Books That don’t Get Enough Credit
So, as part of the “getting Lili to chill the heck out” program, I’ve decided to listen to calming music and blog about books that I love that I think everyone should read, because they are So Great. These are books I recommend to people while I’m working at the bookstore, and books I recommend to friends, and life-changing or viewpoint-altering books. So. Here we go.
* Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Peter Hoeg. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love this book. I buy copies to give away to people, I love it so much. Smilla is a cold, utterly single-minded character who might be a James Bond if she was male. But she’s not, and part of what I love so much about this book is that Smilla doesn’t apologize for being smarter and more driven than the people around her. She asks for and gives no quarter, and she strikes back for a murdered child because dammit, nobody else will. Plus, the writing is absolutely incandescent.
* White Oleander, Janet Fitch. This novel absolutely blew me away. The movie was only so-so, but the book is fantastic. Heartwrenching, dangerous, utterly absorbing, Astrid’s journey through the different worlds of foster homes and into adulthood takes no prisoners. This is another book I buy to give to people. It’s just that good.
* Rounding out the trifecta of books I buy whenever I can to give to people is Arturo Perez-Reverte’s The Queen of the South. Like Hoeg, Perez-Reverte actually manages to write a female character, making him one of the few male writers who has ever succeeded at it. I am a big Perez-Reverte fan; his The Club Dumas was a major inspiration for Dante Valentine. Queen of the South, however, is about drug runners, and about a woman who refuses to lay down and die when the men in her life decide she should.
* Personal Darkness, Tanith Lee. I buy Tanith Lee books in used bookstores whenever I can. She is my absolute #1 favorite writer. Personal Darkness is book 2 in her Scarabae series, another re-imagining of vampires. Any Tanith Lee is a good read, but this particular book is one of my “desert island” picks. Meaning, if I was cast on a desert island for the next ten years with only five books to read, this would be one of the five.
* Dreamland, Sarah Dessen. Dessen does YA books of such bittersweet power it leaves me breathless. This book in particular is an examination of an abusive relationship between teenagers, and it’s right up there with Jane Mendelsohn’s Innocence for intensity. Dreamland is one of those books I think every teenage girl should read, if only to get the courage and savvy to recognize abusive tendencies when they come across them.
* While we’re on the subject of YA, Like the Red Panda by Andrea Seigel deserves a mention. It’s about this adopted girl who has everything, see, but she decides to commit suicide and starts detaching herself from her life. Not that I advocate suicide, but books that unflinchingly examine why someone might choose such a course are rare and valuable.
* When it comes to fantasy, I have two favorites: The Sharpest Edge by Stirling and Meier, and Frostflower And Thorn by Karr. Both books focus on a pair of female protaganists. Sharpest Edge is one of the best lesbian love stories I’ve ever read (and it has SHARP THINGS!) plus the best damn action sequences in modern fiction. Frostflower and Thorn is the only fantasy book I’ve come across that really takes a look at medieval sword-and-sorcery societies and what their effect on women might be. Plus it poses very valid questions about nonviolence and pacifism, and their role in a violent world.
* Breakfast in Babylon, Emer Martin. Homelessness and squatting, in Europe, in all its squalor and honest beauty. The book’s a romance, of sorts, between an Irish drifter and a Hispanic-American drug dealer. In Paris and London. It’s the type of book that’s about so many different things it’s impossible to boil it down into words. So just read it. Seriously. You’ll be glad you did.
* Sleeping With the Enemy, Nancy Price. Okay, so the movie had Julia Roberts and a rape scene. Forget the movie. Read the book instead–scorching, beautifully written, full of the power of literature to save and examination of gender issues. This is another one of those timeless books I buy to give out to people.
* Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943, Antony Beevor. Beevor’s one of the best damn history writers around, and his recounting of the siege is heartbreaking, detailed, and wonderfully well-written. The descriptions of lice and typhus, the plight of the wounded, and the perfidy of both Stalin and Hitler are alone worth the price of the book.
* Sabazel, Lillian Stewart Carl. I can’t read anything else the woman ever wrote, but I love this book. A functioning Amazonian society with a kickass queen, navigating the waters of political alliance and war? Sign my silly butt up. This is one of those books I read every few years, and I’m always pleasantly surprised by how good it is each time.
There are more. You know I could go on for hours and hours. But this should provide some pleasant grist for a Reader’s mill, and these are books I think have been overlooked and deserve a little bigger following than they have. Plus they’re all damn fine reads, or at least I found them so. Your mileage may vary.
Enjoy! And have a wonderful Friday, dear Reader. The sun is out here, and I’m planning on opening the doors and windows to take advantage of it. I also have a copy of Forensics For Dummies that deserves some close attention.
Hey, I’m weird. But we knew that.
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