MY TEN FAVORITE BOOKS by Marj Charlier
Some fiction, some non-fiction, this hard-to-construct list only scratches the surface. As I struggled with this, I wanted to do a top 50 instead. Or maybe top 150. I’m sure you would too!
Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond: One of the books you’d remember for giving you that ah-ha moment, as in “now I get it.” An examination of geography as destiny that helps explain the origins of our global inequalities without excusing our complacency that lets them persist.
The Tangled Wing, Melvin Konner: Number Two on my list of ah-ha books. An examination of how evolution and our resultant biology has constrained human behavior. Written in the early 1980s, much of the science discussed in this book has been advanced, but no one (not even the far-less impressive Sapiens) has surpassed Konner for his compassion nor the breadth of his perspective.
Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt: Rounding out the top three ah-ha books of my life, Greenblatt uses the rediscovery in 1417 of Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things to illustrate how our modern world came to be. A history of art, literature, philosophy and science, it brings the Renaissance to life the way your high school history teacher never did.
Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín: A simple coming-of-age novel told in unsentimental, clear, beautiful prose about an immigrant torn between returning to life and loves in Ireland and honoring her commitment to her new life in America. Almost as good, maybe as good: Nick Hornby’s incredible screenplay that turned the novel into an award-winning movie.
Educated, Tara Westover: Perhaps one of the best examples of memoir writing of recent vintage, Tara’s story of child abuse at the hands of a religiously fanatical father and a vicious, malevolent brother is as shocking as her tale of self-rescue is hopeful and inspiring. Mesmerizing.
Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro: One of those books that was so much better than the movie, this novel is as close to perfect as a mortal can write. The protagonist has his eyes opened late in life when a cross-England road trip brings him face-to-face with the love he lost and the truths he dodged in service to an outdated ideal of a man-in-service.
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett: You’ll never think of the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) the same after reading this fictionalized account of a rebel group’s seizure of a South American embassy that sees both hostages and hostage-takers as victims. The love story between the opera singer and her Japanese admirer will bring you to tears.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez: I can’t do better than the book jacket: “the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo … Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad … brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul … a masterpiece in the art of fiction.” A family saga that’s exhausting to read and impossible to forget.
Show Down, Jorge Amado: The book that introduced me to Amado. Set in the colonialization of the Bahian backwater of Brazil’s cacao region, Amado brings to life the farmers, prostitutes, politicians, lawmen, and flim-flam artists of every race, religion, creed and ethnicity imaginable who mixed together in an American melting pot the likes of which the U.S. could only envy.
A Thousand Splendid Sons, Khaled Hosseini: Hosseini’s depiction of two women, separated by a generation but brought together by tragedy, is heart-wrenching. Set in violent, and religiously oppressive and misogynist Afghanistan, it feels simultaneously impossible to read and impossible to put down. I found it more affecting than The Kite Runner, his better known and earlier novel.
Not less, just more - I could easily have chosen these:
A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman: Just a lovely story of transformation late in life.
Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson: Heartbreaking story of American xenophobia.
Angels of Our Better Natures, Steven Pinker: Believe it or not, we used to be more violent.
The Secret Chord, Geraldine Brooks: A novel of David, whose “secret chord pleased the Lord.”
This House of Spirits, Isabel Allende: Introduced millions to Latin American magical realism.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk: For those of us who like misfits.
Mystic River, Dennis Lehane: A perfectly constructed novel that hits all the right buttons.
This House of Sky, Ivan Doig: Makes you want to move to Montana in 1945.
Buster Midnight’s Café, Sandra Dallas: A novel about Butte, MT; it made me want to write novels.
Children of the Alley, Naguib Mahfouz: Moses, Jesus and Mohammed as if they lived today.
