Top Shelf

Our critics pick their favorite books of 2006.

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Published: Dec 27, 2006

by Kiran DesaiAtlantic Monthly Press, 336 pp., $24

It's already won the Booker, snagged an unambiguously positive write-up in the New Yorker and won accolades from dozens of other reviewers, but this glittering gem of a novel deserves more attention — at least as much as a work of literary fiction set in the Indian Himalayas in the 1980s can hope to get in the U.S. Desai, daughter of famed novelist Anita Desai, spins a fascinating tale of a family living at the very literal edge of a political insurgency. You've got your postcolonial identity issues, your doomed love affair, your incisive socio-political commentary, your quirky yet psychologically believable characters. Really, there's no good reason not to read it.

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by George Pelecanos Little, Brown and Company, 384 pp., $24.99

 

In his latest, Pelec-anos gracefully tackles his usual themes: life, death and redemption, with a steady but still-angry hand. Here, the roiling anger that made Soul Circus an exhausting read seems to have been largely spent but he still taps into a very dark vein indeed. A good Pelecanos novel — and really, there's no such thing as a bad one — is not a formulaic whodunit or an intricately plotted whydunit. He's easily slotted into that often-schlocky crime fiction genre, but first and foremost, he's a novelist. He tells stories. Urban, dark, beautiful, angry and most frighteningly, very real stories.

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by Sam HarrisKnopf, 112 pp., $16.95

 

Shockingly, numerous surveys have shown that the overwhelming majority of adult Americans believe that they have an invisible friend. Incredibly, this invisible friend lives in the sky and has the ability to grant wishes (also known as "prayers"). Even more disturbing is that a recent survey by The University of Minnesota's department of sociology found people who do not believe that they have a sky-dwelling, wish-granting, invisible friend (these people are called "atheists") to be "the least trusted people in America" (beating out heavy competition from Muslims, illegal immigrants and gays). Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation lays out a clear, concise, bare-knuckles explanation of why grownups should not have invisible friends: whether or not this friend is called Odin, Zeus, or God. Pick up a copy and share the good news.

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by Martha SherrillPenguin Press, 336 pp., $24.95

 

A poignant coming-of-age story about a Latina girl growing up and growing aware in 1970s, this is one of those books that you want to read every paragraph and every chapter twice to soak up the utterly seductive writing. The main character, Inez Ruin — the title is a clever play on words — shuttles back and forth between her divorced parents, taking all of her dreams, humiliations, love affairs and adventures in stride. But perhaps the most affecting aspect of this absorbing novel is the bittersweet daddy/daughter bond that ebbs and flows over the decade. Sherrill deftly uses language and imagery to create her characters and their moods, but it is her astute observations of human nature and the way the characters behave and interact that makes this an absolutely heartbreaking and truly memorable read.

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by Edmund White Ecco, 368 pp., $25.95

 

Edmund White is no stranger to nonfiction. The gay studies scholar's pantheon of books, including A Boy's Own Story, relies on real life as the ultimate page-turner. He's written esteemed biographies on Proust and Genet. And he's used his own "coming out" as a way to evaluate the world at large, starting with his closeted Midwestern roots to his years spent living in Paris. What makes My Lives one of White's best books to date is that unlike so many rosy autobiographers, he doesn't spend time lamenting days past with contempt or idealism. Instead, he candidly documents his life using a free-flowing style; "My Shrinks," "My Women" and "My Hustlers" are all chapters in this straightforward memoir. As with White's mentor Michel Foucault, who made a career at intellectualizing "perversion," sex dominates this book. Perhaps most surprising is White's willingness to define what it means to be a gay, HIV-positive man in his 60s, and more to the point, his penchant for paying younger, nubile men for intimate favors — even today. It's not the sort of revelation you might expect from a Princeton professor. And that's exactly what makes the book so important.

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by Lawrence WrightKnopf, 480 pp., $27.95

 

Anyone who wants to get to the heart, and the hatred, of what led to what we often refer to as "the events of 9/11" needs to hunker down with this masterful, detailed account by New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright. Meticulously researched, Wright goes back to the modern roots of Islamic fanaticism and lifts the veil of secrecy on Osama bin Laden and his collaborators. By exploring the parallel realities of the growing Islamic malcontents — and the often-frustrated American intelligence officers clued to the approaching danger — tension builds with each turn of the page. Wright adds to the heart-stopping narrative with an amazing amount of detail and vivid, psychological portraits of both al-Qaida's key leaders and South Jersey native John O'Neill, the passionate, duplicitous and often tormented FBI agent who frantically tried to thwart bin Laden, only to die in the World Trade Center.

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by Ashley Kahn Norton, 352 pp., $29.95

 

Ah, those orange and black spines. Even on CDs they look cool all lined up — no small feat since format shrinkage rendered art direction largely moot. But Impulse! Records wisely chose a bold, two-color signature that stood out even before it was clear that the music inside would consistently do the same. Ashley Kahn traces the history of the label and how intertwined it became with John Coltrane, the artist most associated with it. In fact, Kahn structures the book in segments corresponding with the five label heads who ran Impulse! over its five-decade history, but as the name on the door changes, Trane remains the single constant. Kahn lets the story unfold largely in the voices of those who lived it, employing lengthy quotes that capture the narrators' voices. He includes analysis of the label's key albums and artists, but most of them came and went, recording for multiple labels; only Coltrane stayed. Trane's musical evolution not only steered the label's direction, but reflected his era politically, racially and spiritually; rarely can a corporate history be hung so squarely on one man's shoulders and incorporate so many elements.

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by Rajiv ChandrasekaranKnopf, 336 pp., $25.95

 

If the post-WWII Marshall Plan was the height of American foreign policy ingenuity and foresight, our current plans to rebuild Iraq represent its polar opposite. Chandrasekaran, Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post, meticulously recounts how the Coalition Provision Authority (CPA) has been riddled by hubris and thoroughly poor judgment. Through vivid stories and an appreciation for the absurd, he details how staffers were chosen to serve in Iraq more for, say, their opposition to Roe v. Wade than for any knowledge of the Middle East (one CPA deputy says ruefully, "I just don't think we sent the A-team"). A $4 million archaeology grant was awarded to a university, Chandrasekaran writes, "where students were sitting on the floor because they lacked desks and chairs." And Iraqi workers were obliged to dine at American cafeterias oversaturated with pork products. A sign Chandrasekaran notices at a British housing compound in the Green Zone sums up our postwar presence in Iraq, and indeed the entire misguided war: Yee-haw is not a foreign policy.

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by Robert FerrignoScribner, 416 pp., $24.95

 

It's the year 2040, and there's no need to worry about the war on terror anymore, because, well, we lost. Things aren't all bad in the Islamic States of America, though. We still have the Super Bowl, though it's played in Khomeini Stadium, and there are midday prayers instead of a halftime show. In Prayers for the Assassin, Robert Ferrigno gives us a nightmare there-but-for-the-grace-of-Homeland-Security-go -us scenario that would give even Tom Clancy the willies: Back in 2015, Israel hit NYC, D.C. and Mecca with simultaneous suitcase nuke blasts, and 25 years later, the fallout has left much of the U.S. under Islamic rule, save for a rebel Bible Belt nation. But was Israel to blame after all? That's up to former Muslim fedayeen Rakkim Epps and his historian girlfriend Sarah Dougan to discover — if they live long enough to sort it out. Ferrigno's vision of a near-future America is disturbing because it seems entirely plausible, and the result is the most inventive thriller of the year.

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by Charles SeifeViking, 304 pp., $24.95

 

The best science writers perform a kind of alchemy, making baffling theories and highly technical concepts both accessible and interesting. Charles Seife might be the best working today. While tackling the burgeoning field of information theory in Decoding the Universe, Seife provides impressively lucid explanations of confounding and frequently misunderstood concepts like entropy, relativity and quantum superposition. He jumps nimbly from physics to biology, cryptography to chemistry, biology to computer science, showing how information theory is changing these disciplines and shaping current research. Seife's talent is most obvious during his passage on Schrödinger's cat. In just a few pages, he makes sense of the notoriously confusing thought experiment, deftly using it to illustrate the ways information theory resolves several of the problems addressed throughout the book.

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by Max BrooksCrown, 352 pp., $24.95

 

Where will you be in the not-too-distant future when the zombie hordes march down Broad Street? This is the kind of wake-up call this country, and the entire world, needs to survive the coming apocalypse. Located on the horror-fiction shelf in the bookstore (no doubt so Crown can disavow legal responsibility when the shit hits the fan), WWZ is essential reading for anyone interested in remaining living rather than living dead. An overwhelming disbelief in the existence of zombies catches the world with its pants down, and like an avian flu with teeth the undead menace spreads to every corner of the globe. Brooks is tireless and ingenious in his reporting of the war. He travels the globe leaving no angle uncovered, and the stories recounted by the survivors of the conflict resonate with terror and feeling. If you have even the slightest suspicion that zombies may (one day) exist, read WWZ and stock up on blunt objects. Aim for the brain.

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by Alaa Al AswanyAUC Press, 262 pp., $22.50

 

Through a heat-soaked, overstuffed building in the bustle of downtown Cairo, Alaa Al Aswany slices through the hidden misdeeds of the collection of misfits and victims of Egypt's oft-conflicted society.

His novel, originally written and published in Arabic in 2002, ignited a maelstrom of controversy in his homeland for its taboo subject matter, which includes homosexuality, government corruption and religious fundamentalism. Whether his characters are the prey of a rigid culture or opportunists exploiting tradition, they are compelling and unforgettable. And to think — writing is Al Aswany's second profession. He's a dentist by trade. Shadowy hints at the presence of an omnipotent and corrupt dictator prompted anger from some in the Egyptian government. But The Yacoubian Building's immense popularity with the Egyptian people made it the best-selling Arabic novel in 2002 and 2003. This past summer, the book was released in a film version throughout Europe and the Middle East, and experienced the best opening for an Egyptian film in history — whether the government liked it or not. Insightful details of Cairene life and heartbreaking endings make for a great sophomore novel.

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