Best Reads 2013

Boy I have read a lot this year. Partly because of taking the bus to work two days a week (I drive on the others). Also because... I have come across some excellent books.

My reading year started with receiving a Kindle for a Christmas present. Having been reluctant to have one, I finally decided, though, that a Kindle might be a good thing. And I do believe that it has led to... more reading! I still read "real" books, borrowed from the local library, or from my brother Mark who reads as much if not more than me, or occasionally bought. And maybe one in three books I read on the kindle.

Kindle books:
I started by reading all three Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins. I raced through them, quite drawn into that world (another dystopia to add to my collection), wanting to know the outcome. The books are gripping, although I kept asking myself if I really should be reading about teenagers being made to kill each other. A bit dodgy... But now that Alex has read them, I am glad I did first. And we all enjoyed seeing the two films so far.

Another attraction of the kindle is that many older books are free. So I have filled in quite a few gaps in my reading of classics this year. These included Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Wolf - so clever how it segues from one scenario to another as though the reader leaps from one narrator's head into another's; The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - a fascinating journey with the suffering narrator, where you get to experience what electric shock therapy is like among other things; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”) - if you haven't read this, I highly recommend it, it is a fabulous story and so beautifully, amusingly written.

Also on Kindle I read Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant, which is a historical novel set in a convent in Italy in the 1500s, about a younger daughter who is sent to the convent against her will because of an "unsuitable" romance - living through that captivity with her is eye-opening. Quite an easy read but very evocative.

"Normal" books:
One great non-fiction book I read was The Child that Books Built by Francis Spufford. Since the author grew up reading many of the books that I did, it was such good fun being reminded of them all, but he also analyses them brilliantly to show how they shaped his growing understanding of the world. 

Another non-fiction book I adored was Congo Journey by Redmond O'Hanlon. This is a bit like Blood River in that it tracks a somewhat crazy white guy as he makes a sometimes dangerous, always fascinating journey on foot and by boat through the Congo. The author was interested in the wildlife of Congo in particular, giving brief but lovely descriptions of the birds and insects he found; his ultimate goal was to find the Congo dinosaur which was said to inhabit a remote, sacred lake. Whether he found it or not, I'll leave for you to find out... It is an amazing description of the country and the people he travelled with, giving occasional glimpses of the terrible history of the Congo. O'Hanlan entered fearlessly into the culture, drinking palm wine quite wildly with his guides at night, acquiring a fetish to keep himself safe, surviving on foufou, fish and monkey meat... Total immersion. It is a wonderful read.  

I also loved The Blue Afternoon by William Boyd, a murder mystery/love story/historical novel which describes 1930s colonial life in a new part of the world to me, the Philippines. The main character is loveable and annoying - but you so want to know how it all works out for him in the end. 

I raced through The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, set in 1930s Alaska - a very sweet poignant tale of an older couple who long for a child; it reads like a folk story and is based on one - it is a beautiful book.

My two favourite books were Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver, and Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth. Flight Behaviour combines my interest (is that the right word?) in global warming, with the fantastic writing of Barbara Kingsolver who is one of my top authors. It tells of how an invasion of monarch butterflies transforms life for the people of an Appalachian town. 

Sacred Hunger is a historical novel set in the 1700s in England, about the slave trade, and human nature. It is told from the point of view of a wealthy merchant who sends off a ship to buy slaves from West Africa and sell them in Jamaica, and also of a doctor who travels on the ship, who abhors the whole thing and ends up bringing about, although involuntarily, a mutiny on the ship. This book was mind-blowing in revealing to me how the slave trade was considered legal and defensible among the Georgians, and how their entire economy was wound up in it. Some people were beginning to see the vileness of it, and yet how to bring about change? It seemed impossible as all the powerful, influential people depended on it for their wealth and status. It has made me think about things in our society that we take for granted as being reasonable, and that we depend upon, and yet in future will be obviously abhorrent and utterly unacceptable. As Dan and I talked about it we thought that the way we are damaging the planet is probably the thing about which in the future (I hope at least) people will look back and say, "How could they have been so arrogant, so foolish, and so blind?" In a similar way, the people, governments, companies who could bring the necessary changes, have too much to lose. But at some point, the obviousness of the cause, - the truth, in fact-, will become so clear that the necessary sacrifices will have to be made. 

A good year in books! 

Small, step-wise changes

"How do you encourage people to keep their hope," Joan (Kingsolver's friend) asked, "but not their complacency?"She was involved that spring in producing a film about global climate change, and preoccupied with striking this balance. The truth is so horrific: we are marching ourselves to the maw of our own extinction. An audience that doesn't really get that will amble out of the theatre unmoved, go home and change nothing. But an audience that does get it may be so terrified they'll feel doomed already. They might walk out looking paler, but still do nothing. How is it possible to inspire an appropriately repentant attitude towards a planet that is really, really upset? ...

We cherish our fossil-fuel driven conveniences, such as the computer I am using to write these words. We can't exactly name-call this problem, or vote it away. The cure involves reaching down into ourselves and pulling out a new kind of person. The practical problem is, of course, how to do that. It's impossible to become a fuel purist, and it seems like failure to change our ways only halfway, or a pathetic ten per cent. So why even try? When the scope of the problem seems insuperable, isn't it reasonable just to call this one, give up, and get on with life as we know it?

... This is a now or never kind of project. But a project, none-the-less. Global-scale alteration from pollution didn't happen when human societies started using a little bit of fossil fuel. It happened after unrestrained growth, irresponsible management, and a cultural refusal to assign any moral value to excessive consumption. Those habits can be reformed. They have been reformed several times in the past. In the last century we've learned that some of our favourite things like DDT and the propellants in aerosol cans were rapidly unraveling the structure and substance of our biosphere. We gave them up, and reversed the threats. Now the reforms required are more systemic, and nobody seems to want to go first...

I share with almost every adult I know this crazy quilt of optimism and worries, feeling locked into certain habits but keen to change them in the right direction. And the tendency to feel like a jerk for falling short of absolute conversion I'm not sure why. If a friend had a coronary scare and started exercising three times a week, who would hound him about the other four days? These earnest efforts might just get us past the train-wreck of the daily news... searching out redemption where we can find it: recycling or car-pooling or growing a garden, or saving a species or something. Small, step-wise changes in personal habits aren't trivial. Ultimately they will, or won't, add up to having been the thing that mattered.

Barbara Kingsolver,  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, (London, Faber and Faber Ltd, 2007) pp 345-6.