plus, mucho diversity. Absolutely fabulous.

Followed by three more volumes ... so far!

Us by David Nicholls (2014)

David Nicholls is quickly turning into an Author I Adore. I loved his One Day (book AND surprisingly well-done movie) as well as The Understudy, so I was looking forward to his newest novel.

Us is about Connie and Dan, a long-married couple whose son is graduating. They have a Grand Tour planned when Connie tells Douglas that she doesn't want to be married anymore. But they go on the trip anyway, and, unsurprisingly, things go awry. A lovely meditation on marriage and love, featuring flawed characters and realistic situations.  Nicholls has such wonderful insights into emotion and love, and he has such marvelous, humorous turns of phrase. Like:

"Other people's sex lives are a little like other people's holidays: you're glad they had fun but you weren't there and don't necessarily want to see the photos. At our age too much detail leads to a certain amount of mental whistling and staring at shoes, and there's also the problem of vocabulary. Scientific terms, though clinically accurate, don't really convey the heady dark intensity, etc., etc. and I'd like to avoid simile of metaphor -- valley, orchid, garden, that kind of thing. Certainly I have no intention of using a whole load of swear words. So I won't go into detail, except to say that it worked out pretty well for all concerned, with that pleasant sense of self-satisfaction, as if we'd discovered that we were still capable of performing a forward roll. Afterwards we lay in a tangle of limbs." (p. 71)

Gabriel: A Poem by Edward Hirsch (2014)

Lovely memoir in poetry about Edward Hirsch's son, who passed away from an overdose. 

The poem starts at Gabriel's funeral and goes through his death as well as Gabriel's very troubled life. Lyrical and sad, and very thoughtful about grief.

I adore this quote:

"I did not know the work of mourning
Is like carrying a bag of cement
Up a mountain at night ….
Look closely and you will see
Almost everyone is carrying bags
Of cement on their shoulders
That's why it takes courage
To get out of bed in the morning
And climb into the day." (p. 73)

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh (2013)

Subtitled: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

Although I'd recommended and given it to a bunch of people, I was compelled to finally read it after listening to Allie Brosh's fascinating conversation with Marc Maron on the WTF podcast--one of the best discussions I've ever heard on depression.

This book is hilarious and honest and amazingly insightful into what depression feels like. Even her dog comics are adorable.  Beautifully, beautifully done.

Really. What else can be said!  Buy her book and give it to everyone you know.  Also, you should check out her blog as well, particularly:

Adventures in Depression

Depression: Part Two

And remember:

Together Tea by Marjan Kamali (2013)

Together Tea is the story of Darya, who immigrated from Iran after the Islamic Revolution with her husband Parviz and her daughter Mina. As the book begins, we see that Darya is working hard to find the perfect husband for Mina, who is in business school but longs to be an artist. Mother and daughter take a trip back to Iran to visit family and friends.

The book sort of wanders around in time and perspective, from the present day to the past in Iran, and I kept getting Darya and Mina confused for some reason, but the background of the Iranian immigrants was fascinating. The amazing story and pride of the Persian people in their heritage and the enormous upheaval is a fascinating story. I loved the characters as well, particularly the father, who speaks primarily from his study of motivational speaking tapes, and the feisty Bita, Mina’s childhood friend. I also loved the look at the culture, the roopoosh, the tarof. So fascinating. Plus, a little bit clever and witty. 

“They were playing the Persian game of tarof, a verbal tradition stressing exaggerated politeness and formality in interactions, a ritual filled with flowery flattery, endless displays of respect for the other, dramatic self-effacement, and indirect answers to unnecessary questions. Darya and Baba relished this communicative art, through Mina had spent years resisting it.” (p. 20)

“Mina had the germ of an idea: If she went back to Iran, she could figure out what her family had been, what they’d lost, what they’d gained. She could expel this sense of never belonging, feeling lost. She could “find herself,” like every character in every book she’d ever read about immigrants going back to the homeland.” (p. 59)

“Mina knew how to study and work very hard. She knew how to swing her legs on that hyphen, and on that hyphen she would stay, carrying memories of the one place from which she had come and the other place in which she must succeed. The hyphen was hers--a space small, potentially precarious. On the hyphen she would sit and on the hyphen she would stand and soon, like a seasoned acrobat, she would balance there perfectly, never falling, ever choosing either side over the other, content with walking that thin line.” (p. 67)

The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez (2014)

This is a perfectly lovely book, totally readable and compelling, about a family that moves from Mexico to Delaware to bring their brain-injured daughter to a good school. They move into an apartment building that houses a variety of immigrants from other countries, and develop close ties to a Panamanian family. That is, the young Panamanian boy falls in love with Maribel, and deals with his own issues of being an immigrant.

A fascinating look at the immediate effects of immigrating--when poverty is a huge part of the picture. The shabby apartment that they live in, compared to their beautiful home back in Mexico, to coming to a country and not knowing any English at all, to shopping for food from the gas station because they don’t know where to go, to job hunting when you don’t have legal papers or know the language. At the same time, there’s a beautiful community that emerges in this apartment building among all of the immigrants, despite them coming from many different countries. Beautiful look at the hard truth of a tough immigrant experience. 

And I LOVE that Henriquez intersperses personal stories of each immigrant (in the apartment building) within the narrative. So each character, even a minor supporting character we see only a few times, gets their chance to share their story. So lovely, and when you get to the very last story … ah. Just lovely.

Henriquez says about this novel:

“This book was inspired by my father, who came to the United States from Panama in 1971 to go to college, and who has been here ever since. He’s made a life here, he’s become a citizen, and even though his story isn’t dramatic or spectacular, it’s important for the simple reason that it exists at all.”

Some other quotes that I loved:

“They found other places to live. Places like Delaware. It’s cheaper than Pennsylvania. And no sales tax. We have all the Spanish supermarkets now, and the school district started those English programs. I know some people here think we’re trying to take over, but we just want to be a part of it. We want to have our stake. This is our home, too.

"I like it here. I started off as the manager, but now I own this building. Bought it out almost ten years ago after working jobs on the side, saving up. I got a good deal. The area is changing, though. A clash of cultures. I try to make this building like an island for all of us washed-ashore refugees. A safe harbor. I don’t let anyone mess with me. If people want to tell me to go home, I just turn to them and smile politely and say, I’m already there.” (p. 146)

“The only reason I’d come was because my dad thought he might need a translator. I told him, “You use English every day.” But my dad had argued that he didn’t know the language of cars. To him, everything had its own language--the language of breakfast, the language of business, the language of politics, and on and on. In Spanish he knew all the languages, for as long as he’d been speaking English, he believe he knew it was only in certain realms. He never talked about cars with anyone in English, he said. Therefore, he didn’t know the language. It was no use explaining to him that I didn’t exactly spend my days talking about cars with people, either. To him, I knew all the languages of English the way he did those of Spanish. And as proud as he was that I was so good at one, I think he was also ashamed that I wasn’t better at the other.” (p. 161)

And so much so:

“Maybe it’s the instinct of every immigrant, born of necessity or of longing: Someplace else will be better than here. And the condition: if only I can get to that place.” (p. 286)