2009 Holiday Buying Guide

It’s Thanksgiving in the United States, which means it’s time for my annual buying guide entry. Here’s where I pick the best books I’ve read since Thanksgiving last year, and encourage you to buy them as holiday gifts for your reading friends. Also known as King Rat’s Best of 2009 post, but with a slightly different title.

Before I jump into my entry, I want to highlight something this year: SantaThing. LibraryThing is hosting an Secret Santa for people who read. I never was fond of Secret Santa things at work. A lotta rigmarole and anxiety for very little enjoyment by anyone. But SantaThing takes care of that for you. You pay $25, and someone picks out up to $25 worth of books for you based on stuff in your catalog and a few blurbs you write about yourself. In return, you pick out some books for someone else. LibraryThing handles all the ordering even! In other words, books, books and more books. No silly gag gifts, no bottles of wine, and no pretending you liked what the department head gave you! I am participating.

So, now on to my selections for best reads of 2009. Again, these are books read between Thanksgiving 2008 and Thanksgiving 2009, not books published this year. Though for the first time, some of the books were actually published in 2009. Over the last few years I’ve started reading more recently published books rather than waiting to hear the buzz before picking them up. The lists are in no particular order, though I do separate fiction from non-fiction.

Fiction

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union / Michael Chabon (my review)

Michael Chabon is a master of language. I knew that after reading The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay the year before. But it turns out Chabon is also a master of mood and plot as well. Set in an alternative history where Sitka Alaska became the homeland for Jews instead of Israel, Chabon spins a murder mystery that becomes much much more. This is something the lit-geek can love, as well as the science fiction and crime fiction types. Chabon better be winning a Nobel Prize for Literature some day. He’s young, but already has a number of classic books written.

The Taqwacores / Michael Muhammad Knight (my review)

I’ve heard The Taqwacores referred to as The Catcher in the Rye for American Muslims. I don’t have the foggiest idea how Muslim kids are actually reacting to the book, and I’m a little skeptical about the buzz the book has received, particularly for it’s effect. But it’s a great story following a houseful of characters in a then-fictional Muslim punk scene. Trying to hold the ideas of rebellion (punk) and submission (Islam) at the same time is tough, but Knight manages to create interesting characters, not just shocking ones.

9tail Fox / Jon Courtenay Grimwood (my review)

I’ve seen mixed reviews of this book, but I just loved it. San Francisco policeman wakes up in someone else’s body with memories of being murdered. Now he has to go solve his own murder. Nothing deep here, but an excellent story. I’ve not often liked person must solve their own murder plots, but I like this one.

Delhi Noir / Hirsh Sawhney ed. (my review)

I wrote in my review that Delhi is a perfect setting for noir. First world noir often falls flat for me because of the inherent unbelievability of danger generally in society. Noir must impart a sense of a dangerous atmosphere. The writers in this story collection wrote stories in a mix of social strata in Delhi, where bandits and graft are rampant in real life, not just in the stories. I liked every single story.

Liar / Justine Larbalestier (my review)

I wasn’t sure if I would recommend Liar or not. To put it bluntly, this book fucks with your head. Larbalestier writes the ultimate in unreliable narrators with her character Micah. Micah lies to her classmates. She lies to her teachers. She lies to random people on the street. She lies to the reader. It’s very unsettling, but good. I don’t like being unsettled like this, but I think it made for an excellent book.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian / Sherman Alexie (my review)

I don’t know if I’ve ever read anything that made me cry quite so easily as this did. Parts sad, and parts courageous. Alexie knows how to make his characters poignant. I think that might be the first time I’ve ever used that word on Rat’s Reading, and it’ll be a long time before I do so again. I listened to the audiobook version, read by Alexie himself. I highly recommend doing so. Oh yeah, Indian kid goes to school off the reservation where he deals both with the reaction of the white kids at his new school and the rejection of his friends on the rez.

Boneshaker / Cherie Priest (my review)

200 foot high wall around downtown Seattle holding inside a deadly gas and zombies. Steampunk level technology that finds a use for those gas masks and goggles that the goth/industrial/neo-steampunk kids wear. And a fun plot around the kid who heads into the forbidden zone to rehabilitate the reputation of his father, the man who released the gas, and his mother who follows him inside to rescue him. It’s a dirty, gritty vision, and I loved it.

Non-Fiction

My non-fiction reading seems to have dropped off this year, but there were still a couple of books I highly recommend.

Cartographia / Vincent Virga (my review)

I wouldn’t call this book an unmitigated success, as the writing alongside the maps in Cartographia overreaches in its search for the meanings of maps. But ZOMG! the maps are gorgeous! If you salivate over maps like I do, this will tease your taste buds! It includes maps from all areas of history, including maps in forms you never would expect. Map porn at it’s best!

Micromotives and Macrobehavior / Thomas C. Schelling (my review)

It’s somewhat dry and dense, but it’s one of the few times I haven’t wanted to throw an economics book. Supposedly concerned with the way the world is, not how they want it to be, publicly economists only very rarely can stand to not stamp their worldview on everything they touch. Schelling’s book provides lots and lots of insight into why things are as they are. The best chapter is on how even mild preferences for living near someone of one’s own race can lead to massive self-segregation when those attitudes are aggregated across the population.

Bonus Worst Book(s)

This year I have two books to put in this category. Buy these books for people you hate, or for people you want to piss off. Basically, if you get one of these it won’t be because they will enjoy it or become a better person for having read it. These books are still in print, and I exclude self-published books from consideration.

Casino Royale / Ian Fleming (my review)

Fleming’s writing fell far short of even my low expectations for how it would treat women. Ugh ugh ugh. Here’s a way to feel dirty.

The Bible of Clay / Julia Navarro (my review)

And for sheer plot senselessness, flat characterization, unexciting conspiracies, and no action whatsoever (at least in the part I was able to stomach), pick up The Bible of Clay. It follows the Dan Brown model of having the characters chase after a priceless relic from the past, but doesn’t have Brown’s knack for anything. When you compare unfavorably against Dan Brown…

Image Presents by Stuart Caie used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.