Even though things have been rough in every other respect of 2009, let’s face facts: Culture has been good this year. Great music, modern classics in the theater, and, most importantly, life-changing books. So let’s get to it… my top three books of ’09.
1. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese: Shockingly absent from all the year-end lists I’ve seen, this is the book that has lingered with me the longest. A story about convents and hospitals and doctors and twins, this ambitious novel spans the globe as it follows two brothers on very divergent paths. Reminiscent of Slumdog Millionaire in both setting and fraternal battles, Verghese, a doctor before becoming an author, finds a beating heart at the center of this epic tale.
2. The Help by Kathryn Stockett: Skeeter Phelan is like a wayward character on Mad Men: It is 1962 and she’s a woman who feels bridled by society. She doesn’t want to marry a nice man like all her friends did, and as they start producing offspring, she becomes more of an outcast in their social circle. Oblivious to racial tensions in town, Skeeter begins to befriend the black maids employed by her friends and finds out more about the teeming underbelly of her hometown. This could be just another book in the Civil Rights canon, but Stockett has made each and every one of these characters feel real. Really real. I could have happily read another 1,000 pages.
3. Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli: I already praised this amazing, genre-changing, post-modern graphic novel to the heavens in a previous review, so let me just ask: If you haven’t read it yet, what’s the deal?!
