Finally getting around to posting this . . .

Although I’m not a big fan of the ubiquitous New Years Resolution (though the tradition has just scored points for giving me the opportunity to use one of my favorite words, “ubiquitous”), I always enjoy year-end round-ups that let you look back on reflect on all the awesome (and heinous) things that have happened in the past twelve months.

Being me, naturally, these reflections usually have a lot to do with reading. So, in the spirit of the season, here is my top ten list of favorite fiction and non-fiction reads of 2007. Many of which, you will notice, have already made appearances on the FFLA in the past few months. If I’ve posted about the titles previously, I tried not to be overly-long-winded here.

Eligible for the top ten was any book I read for the first time January 1 through December 31, 2007–that is, they did not have to be new releases, just new to me. I was going to do top tens of each, but I didn’t have quite enough to split it (blame the dearth on grad school). So I shaved a few titles of and made it just ten.

And it’s “favorite” rather than “best” intentionally: I really think taste in literature is so extremely subjective, that it would be hubris on my part to assign “best” to anything here. Let’s just say, they rocked my world, and it’s just possible they’d rock yours too!

The following are arranged alphabetically by author.

Favorite Reads of 2007:

Fiction

1. War for the Oaks, Emma Bull. Minneapolis rock musician Eddi McCandry is dragged into an ancient faery conflict by an enigmatic phouka.
2. Inkheart, Cornelia Funke. A middle-grade novel about a girl and her father who discover they have a special, and dangerous, talent for words. Special note: I encourage you to check the book out before the film version hits the screen (though I’m excited about that, too).
3. Spending, by Mary Gordon. “Whose idea was it that there are a series of rooms and that the real room, the room of vision, is the one past love?”
4. The Towers of Trebizond, Rose Macaulay. A novel about British travelers in Eastern Europe, in the spirit of P.G. Wodehouse and Gerald Durrell. ” ‘Not important,’ said aunt Dot, dismissing the Trinity, her mind being set on the liberation of women . . .'”
   
5. Wicked Lovely, by Melisa Marr. I’ve read this book several times now, and the heroine just keeps getting better and better.

Nonfiction:

1. Pushed: The Painful Truth about Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care, by Jennifer Block. A health journalist’s take on the medical profession’s profound inability to understand how to support pregnant women and birthing mothers.
2. Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body, by Courtney E. Martin. A political and personal feminist manifesto on women’s relationship to their bodies–even if you think you’ve read everything there is to read on disordered eating, you should check this out.
3. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption, by Laura Miller. I’m geeky enough to have devoured this geeky tome on the culture and economic dynamics of the 20th century book business. (Just so you know I read stuff unrelated to feminism . . .)
4. Safe, Legal, Unavailable?: Abortion Politics in the United States, by Melody Rose. Everything you need to know about the politics of abortion law since Roe v. Wade.
5. The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary, by Simon Winchester. Who knew that the composition of a dictionary could make such an absorbing story?

. . . Or more precisely, books on the table, in my book bag, in the car, in my hands . . . they seem to multiply when I’m not looking at the most alarming rate. With graduate school looming, I have been industriously attempting to reduce the number of books on my “to read” list–an entirely futile and entirely pleasurable activity. Much to the despair of my family (who bear the brunt of my post-literary rantings), a disproportionate number of books in my reading list have been political in nature. In rapid succession over the last six weeks, my beside table has accommodated:

• Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body. In case anyone had doubts, Courtney M. Martin reminds us that the personal is profoundly political, as she describes the embodied lives of young women of my generation and connects the cultural obsession with women’s body management to the stalled feminist revolution. I picked up this book skeptical that anything new could be said about disordered eating, and came away humbled.
  
• Women aren’t the only ones hurt by the lack of gender equity, as evidenced in The Package Deal: Marriage, Work and Fatherhood in Men’s Lives, by sociologist Nicholas W. Townsend. While not explicitly political in his analysis, Townsend’s interviews with men about their family lives lead him to a firmly feminist conclusion that a revolution in the gendered nature of family life and parenting is urgently needed.
  
• After reading a glowing review of Melody Rose’s book on abortion law, Safe, Legal, and Unavailable?, in The American Prospect I knew I had to own a copy–and I wasn’t wrong. Accessible, comprehensive, and terrifying, Rose gives us a concise history of abortion law and politics and provides and invaluable tool for placing current news in a broader context.
  
• Al Gore‘s latest contribution to politics, An Assault on Reason, was a worthwhile read, even if it started to feel repetitive (at least to someone who doesn’t need to be convinced that the Bush administration is morally bankrupt). As evidenced by the subtitle, he has not learned how to turn his complex thoughts into media sound bites–and I love him for it!
  
• The dense but engrossing Reluctant Capitalists, by Laura Miller, tells the story of 20th century book selling and the tension between books-as-sacred-cultural-objects and books-as-product (distasteful word). I read it once, and plan to read it again with pencil in hand.
  
• Finally, I just closed the covers of One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, by Rebecca Mead, which confirmed me in my determination (if/when I get married) to resist as much as possible any concession to the wedding industry’s faux traditionalism (wedding rings, white dresses, lavish honeymoons, wedding photography). The contrarian in me basically wants to spend less than $0.00 on the event . . . which I guess is probably an extreme reaction. . .
  

Given this reading list, Mom was understandably relieved the other day when I came home from the library and announced that I had checked out a stack of mysteries (along with a book on human rights, the ethics of genetic manipulation, and a literary novel about children growing up on a hippie commune in the 1970s). So, this last week, I have found myself wholeheartedly enjoying the escapism of Tasha Alexander’s historical mysteries featuring the young widow Lady Emily Ashton: And Only to Deceive, and A Poisoned Season. Who could possibly resist an intrepid bluestocking who enjoys ancient Greek, 19th century potboilers, port, and solving the occasional murder? (Not me).