The Best of 2016

In past years, I've carefully charted out a formula that neatly determined how many books had the "right" to be considered the best. Last year, I carefully categorized books and presented the best by topic. I don't, frankly, have time for such shenanigans this year. What follows, instead, is a list of those books I would highly advise any avid reader to add to their list for the coming year.

Non-Fiction:

The Last Resort: A Memoir of Mishchief and Mayhem on a Family Farm in Africa
Black market currency dealers? Check. Backpacker lodge turned local hotspot for pimps, prostitutes, illegal diamond dealers, and government ministers? Check. Pot, power cuts, and police run amok? Check, check, check. Only in Zimbabwe.

Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds
Or, perhaps better subtitled: what happens when half of a family is "interred" in America and the other half is conscripted to fight for the Japanese while living in Hiroshima. This is a fascinating, chilling, haunting read that will get you thinking about everything from loyalty and resiliency to how life is so seldom black-and-white, right-and-wrong. And certainly about the human lives impacted by government decree, and about how capricious it all is.

The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece
Of all the careers I never knew existed, art detective may top the list. Who knew? In any case, Charley Hill rescues art. He is Scotland Yard's art recovery man, and this is the man, and more to the point, the profession, that Edward Dolnick brings to life in Rescue Artist.

Fiction:

Gutenberg's Apprentice
Peter Schoeffer a scribe-on-the-make, recalled from Paris by his foster father in order to become part of a harebrained new scheme to print books. Schoeffer is to be nothing less than Johann Gutenberg's apprentice and the rest, as they say, is history. Reading the author's note and discovering how much of the book was true was the icing on the cake for me. Schoeffer and company not only really existed, but based on historical records, existed largely as author Alix Christie portrayed them. For a connoisseur of excelling historical fiction, there are few happier conclusions than learning that it really happened the way the author said.

West of Sunset
Zelda and Scott. What couple better embodies the Roaring Twenties? West of Sunset is set well beyond the roar, though, deep into the years of madness and drink. No longer golden children, Zelda is locked away in an Asheville asylum and Scott is desperate often destitute, torn between the past and the present, obsessed with his failures, and resolving to be better. Stewart O'Nan's Scott feels absolutely authentic.

Lucky Us
Amy Bloom has created an entire cast of memorable characters, each with their own personalities, quirks, and, perhaps most importantly, flaws. And she has done this using some of the most beautiful prose I have read in a long time. Most notably, Lucky Us contains two of the best quotes I encountered all year: "The wicked people of the world are not supposed to be calm and composed." Another character explains her aversion to religion concisely with this beauty: "she absolutely did not believe that a white man was going to come back from his own lynching to help out Clara Williams or take her hand or be her friend."

The Summer Before the War 
England, 1913. The inhabitants of quaint, little Rye feel the drumbeat of war and are prepared to do their part, and out do their neighbors, to defend their King and country. Helen Simonson tackles more heavy topics in a single book than many authors span in several: war crimes, racial discrimination, homosexuality (remember, this is 1913), unwed motherhood (I repeat, it's 1913), loyalty, patriotism, and women's rights come to mind in a hurry. Yet she does it deftly, softly, almost, so that this book is not a dark and gloomy slog, but a quiet day's journey into the English countryside.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
This is a book about books. It is a book for and about people who prefer the company of books to that of other humans. Anyone who has ever loved reading so much that they've turned down an invitation or marinated in the stew of so-many-books, so-little-time will be able to relate to the protagonists, Sara and Amy.

Happy New Year and, as always, Happy Reading!