TSR Listmania! Favourite Books of 2007, Part 8

Posted 17 December, 2007 in Favourite Books of 2007 |

I’m a bit late posting this, because I’ve been digging out after the mother of all snowstorms. (Or, if not the mother, then the mother-in-law of all snowstorms.) But, better late than never, today’s list of favourite books comes from Panic Girl, a blogger who administers the brilliantly named In the Midst of Life We Are in Debt, Etc. She also administers the Facebook group Douglas Coupland for Prime Minister. (Okay, I made that last bit up.)

Panic Girl:

2007’s been an odd year for me, reading wise, in that it’s the first year I’ve really concentrated on reading mostly new books (thank you Toronto Public Library!).

House of Meetings, by Martin Amis.

I was completely absorbed from the first page. This is the first Amis I’ve read, so I had no idea what to expect from him, though I was aware of the accolades, and the Yellow Dog fallout. I’ve always enjoyed a good family epic, and on that score, Amis doesn’t disappoint. I’ve never been all that interested in Russia, or Russian history, and was actually a bit trepidatious to tackle something partially set in a Siberian work camp. In the end though, I was drawn into the relationship of the brothers, and their lives, in a world very alien, and thus very compelling.

Bottle Rocket Hearts, by Zoe Whittall.

I heard Zoe read an excerpt of her then novel-in-progress in 2003, and I’d been eagerly awaiting it since. I was not disappointed in the least.

I was nineteen when Eve, the main character, was nineteen, and the book created a huge lump of nostalgia and longing in my chest that didn’t go away for some time after I’d finished the book. Zoe knows how to recreate that time, in perfect grimy, glittery detail. One of the few criticisms I’ve read of the book is the attention given to Eve’s fashion choices, but you have to remember that for people that age trying to break free of something, one of the first and best ways they assert themselves is through clothing, and appearance. I thought these details gave the book credibility.

The Gum Thief, by Douglas Coupland.

When Coupland gets it right, he gets it so very, very right. The lingering, lonely sadness of Eleanor Rigby; postmodern touches that work (rather than distract as they did in J-pod); the awareness of low/pop-culture and how it infiltrates and shapes us … it’s all there. Again, I’d like to respond to a criticism: Coupland takes a lot of flak for the pop-culture stuff, but that’s just elitist thinking. Most people, we unwashed masses, don’t live in a world where only Mozart plays, where only Walden is read, where TVs never existed. I often think in pop-culture references (don’t get me started on how my internal monologue had been hijacked by lolcats), and it’s good, and necessary, to see that reflected in modern literature.

Strange as this Weather Has Been, by Ann Pancake.

A bit of a surprise. I had an advance reading copy, and on reading the back said to myself, “What the hell, I like things set in the South.” Strange as this Weather Has Been details the lives of a poor Virginian family in the shadow of a giant mining operation. Pancake knows what she’s talking about, and doesn’t spare the reader any of the horror of mountaintop removal and strip mining, from the economic impact of the mining companies using nonunion workers, to the ecological changes in the region (tainted water, floods, destruction of forests). While the characters are made up, this isn’t entirely fiction. The conditions described exist, and that’s what’s most horrifying. Strange as this Weather Has Been is the new Southern Gothic, and as chilling as anything Flannery O’Connor ever dreamed up.

Nobody Passes, ed. by Matt Bernstein Sycamore.

This anthology was published at the end of 2006, but I only came to read it this year. The essays are based around the idea that we’re all supposed to want to be the ultimate societal ideal: white, straight, male, wealthy, and able-bodied. So what happens when we’re not one of those things, or any of those things? The writers explore difference, how it can harm, how it can liberate, how difference is important to identity, and how it marks one as a target of scorn, derision, and systemic discrimination. Each essay approaches the topic from a completely different point of view. As I said in my blog, this should be the primer on third-wave feminist thought, since third-wave is very much interested in how different “isms” collide and combine, creating a different experience for individuals.

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More to come; keep checking back over the next few days. The complete collection can be found by clicking on the category link Favourite Books of 2007.