Top 10 Books

Until November, it was a down year for me and books, both in the quality (you can't read Demon Copperhead every year!) and the quantity (Newsflash: Toddlers don't raise themselves). But things aligned in the last two months and I read 3 books that all made this list. But then again with 18 books read, odds say that any one book had a better chance of being on the list than off it.

Don't start a Top 10 list with a let down, they say. But they also tell me to be honest, so I'm corralling your great expectations (I still haven't read that).

Alas, here's my Top 10 in no particular order, (and my least favorite book of the year), so let's get to it.

James (Percival Everett) - The "Sure To Be A Classic" Book

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book you've all at least heard of. If you remember anything about it you'd say that it's a story about Huck and a runaway slave, Jim, as they flee down the Mississippi River. James is the story told from Jim's POV.

Genius. Heartfelt. Raw. It's not quite a "retelling" of Huck Finn, it's an illumination of James (Jim). And it's done in a way that upholds Huckleberry Finn as a classic, but also reminds us what was missing all along.

It's both serious (the horrors of slavery) and light (catch me if you can), and I'm just not quite sure how Percival Everett pulled it off so effortlessly. It's also a book about language, and how we use it to subvert and hide in plain sight.

This book can't hide though! It will be on "Best of" lists everywhere you look. After this read, Huckleberry Finn will always be associated with James, and that is a wonderful thing.

Wind, Sand, And Stars (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) - The Explorer's Book

The dawn of aviation; when you'd fly from Morocco to Marseille and not know if you'd make it. This book has two of the best travel/survival stories I have ever read. Antoine de Saint-Exupery (the author of The Little Prince), is a poet of the human experience. Along with some truly death defying tales in the air and adrift in the Sahara, he writes about comradeship, love, and life.

One line that stuck with me: "Life has taught us that love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."

And, "What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it."

And I've also spent countless days thinking that my last book should have been titled, Wheels, Sand, and Stars, but that's for me to deal with.

White Teeth (Zadie Smith) - The "I Was Supposed To Read Zadie Smith At Some Point" Book

This was on NY Times' best 100 books of the 21st century so it had some clout. It did not disappoint. We weave through the end of WWII, but spend the bulk of our time in the 70's and 80's in London following the sagas of two families intertwined in more ways than one. It's a story of immigrants, friendship, and the identities we create for ourselves in the worlds we embody, sometimes due to no choice of our own.

Depth, humor, and wit protrude on every page (and there are a lot of pages). It's insane to think that Zadie Smith wrote this when she was 24. She is a force.

Simplicity Parenting (Kim John Payne & Lisa Ross) - The "Every New Parent Should Read This" Book

There's no change in life bigger than the day before you become a parent and the day after you become one. One moment you're thinking about how much hydrogen has to be inside the sun for it to keep burning for this long, and the next, you have a living breathing human wholly dependent on you to make it through any single hour of the day.

Parenthood can be a lot. Literature about parenthood can be even crazier. And let's not start about social media.

Most of the time, trusting your gut is all you need. But if I had to recommend one book it's this one. It's not going to tell you how to sleep train, but it will tell you why the approach to better parenthood is less...everything.

In Memoriam (Alice Winn) - The War Is Hell, But Love Is Love Book

War and love are like the vodka soda mix of the story world, a timeless combination. But this is no ordinary tale.

Word War I. Two young men fall in love at a time when homosexuality "could not speak its name." Unexpressed angst. Cat and mouse. Heartbreaking. Delicate.

Reading this, and having not lived through a conflict of any sort (let alone being a teenager in the bleeding, muddy, edge of World War I) left me bewildered towards the whole enterprise of war. How senseless and cruel and indifferent it is.

And yet, humans love. And teenage love is that incandescent kind that has no bounds, willing to risk life and limb because you don't know any better.

This was such a beautiful read. No word was out of place.

The Ministry Of The Future (Kim Stanley Robinson) - The Science and Fiction Book

I don't know if I've read a science-fiction nonfiction novel before, but that's what this book was. Hard science in between chapters of prose allows you to get your broccoli while eating your cake. What I loved most about the story was the general plausibility of everything and how we were hearing from anonymous voices in the not so distant future in 106 short chapters. What would we actually do as nations/governments if there were world-wide climate disasters?

This wasn't a Roland Emmerich movie, this was a what would actually happen in a world where climate change is killing us by a thousand cuts, and how could we actually solve it scientifically, financially, and legislatively.

A Walk In The Park (Kevin Fedarko) - The "Trip You'd Never Want To Do" Book

The Emerald Mile is one of my all-time non-fiction books. If you have spent any time in the Grand Canyon or on the Colorado River, then you have to read Kevin Fedarko's retelling of Kenton Grua's blitz down the Colorado in a wooden canoe.

A Walk in The Park is sort of the sequel. Kevin and his friend embark on an even more ridiculous journey, traversing the Grand Canyon, along the Colorado River, on foot. Part history of the region, part illumination of the native populations in the area, and part, imbeciles doing something really, really hard.

Read this if you like a misadventure from the coziness of your couch.

We All Want Impossible Things (Catherine Newman) - The "Am I Supposed To Be Laughing?" Book

Edi and Ash are best friends. Edi is dying. Ash is there for/with her in those final days. Sounds hilarious, Bassam! I know, right? How do two friends navigate this patch of life? Well I've learned that if we can't laugh at it, then we're doing something wrong.

This book felt honest, sad, and yet, life affirming. It taught me what dying with grace is all about.

At the end of the day life is about creating memories with people we care about. At least, that's what's going to matter most at the end.

Glory Days (Simon Rich) - The "I Definitely Should Be Laughing Out Loud" Book

The essay is maybe the best form of writing. There's no time for throat clearing and meandering thoughts. You're thrown into the story because the story needs to get to the end rather quickly. When an essay is funny? That makes my day. And when there is a book of essays that are funny? That takes the cake.

I didn't realize how much I needed to laugh until I read this. Each tale is more genius than the other. Simon Rich's ability to make a story out of any subject matter (Mario, The Tooth Fairy, an ant and a dragonfly, the city of New York, David & Goliath) that talks directly to my generation is remarkable. He brings relatability through unrelatable characters. He's kind of like MacGyver. Just give him a topic and a protagonist and he is going to create the most wonderful solution.

And you'll laugh. A lot. I think we all need to find the smile at the end of this wild year.

The Message (Ta-Nehisi Coates) - The "Don't Look Away" Book (aka, The Definitely NOT Laughing Book)

Maybe you don't know, but I'm half Palestinian. Like, 10th generation Palestinian. And more specifically, Gazan. On my dad's side we can trace our ancestors back there to the 1750's. My dad and most of his family were in Palestine until they weren't, like a lot of others, having to flee in 1948. My dad being 5 at the time. My aunt is the current director of the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. So needless to say, what's happening there (what's been happening there) is diabolical.

I twist myself in knots figuring out what to say, depending on who my audience is and who I might offend. What do you think, Bassam? I'm tired of answering that question. For those detached from the area, who only get updates via whatever news source, trying to truly understand what people are going through is hard to come by. And let's be honest, most of the media doesn't want you to.

Thanks to Ta-Nehisi Coates, you can feel it viscerally. In his latest book he tackles various examples of colonialist overreach throughout history: Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine. For the latter, he spends his time in the West Bank, specifically wrestling with the reality of citizens and non-citizens, of separate and unequal, of Israeli settlers and the Palestinians who are powerless to do anything about it.

When you realize that the Israel doesn't only own the lives of the Palestinians but also the rain that falls on their heads, you can't help but be heartbroken at the notion of "noble colonialism."

A quote from the book: "What I have always wanted was to expand the frame of humanity, to shift the brackets of images and ideas. So that in thinking of my trip...my frame excluded any defense of the patently immoral. And I would sooner hear a defense of cannibalism than I would hear any brief for what I saw with my own eyes in Hebron [West Bank]."

If you read one book this year, read this one...Not for me, but for the voiceless battling the unfathomable.

The Other Books I Read

All Fours

Demon Of Unrest

Misbelief

Moneyland

Morning And Evening

North Woods (Least Favorite. What a slog!)

Polostan

There's Always This Year

See my lists from 2021, 2022, and 2023.