Sunday, January 13, 2019

Billy's top 5 of 2018

What my 2018 year in books lacked in quantity, it made up for in quality.  At first I thought of only doing a top 3 so as not to include nearly a third of the books I read in my year end list, but there were just too many good ones to leave out.

5. The Nix by Nathan Hill
Sometimes you just need a big old novel that you just fly through.  I still read a lot these days, but it's mostly news (and twitter).  As a result, I'm reluctant to delve into anything longer than 500 pages because I worry I'll get sidetracked and never finish.  I took The Nix to the beach, though, and devoured it in about three days.  The story of a writer/professor trying to exorcise the ghost of his mother's abandonment of him when he was a child, The Nix sometimes goes a little off course, but the writing is so transporting that you forgive him.  For example, the paragraphs about the protagonist's gamer friend spending hours trying to level up his secondary characters in an online role playing game weren't really necessary, but the character was so well developed that I didn't mind.

4. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
There's nothing else that I can really add about The Hate U Give that someone else (probably on this blog) hasn't said before, but I'll just say that just because a book is about young people shouldn't make it YA (and there shouldn't be as much stigma attached), and that when I read the list of people who had been killed by police at the end of the book, I sobbed.

3. Evicted by Matthew Desmond
I used to think that education was the number one most important social issue facing the country, but after reading Evicted, I'm convinced that housing is.  Desmond tells the stories of landlords and tenants and exposes the realities of housing insecurity in America.  It's clear that without a stable, dependable, habitable place to live, it's almost impossible to achieve anything.  How can you get a job if you don't have an address?  How can you get an education if you're sleeping in the third dilapidated shack you've been in that year?  How can you have a healthy diet if your refrigerator is broken and your landlord won't fix it because you're behind on your rent?  How can you pay your rent if you're sick and can't keep a job?  There are villains, but mostly everyone is just trying to struggle by, and it's tragic.  Just give everyone somewhere to live and so many other social ills will disappear.

2. Impeachment: A Citizen's Guide by Cass Sunstein
Hopefully this will be even more relevant in 2019!

1. Tomorrow Will Be Different by Sarah McBride
Speaking of books that made me openly cry (including three days in a row in the cafeteria at work).  Sarah McBride is an activist who came out as trans in her senior year at American University (as she was finishing her terms as student body president).  Since then she has fought for trans rights, spoken at the 2016 Democratic National Convention (the first openly trans person to do so), and endured the death of her husband.  She's younger than me, but already has lived enough life to have a memoir, and it is as inspiring at parts as it is heartbreaking at others.  She is a great writer and I expect wonderful things from her in the future.  Highly recommend.

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