(from twincities.com
By Mary Ann Grossmann)
How do you choose the 10 best books you've read in a year? With wailing and gnashing of teeth. I could have listed 50 books, but I chose a variety because everyone's reading tastes are different. And some books I liked equally for different reasons, so ranking them was tough. But I did it in hopes that some of these books will touch you as they've touched me. Here they are in order.
10. "Waiting for the Queen" by Joanna Higgins (Milkweed Editions).
What it's about: Eugenie de LaRoque is a 15-year-old who flees the 18th-century French Revolution with her aristocratic parents. They land in New France in Pennsylvania, where they are served by local residents, including Quaker Hannah Kimbrell. Cultures clash as the incredulous Americans watch the French trying to re-create Versailles in the American wilderness. Eugenie and Hannah form a friendship as they try to save two slaves. When Eugenie has to learn to cook and milk a cow, she becomes strong enough to make a sacrifice that marks the end of her pampered life.
Why I liked it: Although this novel is aimed at middle-grade readers, I read it as avidly as any 12-year-old. Higgins, who bases her story on real events, captures perfectly the contrast between aristocrats and Quakers and tells an empowering story for young people.
9. "My Brother's Name" by Laura Krughoff (Scarletta Press, $14.95).
What it's about: Jane Fields, who is not transgendered, assumes the identity of her schizophrenic brother, John, playing in a rock band and working at a music store. John rarely leaves their apartment, and Jane thinks she can save him from his mental illness by bringing the outside world to him. But gender issues escalate as Jane becomes more confused about who she is, and John is in danger of a psychotic breakdown.
What I liked: An exploration of mental illness and gender unlike anything I've read; sounds grim, but it's not.
8. "A Love Affair With Birds" by Sue Leaf (University of Minnesota Press).
What it's about: Thomas Sadler Roberts arrived in Minnesota in 1867, when he was 9 years old. He would become a doctor, a professor of ornithology at the University of Minnesota, founder of the Bell Museum of Natural History and author of "The Birds of Minnesota."
Why I liked it: I've lived in Minnesota all my life and never heard of Thomas Roberts. So it was a pleasure to meet the father of Minnesota ornithology in this first full-length biography. Leaf ("The Bullhead Queen") writes movingly of the way in which the growing young city of Minneapolis ate up the meadows and wetlands where young Roberts saw huge flocks of birds that were gone by the time he died in 1946.
7. "The Valley of Amazement" by Amy Tan (HarperCollins).
What's it about: This story of three generations of women moves from 19th-century China to San Francisco in the 1920s. Lulu is the American madam of Shanghai's most exclusive "flower house," where courtesans entertain Western and Chinese men. Her daughter, Violet, half Chinese and half American, is sold as a "virgin courtesan" after her mother is tricked into leaving her. Both women suffer when they are separated from their children.
Why I liked it: Nobody writes better about mothers and daughters than Tan, and she's at her best as she describes the lives of courtesans and how these women made their way in the world. The plot moves swiftly and covers a lot of territory, emotional and geographic.
6. "A Star in the Face of the Sky" by David Haynes (New Rivers Press).
What it's about: Estelle, daughter of a Holocaust survivor, and Janet, African-American, are friends raising their charming, good-looking and intelligent grandsons, who will become lovers. Janet made a home for her grandson, Daniel, after his mother killed his three siblings and his fundamentalist-preacher father.
Janet tries to prevent Daniel from visiting his mother in prison while Estelle wants to bring peace to their lives with the help of her easy-going grandson, Ari.
Why I liked it: Estelle and Janet are powerful women who have careers and money. Haynes has perfect pitch for women's dialogue, and the intricate story sometimes moves into the future so readers know what happened, a technique I enjoy. Haynes tightly intertwines his four characters, each of whom is vividly drawn.
5. "Ordinary Grace" by William Kent Krueger (Atria Books).
What it's about: Frank Drum, 13, is the son of a pastor in a small Minnesota town and an artistic, frustrated mother. When Frank and his little brother find a body near the river, suspicion falls on the Indian uncle of one of their friends. Frank's mother is increasingly alienated from his father's God when his sister, a musical protege, disappears during a summer in 1961, when children are dying.
Why I liked it: Krueger deftly probes relationships within the Drum family and explores religious belief without getting preachy.
4. "Vacationland" by Sarah Stonich (University of Minnesota Press).
What it's about: Interconnected short stories set in a northern Minnesota resort where the protagonist, now the resort owner, grew up with her grandfather.
What I liked: It's fun to explore the world in fiction, but sometimes you want to come home and revel in an author's evocation of the scents, sights and sounds of the place where you live. Stonich does that beautifully while slowly building links among the disparate characters.
3. "Brown Dog" by Jim Harrison (Grove/Atlantic).
What it's about: Brown Dog is a big, reckless, smart, easy-going "half-breed" Indian whose adventures Harrison told in four previous novellas, which are included in this book, along with a new one. Brown Dog's only ambition is to make just enough money to spend time fly-fishing. He loves his stepchildren, his uncle, dogs and life without a job, a house or material things. Most of all he loves women, and he finds them in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (Harrison's favorite setting), as well as Canada and Montana.
Why I liked it: Harrison's writing is filled with human decency and love of the environment. I even enjoyed his descriptions of fly-fishing. And Brown Dog is so endearing you can't help rooting for him even when he isn't sure what he's doing.
2. "The Ludwig Conspiracy" by Oliver Potzsch (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
What it's about: Historical thriller by the Bavarian author of the "Hangman's Daughter" series explores the still-unsolved mystery of who killed "mad King Ludwig" in 1886. When a Munich-based antiquarian bookseller is given a book that allegedly explains what happened the night the king died, he and a woman companion search for clues while being chased by men in black robes.
Why I liked it: Thrillers aren't my thing, so I was surprised at how much I liked this story that includes encrypted writing, scary wanderings through the king's three fairy-tale castles and background about this extraordinary monarch who loved medieval lore but was ahead of his time in many ways.
1. "Dog Songs: Thirty-five Dog Songs and One Essay" by Mary Oliver (Penguin Press).
What it's about: Winner of a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize, Oliver has written some of the most loved contemporary poetry about dogs. This little volume gathers some of her most cherished dog poems and new work, embellished by John Burgoyne's lovely drawings.
Why I liked it: I usually don't sniffle over a book, but I did with this one, as Oliver's love for Bear and Benjamin, Percy and Luke made me recall my departed dogs. In some poems, Oliver talks to the dogs, who talk back, and their conversations become meditations on life -- canine and human. In her essay, Oliver says dogs are "a kind of poetry" themselves, and she honors them in this gentle book.
Book critic Mary Ann Grossmann can be reached at mgrossmann@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5574.
*Blogger's note: I love this list and there are so many lists out but I chose this because she explained very well why she liked each book. I have put a few on my "To Read" list.
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