As the Page Turns (the Book Thread)

[Erin]

I don’t think I’m up to posting everything I read this year either, nor would anyone feel like reading that list. I’ve posted a lot about what I’ve been reading anyway. But it is kind of fun to look back and think about what the best books were of the year. I would pick Long Bright River by Liz Moore, Not Our Kind by Kitty Zeldis, and The Testaments by Margaret Atwood as the best fiction. Best non-fiction were Educated by Tara Westover and Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe.

I’m not sure what to pick for worst books, as there were so many that I didn’t finish. I think the worst one I finished was The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward. I don’t think I liked or was invested in a single character in that book. Biggest letdown was Where the Crawdads Sing, which had so much hype, but I couldn’t make it past the first 30 or so pages.

 

[Marta24]

I only read 34 books this year. At the start of the year I set myself a goal of reading 100 books, I obviously missed that mark by a lot. Well, I will try again in 2021. I managed to read about 70 to 80 books in 2018 and 2019, so I think 100 books should be achievable. I really felt the difference of reading less than the previous two years and I`m looking forward to ramp up my reading in 2021.

 

[Prancer]

The bottom:

My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell - a serious subject, but so badly written

Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens - book has a split personality and doesn't work on any level

I have no idea how many books I've read this year, but however many there were, these two would be at the bottom of my list, too. So many good reviews, such utterly disappointing books.

One of my cousins turned up a series of romance novels about the family clan, written by another cousin of some sort--The Irvines of Drum. I had to have them, so I read the first one today. All I can say is, if my ancestors were really as stupid as they are in this book, the clan would have died with the fourth laird of Drum. And so many positive reviews???? Did no one notice all the typos and grammar errors?

 

[quartz]

My favourites this year are Miss Benson’s Beetle, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Things in Jars.

 

[ryanj07]

I just finished my last book of the year, City of Girls, which brings my total for the year to 67. My previous high was 61 a few years ago but I did read a few fluffy romances this year so it probably evens out. I adored City of Girls, which utilizes a 95 year old narrator (Vivian) looking back on her life in the NYC theatre scene of the 1940's when she fails out of Vassar and is sent to live with her Aunt. Vivian lives the high life mingling with the showgirls, actors, and wealthy gentlemen that frequent her aunt's theater until she makes a mistake that could ruin her family's good name. The first 2/3 were excellent and although the ending moved at a slower pace, the final two pages left me weeping for 15 minutes after I'd finished.

Overall, I'd say my favorites this year were:
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
One Day by David Nicholls
A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult
Summer of '69 by Elin Hilderbrand
The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan

Least Favorites:
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth
The Lies That Bind by Emily Giffin
The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
Pretty Baby by Mary Kubica
Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty (so sad to see her on the worst list twice as I usually LOVE her books!)
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

 

[cygnus]

My favourites this year are Miss Benson’s Beetle, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Things in Jars.

I was enjoying A Gentleman In Moscow back in March. Then we went into lockdown and I couldn't finish it. I fully intend to get back to it once I have a life again and going outside isn't such a trial.

 

[genevieve]

I only managed to finish 20 books in 2020, which is middling for me in recent years. It's too bad - I was tearing through books in January and February and thought I'd get to at least 30. My favorites for the year were Such a Fun Age (Kiley Reid), Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Olga Tokarczuk), The Hate U Give (Angie Thomas) and maybe a tie between The Singer's Gun (Emily St John Mandel) and Ways to Disappear (Idra Novey).

One thing that I'm happy about is that I've made a conscious effort to seek out books by authors of color in the last 2 years, and reflecting back on my 2020 list, it's a far more well-rounded set of voices than in the past. I use Goodreads, so I've been tracking my reading lists for the last decade, and it was kind of shocking just how white my reading lists had been.

Which brings me to the reason for today's post. My mom gave me American Dirt for Christmas. The title was vaguely familiar, but I knew nothing about it, so I texted thank you and said it would be my next book. Last night I read the plot synopsis on the jacket and thought, ummmm....is the author Mexican? Please tell me the author is Mexican. The author's name is not Hispanic, and the photo was not conclusive. Go to her wikipedia page and see that she's Irish-American. Hmmm. Then see something about her claiming both Puerto Rican heritage on her dad's side, but also that she's white, and something about her publisher. Go to Goodreads and the book has 4.5 stars, but top review is a very well detailed review from a Mexican-American about why this book is terrible.

I definitely never would buy this book, but it's been bought. Do I read it? Toss it? Take it to goodwill? I read the first chapter and it so far reads like a middling thriller, but I don't think I can get over the background of the book.

 

[Jenny]

I haven't read it but recall the controversy over the author's authenticity and her "right" to tell such a story. Far as I know it's fiction so she's not pretending it's her own story, nor is she claiming to be something she's not (even if pointing out some slice of her heritage seems like an effort to justify, but again, I don't know the whole story).

That being said, and not in reference to this book or to @genevieve's choice, more of a general question, are we only to read books where the author has first hand knowledge/experience/background to write a story? While it's true that many authors write from their own perspective, others are very good at realizing characters that are nothing like them. Obviously when authors write about other times and places, perhaps we support that because they've either done the research, used original sources or talked to people who have the experience (for example the many authors who rely on interviews with police and legal experts to be able to create their characters and stories), or in the case of fantasy stories are making something up entirely.

But we also accept men who create female characters, and women who create male characters. Writers whose sexuality does not align with their characters, villains who do terrible things that one hopes the author has never done, who write of professions they've never worked in, of parenting when they have no children, of places they've never actually visited, of loss when those they love are very much alive.

So at one point do we say "you are allowed to write about this" and "you are not"? Honestly a general question, interested to hear what others think.

 

[Prancer]

So at one point do we say "you are allowed to write about this" and "you are not"? Honestly a general question, interested to hear what others think.

I don't think the question is "Who is allowed to write about X" but rather "Who is allowed to profit from X and why."

There is a long history of white people exploiting the stories and experiences of people of color for profit. There is also a long history of people of color being unable to find a voice in media because white people dominate, even in fields that are supposedly devoted to people of color. So as I understand it, it's not that people can't write about anything, but that people like publishers should give more weight to the voices of people of color speaking about the experiences of people of color because having white people to be the ones to tell those stories for profit is exploitive, among other things.

People like to say that a good story is a good story and who cares who wrote it. And that's a good point; the life of the writer is, after all, essentially about imagination. But at the same time, publishing is driven by profit. Stories told by white people tend to be told from white perspectives, either consciously or unconsciously, which are more palatable, consciously or unconsciously, to white audiences, and thus are more likely to be selected for publication and more likely to sell.

I have and still have qualms about all this, but......I have never read a book written by a man that features a female protagonist that I have found even remotely believable or relatable. I have a read a lot of books by women that have featured male characters I have found believable. This does not tell me that women do a better job of writing men than men do of writing women, but that my biases align with women in their understanding of men and women. Nevertheless, I actively avoid reading most books written by men that feature female protagonists.

So I think it's easy to be dismissive of authenticity tests--and I have a lot of sympathy there--but I'm not sure it's easy for the right reasons. We all have biases; it's almost impossible for us to recognize them, but it doesn't mean they aren't there.

 

[Prancer]

People like to say that a good story is a good story and who cares who wrote it. And that's a good point; the life of the writer is, after all, essentially about imagination. But at the same time, publishing is driven by profit. Stories told by white people tend to be told from white perspectives, either consciously or unconsciously, which are more palatable, consciously or unconsciously, to white audiences, and thus are more likely to be selected for publication and more likely to sell.

Sorry for the double post, but I would like to add what I consider to be a class A example of this: The Help.

I was and still am amazed at how many people thought that was a good book in this century.

 

[Jenny]

Thanks @Prancer, and excellent point about under served authors.

Not sure how many of you know about this, but the food magazine Bon Appetit has undergone a huge reckoning in the past year, starting last June when various staff and freelancers started speaking up about white bias, and before long the editor in chief resigned, they pulled back on everything, offering apologies on their social channels, promises to do better. Aside from pay equity and what many felt was tokenism (ie staff of colour asked to sit in on photo shoots), a big issue was and continues to be recipe authenticity - being true to the roots of dishes, and having chefs whose backgrounds are in those cuisines or those regions present the recipes. It's been interesting to watch in the magazine and on Instagram and their videos and newsletters, I applaud much of it, but at the same time, it raises a lot of questions. Food and how we eat evolves with human migration and travel, as people bring their own ideas to the table, adapt classic dishes with local ingredients and techniques, mix and match to create things collectively. One of the joys of eating is discovering new things and sharing food with others.

Not sure if I'm even making any sense here but I like to read and I like to cook, and well I've had a lot more time to think lately.

 

[MacMadame]

Sorry for the double post, but I would like to add what I consider to be a class A example of this: The Help.

I was and still am amazed at how many people thought that was a good book in this century.

And to get back to @genevieve's original dilemma about whether or not to read a particular book, I have refused to read that book (The Help) or to see the movie because it comes off to me as condescending and inauthentic. And definitely not a good story. I feel the same about The Greenbook.

 

[Prancer]

I applaud much of it, but at the same time, it raises a lot of questions. Food and how we eat evolves with human migration and travel, as people bring their own ideas to the table, adapt classic dishes with local ingredients and techniques, mix and match to create things collectively. One of the joys of eating is discovering new things and sharing food with others.

Yep. It's not easy to pull everything apart and label it.

Food is a great example. There has been some discussion in the last couple of years about how most "ethnic" restaurants are owned by whites, who serve up white versions of ethnic foods to mostly white customers and how hard it is for people of color AND people who want to try to offer authentic cuisine to break into the restaurant business. But even there--white isn't even always the issue, as some white people are also part of an ethnic group.

One of my students wrote a very passionate paper about white musicians exploiting black music a while back. I really don't think you can look at even a shallow history of music in the US and not see the problem there. But a lot of her paper focused on "Hound Dog," a song first covered by Big Mama Thornton that was a blues hit. Then Elvis covered it (with some lyric changes) and it was a massive hit. Student thought this was a prime example of white exploitation. And there's certainly an argument to be made there; she made a lot of good points. But the song was written by a couple of Jewish guys from New York (which she didn't know until I told her, as it was not mentioned in any of her research). But they wrote it specifically for Big Mama Thornton. They were big fans, both of her and the blues.

Whose song is it anyway?

 

[Jenny]

Oh music for sure - one might say that the number of huge artists influenced by American blues is a tribute, and it often is, but there are many cases of outright appropriation too. Similarly the visual arts, where the polite and widely used terms are "references" and "influences" and even "after the style of" but as you said, pulling it apart is complicated, and it's incredibly hard to be 100% original anyway. And to make money doing so, which is often the issue as well.

As for The Help. Yes it's true the book was written by a white woman and the movie script by a white man who also directed it (but let's leave aside that it's a story about women, for now). As I understand it, the author and the writer/director grew up together in Jackson, Mississippi where the story takes place. Some might argue that the story is as much about the white experience at the time as it was about the Black experience - the story within the story has a white girl giving voice to Black women (which is maybe not such a bad thing, no?) but the book itself is sort of a reckoning for a group of white women at a particular point in time, and while I wasn't there and didn't experience it myself, from everything else I've read I thought they did a pretty good job of it, more so in the movie than the book. And for the most part, the Black characters come across as strong and sympathetic, while many of the white characters are deplorable. Apparently Viola Davis regrets doing the movie though, which does say a lot.

 

[Prancer]

Oh music for sure - one might say that the number of huge artists influenced by American blues is a tribute, and it often is, but there are many cases of outright appropriation too.

Absolutely. But while tribute is certainly nice, money in your pocket is nicer.

As for The Help. Yes it's true the book was written by a white woman and the movie script by a white man who also directed it (but let's leave aside that it's a story about women, for now).

It's not that it was written by a white woman. It's that it is a book that is supposed to be about the experiences of black women who work as domestics that is told from the perspective of a heroic white woman by a white woman, who profited from writing about the experiences of the black women (both in the book and in real life).

That's the issue in a nutshell: Karla F C Holloway, a professor of English and law at Duke University, raved about the novel as “beautifully written” and said Ms. Stockett was clearly aware of the “racial tightrope she’s walking.”

But Ms. Holloway, who is black, said Ms. Stockett’s identity pointed to a broader conundrum in publishing and the culture generally.

“Who gets to tell those stories in a way that they earn public attention?” Ms. Holloway asked. “It seems to me to reflect our bias about whom we trust as a storyteller.”

There are a lot of other specific issues with The Help, but as Holloway says, that's the broader issue.

 

[MacMadame]

It's not that it was written by a white woman. It's that it is a book that is supposed to be about the experiences of black women who work as domestics that is told from the perspective of a heroic white woman by a white woman, who profited from writing about the experiences of the black women (both in the book and in real life).

Yes, and it's part of a genre of White Savior stories where the white person somehow becomes the hero of a story that should really have Black people at the center and as the heroes.

I have thought about this a lot and I think a different book about the same subject that could have been really good and not problematic would have the book written by both the white woman and one of the Black women in the story and each one could alternate a chapter and the timeline in the chapters could overlap so that you could see the same incidents from two different points of view.

This would also be a good way for a white writer to use their privilege to amplify a Black voice.

 

[Prancer]

I have thought about this a lot and I think a different book about the same subject that could have been really good and not problematic would have the book written by both the white woman and one of the Black women in the story and each one could alternate a chapter and the timeline in the chapters could overlap so that you could see the same incidents from two different points of view.

This would also be a good way for a white writer to use their privilege to amplify a Black voice.

Hmm, well, the story began with Aibilene, but Stockett realized early on that she was going to have a problem speaking as a black domestic, and thus Skeeter was born.

For all the criticism Stockett has received for her book, I think it would have been much more problematic for her to write from the POV of a black domestic. As the book is written, she was authentically speaking from her own experience as a white woman who had been at least partly raised by a black domestic and who took stories from her current black domestic to use in her writing. I took it, in fact, as the sort of story where the author rewrites history to make herself the heroine, but that might be a stretch.

 

[genevieve]

That being said, and not in reference to this book or to @genevieve's choice, more of a general question, are we only to read books where the author has first hand knowledge/experience/background to write a story?

But we also accept men who create female characters, and women who create male characters. Writers whose sexuality does not align with their characters, villains who do terrible things that one hopes the author has never done, who write of professions they've never worked in, of parenting when they have no children, of places they've never actually visited, of loss when those they love are very much alive.

So at one point do we say "you are allowed to write about this" and "you are not"? Honestly a general question, interested to hear what others think.

I appreciate the discussion on this - just wanted to come back and respond.

There are definitely books I've read where the protagonist is a different culture from the author, and sometimes that works, sometimes it really, really doesn't. It was in reading the plot summary for this particular book that I grew concerned, because this plot seemed ripe for promoting a completely off-base point of view in the hands of someone without an authentic understanding of what it's like to live in a Mexican city rife with drug cartels. Add in the component about the huge author advance for telling a story that isn't "hers" when Mexicans, particularly Mexican women, do not get well compensated for their histories, and it's just a big pile of ICK.

We are also in a different time than even when The Help came out (fueled, in part, by the success of that book/film and subsequent backlash). I read the book at the time and enjoyed it - the discussions afterward helped me understand the challenges with that type of storytelling (especially the Abilene chapters). The Help phenomenon is also complicated by the fact that Stockton used her privilege to launch Octavia Spencer's career - and, at least at the time, Spencer was very complimentary about the book.

Interesting to bring up food, because the GF and I have discussed that endlessly (she is a trained cook, and her specialty is Turkish and Middle Eastern cuisine). It's not about not being able to cook the food you love the most, it's that restaurants led by white owners and chefs get away with charging a shit ton more for food than the people who know it best. It's a very colonial mindset and we're still only at the beginning of understanding and unpacking that (we being predominantly white/western culture).

To bring this back to books, the book Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn is about a Jamaican woman who emigrates to the US. There is a minor subplot when she takes a job at a Jamaican restaurant owned/led by a white chef in New York - it is so spot on and delightful in its depiction of high end "ethnic" cuisine. I enjoyed the book overall, but that section is the most memorable.

As for American Dirt, I read the first chapter and it came across as a middle of the road thriller - I've certainly read a ton of those with varying degrees of enjoyment - but decided I could not separate the story from the controversy and would be examining every word with skepticism so why bother. Then I remembered last summer I'd picked up Catfish and Mandala and decided to read that instead. Enjoying it so far, although it was published in 1999 - recent enough to feel completely contemporary, but technology is so vastly different that I keep wondering why he doesn't just look things up on his smartphone

 

[Prancer]

We are also in a different time than even when The Help came out

For what it's worth (and I know it isn't much), my opinion of The Help is the same as it was when the book came out. I started reading it and had to stop.

As for American Dirt, I read the first chapter and it came across as a middle of the road thriller - I've certainly read a ton of those with varying degrees of enjoyment - but decided I could not separate the story from the controversy and would be examining every word with skepticism so why bother.

An article about the controversy over American Dirt, which gets into quite a bit of detail about both the book and the issues.

 

[genevieve]

For what it's worth (and I know it isn't much), my opinion of The Help is the same as it was when the book came out. I started reading it and had to stop.

I believe it! I was referring to the overall response to the book, which I think would be very different if it came out now.

 

[Susan1]

My January library magazine says the new Spenser book, Robert B. Parker's Someone to Watch Over Me, (by Ace Atkins) came out in December. I still have three Spensers to read before I get to it.

 

[ryanj07]

My first reads of the year were:

American Royals by Katharine McGee-An alternate timeline where George Washington decided to accept a position as King instead of President and his direct descendants are now on the throne in the present day. I usually love books about royalty but it probably helps that they are typically set in Europe, which I enjoy reading about. It had its moments and was okay overall, it’s a series I’ll request from the digital library rather than purchasing myself.

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams. Queenie is a 25 year old black woman of Jamaican descent living in London. It begins with Queenie attempting to get over the breakup of her boyfriend of three years, Tom. This book goes to some very dark places as Queenie is battling with her mental health and we discover that her relationship wasn’t completely healthy, partly due to Tom being white and not standing up to his casually racist family. It’s not always easy to like Queenie, as she spirals into self sabotaging behaviors. I went from rooting for Queenie to hating her to admiring and understanding her. I thought it was spectacular and Queenie is one of those characters you think about long after finishing the story.

 

[puglover]

I just finished "The Moon Sisters" and quite liked it. It is a coming of age story of two sisters as different as day from night and somewhat ambivalent to each other who end up on an ill conceived trip to try to figure out their mother and her untimely death. My husband is raving about "The Boys in the Boat" - story of the US rowing team that win the Berlin Olympics.

 

[clairecloutier]

Since I mentioned earlier that I was reading it-- I finished Red Comet, the new biography of Sylvia Plath, and it is excellent. It is very long (almost 1000 pages), but it was like reading a novel for me, and easily kept my attention the whole way. I've read pretty much all the Plath biographies, and this is far and away the best and most comprehensive, covering almost everything you could think of. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Plath.

 

[Prancer]

My husband is raving about "The Boys in the Boat" - story of the US rowing team that win the Berlin Olympics.

That is an excellent nonfiction book.

 

[annie720]

I just finished "The Moon Sisters" and quite liked it. It is a coming of age story of two sisters as different as day from night and somewhat ambivalent to each other who end up on an ill conceived trip to try to figure out their mother and her untimely death. My husband is raving about "The Boys in the Boat" - story of the US rowing team that win the Berlin Olympics.

When my book club read this a few years ago, a lot of new men showed up for that discussion because they were interested in the topic, and many of them stuck around. Agree, it's a great book.

 

[emason]

Another thumbs up for The Boys in the Boat. The description of the gold medal-winning race had me on the edge of my seat, even though the outcome was known in advance.

 

[genevieve]

I loved The Boys in the Boat - the story is phenomenal, but because I live in Seattle there is an extra dimension to the story that made it enjoyable.

 

[millyskate]

I'm reading The Thursday Murder Club by British TV presenter Richard Osman and it's a brilliant light read. Think Agatha Christie with a very British sense of humour. A lot of UK cultural references but I think anyone wanting an easy read would enjoy it.

 

[annie720]

Just started reading Anxious People. It reads like a typical Backman book so I'm sure I'll enjoy it. And just finished Where the Crawdads Sing for book club. I thought it was okay and didn't have any problem finishing it, but I liked it less and less as it went on.