Chang-Rae Lee's fifth novel On Such a Full Sea, is a significant departure from his other works which all had a firm footing in realism. On Such a Full Sea is set in a dystopian future in the United States, based in a city called B-Mor, and focuses on a young woman named Fan. I was very intrigued by the beginning of the novel, but it lost my interest toward the end. I have never been a fan of novels bordering on the sci-fi, as this one does. Nonetheless, Lee's writing is well-crafted, and the oddness of the story drew me in, plus he explores major themes such as individualism versus the common good. I would recommend starting with Lee's Native Speaker or Aloft, both of which I enjoyed immensely.
The best 10 books I read in 2013 were:
1. My Antonia - Willa Cather
2. The Grass Harp - Truman Capote
3. America and Americans - John Steinbeck
4. The Gift of Asher Lev - Chaim Potok
5. All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
6. World's Fair - E.L. Doctorow
7. How to Cook a Wolf - MFK Fisher
8. tiny beautiful things - Cheryl Strayed
9. Rock Springs - Richard Ford
10. Serena - Ron Rash
Honorable mentions: Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Ordinary Grace - William Kent Krueger, A Good Man is Hard to Find - Flannery O'Connor, Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry, The Collected Stories of Richard Yates, We Need New Names - NoViolet Bulawayo, A Lost Lady - Willa Cather, O Pioneers! - Willa Cather
Most looking forward to reading in 2014:
1. On Such a Full Sea - Chang-rae Lee
2. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena - Anthony Marra
3. These Were Hard Times - Tim Egan
4. Detroit - Charlie Leduff
5. The Other Side of the Tracks - Tony Cano
6. The Warmth of Other Suns - Isabel Wilkerson
7. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
8. The People in the Trees - Hanya Yanagihara
9. Young Man With a Horn - Dorothy Baker
10. Happiness, Like Water - Chinelo Okparanta
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt's third novel, is over 700 pages long. I never once looked at the page number I was on, or flipped forward to see how many pages were left in a particular chapter, and that is one of the highest complements I can give, especially to such a behemoth book. This is an engrossing, dizzying, rollicking, heartbreaking book. I felt like I was along for the (roller coaster) ride of Theo Decker's life, as he comes to reconcile his mother's death and his isolation in the world. This was a great novel!
Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, is a beautiful "coffee table" book that represents San Francisco in a variety of unique and compelling ways, and includes beautiful maps of the city. The maps tend to focus on two seemingly dichotomous ideas, such as "death and beauty" which pinpoints the 99 murders in San Francisco in 2008 juxtaposed with the location of the city's cypress trees. Another map, "poison/palate" highlights many of the "foodie" artisan gourmet food locations such as the Straus Family Creamery and the Alemany Farmers Market along with "poison sites" such as the Mount Diablo mercury mine and the Port of Oakland. Overall, this is a refreshing and intriguing representation of San Francisco, and highlights its infinite nature. The best part of book is by far the maps themselves. I didn't get that much from the narratives accompanying the maps (with some notable exceptions, such as the narrative that discusses the effect of the Great Migration on San Francisco) and the photos did nothing for me. Solnit has a new book out called Unfathomable City, her take on New Orleans. Solnit is fascinated by and seems to have a deep understanding of urban landscapes.
Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead encourages women to try to overcome both the external and internal barriers that prevent women from gaining power and taking advantage of (or better yet, envisioning and creating) leadership opportunities in the workplace. I thought the most interesting parts of the books were the recent statistics and studies that Sandberg highlights about men and women in the workplace, rather than Sandberg's personal journey from her college days to her now being the COO of Facebook. Having gone to an MBA program that focuses largely on women's leadership, and having read many books by feminists, I didn't find much of what Sandberg wrote to be new information, though it did confirm and mirror some of my own experiences in the workplace. The dean of the Mills College MBA program wrote a response article entiled, "Women can move up if men 'lean in'" in which she states, "Sandberg's strategy for change confounds me" because she felt that Sandberg, "continues to place the onus for change on women" as opposed to encouraging men to "lean in" as advocates and allies of women so that they can advance to leadership positions. I agree with Sands that it is equally, if not more important for men to read Sandberg's manifesto.
