Top 20 Books I Read in 2017

My friend Natalie asked me to create a top ten list of the books I read in 2017. Of course, I have more than ten. So to celebrate this plethora of riches, I present to you my favourite reads of 2017.

Historical Fiction

• His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme Macrae Burnet
• Outlander by Diane Gabaldon

Very different books. Both set in Scotland. There may be a few more Scottish titles on this list. I've been hypnotized by the Edinburgh Book Festival.

I had intended to add book covers and links to all of the books below. But then I'll never get this posted and it's already February. Here goes!

Young Adult

Rodent by Lisa J. Lawrence
Fifteen Lanes by S.J. Laidlaw

Both titles were nominated for the White Pine 2017 awards. Please keep in mind that I'm only listing books which I actually read in 2017. There are a couple of other White Pine 2017 titles that I loved, but I read them in 2016.

Education
Launch: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in Every Student by John Spencer

Enjoyed meeting up with my Tweeps old and new in the #LaunchBookChat this year!

International
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Goblin by Ever Dundas

Essays
Nasty Women by 404 Ink
One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul

Nasty Women led the revolution in the year of the great shake up of #MeToo #BlackLivesMatter and #OscarsSoWhite.

Scaachi Koul's acerbic essays hit the funny bone. Clever book jacket design, too.

Non-Fiction
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Mind blown
The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
Finely peeling away the layers of secrets
The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Valazquez by Laura Cumming
Winner of the 2017 James Tait Black Prize for NonFiction, a stunning tale of how art can consume us.

Picture Books
The Tale of Tam Linn by Lari Don
Scottish fairytale. A favourite of my niece's.
Journey by Aaron Becker
Only illustrations. Beautiful ones, at that. Great way for pre-literate or early literate children to tell stories.

Literary Fiction
What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell
Nominated for the 2017 James Tait Black Prize for Fiction
The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron
Made me mourn for the extinction of the neanderthal. I want a lip like Girl's. Nominated for the 2017 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

Mystery
All the Devils by Neil Broadfoot
Broadfoot's writing keeps getting better. Novel is set in Edinburgh. Scotland, yet again!
Glass Houses by Louise Penny
A perennial favourite - it's a good thing that Penny tends to publish a book a year!

Fantasy
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
This book was partly written in Edinburgh. And it shows.

Short Stories
The 2017 Short Story Advent Calendar by Hingston & Olsen Publishing
Forget about the chocolate - open a new short story every morning leading up to Christmas. Great being introduced to new writers and chatting with other readers about the tales on Twitter. #ssac2017

Poetry
I tend to read bit and bites of poetry, but what got me hooked on poetry this year like never before was the FutureLearn course, "Literature and Mental Health". Highly recommended.

Other Recommendations
This list from Kirsty Logan who read 220 books. Quite a diverse range of books that puts my list to shame. Enjoy!
http://www.kirstylogan.com/best-books-of-2017/

His Bloody Project

His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme Macrae Burnet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Coincidentally, after I finished this book, I listened to a CBC program about Indigenous issues in Canada. Both the book and the interview shared the following aspects:

-19th century racial theories;
-Colonial control over native peoples (in the book's case, the English over the Highlanders);
-and the power struggle between people who are kept under the heel of others.

The powerlessness of Roderick Macrae is what has stuck with me. As Bob Rae said in the interview: "People need the power to control their own lives" or else tragedy follows.

So despite my lack of an "a-ha moment" while reading the novel, I found I gained insight upon digestion.

FYI link to the Interview: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/outintheopen/...

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The Storm

The Storm by Neil Broadfoot
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fast-paced and sometimes gory crime story set in Edinburgh, Scotland - with a visit to the Isle of Skye. Part of the fun of this book is to see notable places mentioned and to hear a Scottish voice telling the tale. I thoroughly enjoyed being back in Scotland again.

The murder investigation is told from two points of view: one, a scalawag journalist; and two, a bright, ambitious police officer who doesn't fit into the mold. Even though Doug and Susie are kept apart in this book, their relationship is revealed and further complicated by the introduction of Rebecca to the series. To make matters worse in this triangle, Susie and Rebecca are friends. How could you, Doug?

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How the Light Gets In

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Louise Penny's best. A newcomer should read some of her previous Gamache novels in order to understand the backstory. I started with Bury Your Dead and managed. I love how both Bury Your Dead and How the Light Gets In celebrate Quebec winter. Louise Penny amazingly incorporates Quebec past and present into the plot of two intertwining, tension-filled crimes.
Amazing.



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Neuromancer

Neuromancer by William Gibson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"The globalization of technology, therefore, as Gibson dramatizes, will increasingly deprive humanity of its spiritual dimension..."

"In 'Gibson's world, human beings have nothing left but thrill' (191). The characters in the novel get thrilled through the nonphysical embodiment of cyberspace or intense sensual experience, but although thrill may replace reflection, Case and others find that it liberates them from the oppression of everyday concerns."

How do you envision the future? Does technology create a dystopian existence

or utopian world?

 

For further exploration of this dichotomy, consider taking this MOOC: https://www.coursera.org/course/edc)

William Gibson's imaginary future is not a sunny, happy place, but one in which humans continue to live and struggle. (To think more deeply about Neuromancer, I've been reading essays about it. Great to model this kind of reading for students, btw. Literary essays are supposed to help you discover more about a work of literature, not just help you finish your homework.)

Neuromancer is a book of ideas. The detachment of the characters from their own humanity may also place readers of the novel at arm's length. Many other reviews on Goodreads call for a re-reading of the book in order to get a fuller appreciation of what it is trying to say. The reason that I give this book five stars is that I will be thinking about it for a long time.

Neuromancer is an excellent resource to use with students to talk about how their world is changing: Do we shape technology, or does technology shape us? That is the question. Think Raymond Williams vs Marshall McLuhan. More recent texts include the graphic novel The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone, Stratosphere by Michael Fullan (the use of technology in education) and The Shallows by Nicholas Carr.

Quotes from:
Haney, William S., II. "William Gibson's Neuromancer: cyberpunk and the end of humanity/William Gibson'in Neuromancer Adli Eseri: siberpunk ve insanligin sonu." Interactions 18.1 (2009): 73+. Canada In Context. Web. 27 Sept. 2013.


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Death in Breslau

Death in Breslau: An Eberhard Mock Investigation by Marek Krajewski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Independent described this book “as noir as they get”. I also love some of the other reviews. They give you a sense of the muscle in the book:

“A dark and compelling novel, full of perverse sex and violence as the world begins to spin off its axis.”
-The Mail on Sunday

“The city of Breslau is as much a character in this thriller as the parade of gothic loons that inhabit it...This addictive soup has an air of burlesque about it.”
-The Daily Telegraph

“Krajewski relishes the period detail as takes us from bloody interrogation cells to Madam LeGoef’s sweaty bordello...What’s haunting about Krajewski’s book, however, is the worst was yet to come.”
-Independent on Sunday

There’s something about a corrupt police department still trying to uphold the law and do what’s right. They need devious means to cut through the criminality of others. It’s a power struggle between bad, evil and ultimate evil.

Set mostly in interwar Germany, bordering on Poland, in a city which would become Polish again after WWII, the Machiavellian protagonist, Eberhard Monk, tries to solve the chilling murders of a young girl, her nanny and a railway worker.

What I love about the book is that Mock, for all his dastardly methods, is still the good guy. After all, the ends do justify the means when you’re dealing with the Nazis. Ironically, he still longs to be a “[m]an pure, by crime untouched.”

Breslau is the perfect setting, with its own layers of multiple identities.

There are many dead cluttering the stage by the end of the book. Indeed, for all the blood and gore, it feels as if there are only two people surviving by the conclusion.

The writer sets out clever clues for the reader. We get to understand what is going on just before the characters do. Just, just.

I would have liked the translation to have been a little less melodramatic. It may be echoing the original book, but I haven’t seen the Polish edition.

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Death at La Fenice

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Four and a half stars.

Death at La Fenice is the first book of the long-standing crime series by Donna Leon. We are introduced to Commissario Guido Brunetti in his native Venice. A famous conductor is found dead in his dressing room during intermission, apparently poisoned by a dose of cyanide in his coffee. In the early stage of the investigation, Brunetti notes “how strangely similar his work was that of a doctor. They met over the dead, both asking ‘Why?’ But after they found the answer to that questions, their paths parted, the doctor going backward in time to find the physical cause, and he going forward to find the person responsible.”

I loved the novel’s sense of moral ambiguity, which is especially ironic since the victim saw justice as black and white. There is also the backdrop of European history: fascists, communists, and nasty Nazi rumours. But the present truth is much darker.

Of course, one of the stars of the book is Venice. Brunetti often mulls her great past and current decline into a provincial town. He wonders “how long it would take before the entire city became a sort of living museum, a place fit only for visiting and not for inhabiting.” Tourists are also fair game as Brunetti wryly observes them as “people who [seem] to find the pigeons more interesting than the basilica.”

What will keep me reading the series is Leon’s attention to Brunetti’s family life and work politics, and her insights on Italian life. I loved Brunetti’s affection for two lazy colleagues, his interaction with an art gossip and a lunch hosted by the dominating matron of one of the area’s best restaurants.


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The Accident

The Accident by Linwood Barclay
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Fresh off of reading a Louise Penny mystery, The Accident is a bit of a shock. Gone are the gentle characters who all want to help solve the crime. Instead, most of the characters can be considered the "bad guys". Short chapters help make this twisting story a quick read. Gaps in logic bothered me.

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The Beautiful Mystery

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A monk is found murdered in a secret garden of a secluded abbey. Throw in the history of Gregorian chants, memories of the Inquisition, an association with Thomas a Becket, a hidden treasure and a Native legend, and you have the ingredients for this story.

What I love most about Louise Penny's Inspector Gamanche novels is how she interweaves an aspect of fascinating history into the modern-day plot line. We learn about the mythological Gilbertine monks and the pursuit of God-seeking music, as well as drug addiction.

There's a gentleness to Louise Penny's crime stories. There's not a psychopathic thug lurking in every corner and shadow. In fact, in all of her Gamanche novels, the suspects help to solve the crime. Her stories are about ordinary people who are suddenly overcome with passion and kill, then slink back into everyday life.

Since this book is part of a series, there is also a continuing story-line from previous novels. I do want to find out how this wider story arc will play out. At this point, if a reader were interested in starting to read Louise Penny, I would recommend starting with an earlier book, such as Bury Your Dead, to fill in the back story.

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Wikipedia articles on Gregorian chants, and the Gilbertine order.

A Trick of the Light

A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Four and a half stars.

Featuring a murder in the art world, the story is complex and explores human frailties via the narrative of a murder mystery. Can people really change? How much should we hope? Should we always forgive?

The novel interweaves story-lines from earlier books in the series, but it does explain what has happened in previous episodes, so a reader will not be disadvantaged if he or she is starting with A Trick of the Light. These story-lines help flesh out the main characters of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. I'm hoping subsequent books will tell us more about Inspector Isabelle Lacoste.

My reading of this book never slowed down for a minute. A Trick of the Light is a well crafted work. My only complaint is that while everyone is suspect, a major clue is kept from the reader to prevent him or her from correctly guessing whodunit.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/a-trick-of-the-light-by-louise-penny/article600845/

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-09-04/entertainment/35274901_1_cozy-mystery-dead-woman-novels



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419

419: A Novel by Will Ferguson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Two and a half stars.

Winner of the 2012 Giller Prize, 419 impresses when it takes its readers into Nigeria and details the internet scams which have emerged from that country. “419” is the “section of the Nigerian Criminal Code “that deals with obtaining money or goods under false pretenses” (111).

However the author's non-fiction roots are showing. Ferguson favours giving a lot of background information about the 419 scam over story and character development. The book had the potential to be either a great crime thriller or a cultural exploration of Nigeria, but right now, it’s in no man’s land.

Even though the ending is suspenseful, it feels forced. Characters important to the final outcome aren’t fully introduced until halfway into the book. As I read the novel, I struggled to connect the seemingly random storylines. For example, the romantic interest Sergeant Brisebois has in Laura doesn’t seem to serve any literary purpose, except to reinforce the unexpected happy ending.

I also found some of the characters to be problematic. Laura and Warren represent stereotypical Westerners and I didn’t see enough growth in them to find them interesting. Amina wanders throughout Nigeria and the novel, but why? I suppose it is to flesh out Ferguson’s portrait of Nigeria, but I don’t understand how this character furthers the themes or the plot.

I did enjoy how the book described Nigeria and 419 does convey the complexity of the country. Exploring the moral murkiness of the scammers and the scammed had potential, but the novel does not go further than the politically correct response. The Nigerians justify robbing the rich because their wealth is “[b]lood money, all of it. Slaves and diamonds, gold and oil. Even chocolate. It is all stained...The crowns of British royalty glitter with blood, with rubies and emeralds wrenched out of Africa” (120-121). Even Laura, at the end, seems to do the “right thing” after harbouring a festering anger and inflicting her own retribution.

Since the book had won the Giller Prize, I had high expectations for 419. As I'm reading through the list of the other nominated books, I find that 419 doesn't match the depth of its competitors.

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The Impossible Dead

The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not a fast-moving thriller, but one that keeps you in suspense till the end. The characters are dead-on believable. I enjoyed that the mystery was rooted in Scottish history, lingo and police culture. As well, modern technology (in the form of "Ian Rankin's Edinburgh" iApp), enables this new crime fiction series to take on a new dimension.

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