Book Valentines

 

2-14-2025

For the last two year’s I’ve written about Claudia Felske’s Literary Soulmate tradition in AP Literature and revealed my all-time heartthrob. For 2025 I’m looking over 12 months of reading and trying to decide who/what would receive that honor if those were the only books I read in my life.

Thanks to Goodreads, I can scan the covers rather quickly. Doing so brings home how eclectic my reading choice seem to be. While there is a fair amount of fluff or mind-candy, the covers that bring back the strongest impressions represent more serious work. That isn’t simply because they are serious, it is more a reflection of the beauty of the writing. These are the books I placed holds on for my mother as I no longer buy her the best books I’ve read. Here’s an overview.

Taking the top spot is author Viet Thanh Nguyen. Pulitzer Prize winning Nguyen and his family are Vietnamese refugees. The books I read this year reflect those experiences. Starting with his prize winning The Sympathizer about a North Vietnamese plant who flees to the United States with his military superior and which HBO turned into an eight-episode series. It isn’t an easy read and not just because of the content. While beautifully written, the lack of quotation marks requires extra focus to follow the dialogue. For this story, slowing down my reading helped my take the time to absorb the main character’s emotions as both a mole and a refugee. The quality of Nguyen’s writing extended to the other two books on my Read list.

The Sympathizer also kicked off a streak of Pulitzer winning novels, especially given Percival Everett’s James was a favorite this year and he has been recognized several times by the committee. While I find Everett thought provoking, Nguyen tells a better story.

There are several writers of fiction whose work I’ve systematically been making my way through and enjoyed. There are too many good books out there to continue with them if that were not the case. However, I’ll just briefly mention those I have only begun to delve into and who represent a variety of genres, okay mostly historical fiction. Jennifer Rosner’s The Yellow Bird Sings was beautiful and made me cry – Poland, 1941, Jewish mother and daughter in hiding. Lisa See’s Lady Tan’s Circle of Women was a fascinating look into Chinese 15^th century culture. Katie Hafner’s The Boys was the most unusual book I read this year. It requires the most attention to detail to understand and a bit of a puzzle, which was refreshing. Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island is literally a puzzle as it belongs to the mystery genre. It’s the second Lehane book I’ve read, the first being Mystic River. He is the king of the suspense genre.

Not quite the same take on literary soulmate, but perhaps this list will offer reading suggestions. Three of them and several I wanted to include but forced myself to cut are from our Adult Book Club. Providing my most persuasive argument for people join in the reading even if they can’t join the conversation.

Reading Now: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Listening to Now: Ink and Sigil by Kevin Hearne