Favorite Reads in 2009 and Lists Elsewhere

So I'll give you two--well actually one and my pick for the best this year.  Let's start with the latter.  It should come as no surprise to anyone who has spent time here that my pick for best of the year goes to Yiyun Li.  If it had to be for a book published this year, I would choose The Vagrants, but it's my blog and my rules, so I'll just pick Yiyun Li and list both of her books--A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.




 



And another list, which incidentally features Yiyun Li's novel, has on it Zoe Heller's The Believers.  When I glanced at it in the library it seemed like another "how I survived my divorce" saga so common to what people today think comprises great literture.  However, I have now seen it on two separate lists by people I respect and I know my own prejudices well enough to try to set them aside and read what better informed folks (those who have read the book) have to say about it.  Oh, and add to that, that the compiler of this list felt much as I did about Let the Great World Spin, and it suggests a sufficient similarity of taste (at least for the moment) to take the recommendation seriously.

Comments

  1. D. G. MyersDecember 23, 2009 at 11:43 AM

    Steven,

    Heller’s Believers has nothing to do with divorce or with “survival.” That’s the kind of word Heller would avoid like reused oil. It has been worn smooth by common usage. The Believers is about just what its title says it is about. Three different women, a mother and her two daughters, firmly established on the Left, must find something else to believe in. Not only is the novel the most cutting critique of the Left since Orwell (and the funniest), it is also the best novel about the “return” to Orthodox Judaism ever written.

    ReplyDelete
  2. StevenDecember 23, 2009 at 11:50 AM

    Dear Mr. Myers,

    Thank you. The cover blurb is highly misleading and after seeing the recommendation in two places, I headed back over to your blog to see what you had written about it. Now, I see that I was mistaken and it sounds like exactly the kind I would enjoy very much. Thank you for taking the time and effort to correct my misapprehensions regarding it.

    shalom,

    Steven

    ReplyDelete

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