With friends and family griping about the dearth of good new reads, it’s worth a look back at the best of the last decade. That’s always my default: Nothing new? Look back.
Explains reading all of Hardy, and Richard Yates, repeatedly.
Of course, the last decade gave us the me me me “Eat, Pray, Love†and the gimmicky “Everything is Illuminated†— two I read and wish I hadn’t. But there were big, messy reads put out in the last decade that will forever live on my shelves. They are, in no particular order:
1) White Teeth, Zadie Smith. Too long by a third, but the rest is a glorious, heart-rending tale of modern London’s melting pot.
2) The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen. A Midwestern family blossoms elsewhere, hilariously. I’d lend it …Who has my copy?!?
3) Empire Falls, Richard Russo. Heartbreak and acceptance in a fading mill town. An American masterpiece; Russo’s finest.
4) When We Were Orphans, Kazuo Ishiguro. A detective searches for parents he lost as a boy, in Shanghai. What he finds is both mundane and shocking. My favorite Ishiguro.
5) Lush Life, Richard Price. A robbery gone wrong on New York’s Lower East Side opens up a Pandora’s Box of wanna be’s and has-beens. Too long? I wanted more.
6) Little Children, Tom Perrotta. A bored young mom carries on a torrid affair with a slacker dad. Rest of the neighborhood worries about a hometown child molester. Perrotta’s best.
7) Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky. Written on the run during German invasion of Paris; found by author’s daughter and published in 2004. No one behaves well during an occupation. Beautifully written.
8) My Life in France, Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme. On tv, Julia Child scared me. On the page, her life inspires and charms.
9) The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright. The road to 9/11 began with an Egyptian scholar whose time in postwar U.S. disgusted him. Astonishing research; fascinating read.
10) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz. Don’t be put off by the title, the impossibly nerdy main character, the Spanglish, the footnotes. Best read of the decade.