Fiction
Selected Poems
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Reid Jenkins. One of the best books I read in 2017. Evelyn Hugo might have been modeled after the life and loves of Elizabeth Taylor, but fiction is even better than fact with this book. I loved it. Such a fun read with lots of twists and emotion.
The Shack by William P. Young. From Amazon: "Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later … Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend… What he finds there will change Mack's world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant "The Shack" wrestles with the timeless question, 'Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?'
In the Shadow of the Banyan
The Shadow of the Wind
Shantaram by by Gregory David Roberts. We had this on the list years ago, but a couple of you read it this year (including Drew, who I know liked it a lot). My dad listened to the audio version and said the reader was fantastic - an astonishing master of multiple accents. (You'd have to be going on a looooong summer car ride, as this is a looooong book!)
Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes. From Amazon: “1946. World War II has ended and all over the world, young women are beginning to fulfill the promises made to the men they wed in wartime. In Sydney, Australia, four women join 650 other war brides on an extraordinary voyage to England—aboard HMS Victoria, which still carries not just arms and aircraft but a thousand naval officers. Rules are strictly enforced, from the aircraft carrier’s captain down to the lowliest young deckhand. But the men and the brides will find their lives intertwined despite the Navy’s ironclad sanctions. And for Frances Mackenzie, the complicated young woman whose past comes back to haunt her far from home, the journey will change her life in ways she never could have predicted—forever.”
Shogun
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka. From New Yorker: “In this comic first novel, two estranged sisters living in England discover that their addled elderly father, a Ukrainian war refugee and expert on tractors, is planning to marry a young, enormous-breasted woman who sees his modest pension as her ticket to capitalist comfort. The sisters put aside their differences, and embark on a spirited campaign to save him from boil-in-the-bag dinners, slovenly housekeeping, and such extravagant purchases as a broken-down Rolls-Royce. In the midst of these machinations—which include long-winded letters to solicitors, venomous gossip, and all-out spying—Lewycka stealthily reveals how the depredations of the past century dictate what a family can bear.”
The Signature of all Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. (I gather Holton-Arms English teacher, Nick Gilbert, makes a guest appearance in his niece’s book!) "I anticipated hating this book because I hated Eat, Pray, Love (there, I said it). However, I adored this book. I loved the characters, I loved the sweep, I loved the details. It's a tour de force by Gilbert and completely worth every minute you will spend reading it." (One of my contributors panned it, so decide for yourself. As we know from Eat Pray Love, Gilbert is polarizing.)
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (pen name for J.K. Rowling.) “This one is a bit more gruesome than her previous Cormoran Strike novel, but the characters are likeable and well drawn. It's a good mystery that keeps you guessing.”....”Under the Galbraith pen name, J.K. Rowling has written two books about Cormoran Strike, the bastard son of a famous rock star. Strike served in the military, lost a leg, and became a private investigator. It's a moody, thoughtful, introspective book - but I'm so glad to have read it.”
Sisterhood Everlasting (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Book 6)
Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld. “Honestly I just read Sittenfeld because I feel like I should -- I did really enjoy Prep but haven't loved one of her books since. But for some reason I feel like I should read her, go figure. But this book was interesting if not totally engrossing and about twin sisters, their everyday lives and their complicated relationship with each other. It is flat, but still I did finish it which says something because I'm the first to ditch a book if I don't think it is worthy.”
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt. “I hesitated when this book started getting real buzz because I'm not prone to westerns but this was a delight. Kind of a funny word to use about a pair of killers so well known for their ruthlessness that just their names stops adversaries in their tracks. I was sorry to close the book on Eli Sister … “
Skeletons at the Feast: A Novel
Skinny Dip By Carl Hiasson (The same reader recommended Murder on Naked Beach. It appears this is the year for nudist beach reading.)
Skios
Skippy Diesby Paul Murray. “It's about a boy at a Dublin boarding school who dies in a donut eating contest - and the months leading up to his death.Some of the characters are pretty funny.” “I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying that Skippy Dies in the very first chapter during a doughnut eating contest with his boarding school room mate, Ruprecht Van Doren. Paul Murray then turns back the clock give us 600+ pages of the events leading up to that moment as well as the its aftermath. Murray clearly remembers what its like to be 14 years old. Skippy and his friends are obsessed with sex, bodily functions, sex, girls, quantum physics and more sex. Some of the funniest moments (and there are plenty of them) come from the boys' banter, flammable flatulence, and finding sex in the most unlikely places (Robert Frost's The Road Less Traveled will really never be the same again for me - but will forever make me smile!). But these kids are also naive, innocent, pretending to be tougher and more worldly than they are and the pain of trying to fit in, get a girl, and be cool all come through with humor and heartbreak. 14 is all about trying on adulthood without knowing your size and style and Murray nails it.”
The Smart One by Jennifer Close. "Jennifer Close is a DC-area fiction writer who teaches creative writing at GWU. I found her through her latest book, The Hopefuls, which I liked, so I read her other two books. This one is about two sisters and a brother, and their worrywart mother. I read this in an afternoon while at a family retreat. Enjoyed it a lot".