Mea culpa--and a correction

I got my authors mixed up and incorrectly noted that Michael Stevenson wrote Evicted. He did not. The correct author is Matthew Desmond. Apologies.

https://www.amazon.com/Evicted-Poverty-Profit-American-City/dp/0553447432/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483967963&sr=1-1&keywords=evicted

Reading for a winter's day

I don’t know what the weather’s like in your part of the country, but here in central North Carolina, it’s gloomy and bitterly cold. Up to a foot of snow was predicted; what we got instead was sleet and treacherously icy roads. Our governor, Roy Cooper, exhorted us to keep off the roads, and stay home. He could have added the welcome advice (and it would have been novel, too, coming from a politician) to stay home with a good book.

No complaints from me: I have a stack of TBR books—plus enough coffee to get me through the next day or so. For the next “weather event,” though, I’m planning to stock up on one or more books from “best of 2016” lists. In particular, I am happily highlighting several books recommended in “The Year in Reading,” the December 25 issue of The New York Times Book Review. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/19/books/review/25year-in-reading.html

Forty seven “avid  readers” contributed. They are a diverse lot: writers, politicians, scientists, historians, song writers, artists, actors, humorists. I’m hanging on to my print version of that issue for future reference. I was pleased to see some of my favorite books among those listed by writers I admire, such as Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See  (Mary Oliver). As important, I came away with a list to explore in 2017: Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (Ann Patchett, among others): Sara Baum’s Spill Simmer Falter Wither (Anne Tyler) and  M.J. Carter’s The Strangler Vine ( Michael Lewis), to name just a few.

I developed my own list of favorites for 2016 and included it in my Christmas cards this year (see below). I also invited friends to share books they read and liked in the past year. Here’s their response:

q  Barbara D: News of the World by Paulette Jiles; A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture by J. P Vance

q  Carol B: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nahisi Coates; Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by  Bryan Stevenson

q  Dan and Sue M: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture by J.P. Vance; Healing the Heart of Democracy by Parker J. Palmer

q  Dean F: Before the Fall by Noah Hawley; All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage; Hunters in the Dark by Lawrence Osborne

q  Katherine B: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel Brown

q  Marjorie W: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

q  Mary Ann F: Some Luck by Jane Smiley; Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick; My Weeds by Sara Stein

q  Nancy A: All the Living by C.E. Morgan

q  Pat T: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Michael Stevenson

q  Paula B: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Rachel B:  Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

q  Ruffin B: The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

q  Ruth G: Our Souls At Night by Kent Haruf

q  Shannon R: Dimestore by Lee Smith; Commonwealth by Ann Patchett; The Voice at the Back Door by Elizabeth Spencer

q  Steve S: Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep by Michael Schulman

And here’s  my 2016 Book List: A Baker’s Dozen

q  Victoria the Queen by Julia Baird

q  Moonglow by Michael Chabon

q  LaRose by Louise Erdrich

q  The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman

q  The Past by Tess Hadley

q  March (graphic trilogy) by John Lewis

q  H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

q  Nutshell by Ian McEwan

q  A Great Reckoning by Louise Penney

q  Pax by Sara Pennypacker

q  Dig by John Preston

q  SwingTime by Zadie Smith

q  Collected Stories of Peter Taylor