Laura Fraser

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2006-2010

My 2010 reading list

Starred books are ones I loved; ones with crosses I wouldn’t recommend.

Too Much Happiness*
Alice Munro

Invisible
Paul Auster

Timbuktu*
Paul Auster

A Gate at the Stairs
Lorrie Moore

I love Lorrie Moore, but felt this novel was uneven. At times it had her pitch-perfect dialogue and wonderful sensibility, but at other times the characters and situations felt almost stereotypical. Still, a less-than-perfect Lorrie Moore novel beats almost any other read.

Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken
Laura Schenone

Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout

The Zookeeper’s Daughter*
Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman did a wonderful job of writing a non-fiction account with a strong narrative, sticking to historical facts by deftly adding phrases like, “we can imagine,” that let the readers know what was based on historical record and what was assumed by circumstances. A lovely and humane story where the writer was perfectly suited to the historical material.

The Yacoubian Building*
Alaa Al Aswany

Engaging book about different classes in modern Egypt, all residing in the same building. Reads like updated Mahfouz, a compassionate, detailed, Dickensian look at the people who populate another world.

Cutting for Stone*
Abraham Verghese

I couldn’t put down this story about twin brothers in Ethiopia who both become doctors. It’s a good old-fashioned sweeping narrative, with fascinating medicine, and a political backdrop.

Wench*
Dolen Parkins-Valdez

This book uncovers a chilling historical moment: a resort in Ohio that catered to Southern men and their mistress/slaves, “wenches.” Written by one of the women, it’s an intimate portrait of slavery, full of heart, imagination, and horrifying detail. Another gem for Amistad editor Dawn Davis.

Generosity
Richard Powers

The “gene” in “generosity” is the topic of this fast-paced read, which makes us reflect on whether the structure of narrative is as important in determining a story as genes are to determining temperament. Richard Powers’ novel offers wiggle room in both cases. Has-been writer/adjunct creative writing teacher encounters an unreasonably happy young woman whose joy comes to the attention of a geneticist whose research leads him to announce the genotype for happiness, whereupon the hounded Miss Generosity loses a lot of her happiness. Writer ponders and decries narrative while writing a book with a taut plot, climax, and denoument. No one’s really happy in the end, or maybe everyone is.

Pictures at an Exhibition*
Sara Houghteling

Pictures at an Exhibition is a wonderful debut by a young woman who teaches high school English about the looting of art in Paris during World War II. Sara Houghteling has an amazing grasp of history, art, and the human heart.

Boys and Girls Like You and Me*
Aryn Kyle

Aryn Kyle’s stories are full of a lot of troubled young women in painful situations, which is probably why I liked it. Full of humor, loneliness, longing, mean girls, bad boyfriends, worse dads. Writing occasionally has that predictable MFA style, but I’m a fan.

Under the Volcano*
Malcolm Lowry

Drunk in Mexico. Stream of consciousness. Fabulous description. Drunk again.

Beatrice and Virgil*
Yann Martel

An ambitious allegory, a la Animal Farm, of the Holocaust. The main characters are stuffed animals in a taxidermy named Beatrice and Virgil, who are our guides through heaven and, increasingly toward the end of the book, hell. Metafictional, self-conscious storytelling with bits of memoir, Dante, and Beckettian dialogue, make it difficult to become completely absorbed, but the book is thoughtful, admirable, and well worth reading.

Life of Pi*
Yann Martel

A joy to read again.

Death with Interruptions*
Jose Saramago

Another one of Saramago’s books where he takes one aspect of reality and shows how people react to it–in this case, death takes a vacation for two weeks. I loved the first half of the book, liked less the part where Death falls in love with a cellist.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog*
Muriel Barbery

Loved the book, felt like the ending undermined the rest of the story.

Where the God of Love Hangs Out
Amy Bloom

Wonderfully emotional, spare writing, but hard to like the perverse characters.

More of  This World or Maybe Another*
Barb Johnson

Memorable characters in pre-Katrina New Orleans, completely satisfying.

Private Life
Jane Smiley

Sweeping novel with a depressing arc. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is evoked at one point, and Margaret’s life and journey seem almost as confined. But I wondered whether she was too smart a character to live with what she lived with for so long without taking any action on her own behalf.

The Desert*
JMG LeClezio

Nobel Prize-winning author’s  tale of two Algerian desert people, a boy many years ago, and a contemporary girl of his tribe, and their struggles to exist against the forces first of colonialism and then globalization. Lovely.

The Night of the Gun*
David Carr

NYT writer investigates his drug-addled past, raising meta-questions about the nature of truth and memoir. Great book as long as he stayed on the theme of overcoming addiction; once safely back in the world, it verges on name-dropping and narcissism. Interviewing the wife and current boss? Not the same as the interviews with the druggies of the past.

The Lovers
Vendela Vida

I admire Vendela’s spare prose and stark emotional landscapes. This book, though, left me a bit cold.

Little Bee*
Chris Cleave

Thoughtful look at clash of cultures and refugees from a brutal problem the UK doesn’t want to recognize. Hard to like one of the protagonists, especially when the other was so wonderful. Bang-up ending with too many easy coincidences.

A Visit from the Goon Squad*
Jennifer Egan

Mish-mash of  story relating to rock and roll and aging. Unlikeable characters, but very likeable book.

Anthropology of an American Girl*
Hilary Thayer Hamann

The Imperfectionists
Tom Rachman

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao*
Junot Diaz

Just Kids*
Patti Smith

Great read. And I’m a huge fan. But National Book Award?

Home*
Marilynne Robinson

Men and Dogs*
Katie Crouch

Full Catastrophe Living*
Jon Kabat-Zinn

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson

Freedom*
Jonathan Franzen

Let the Great World Spin*
Colum McCann

Nashville Chrome
Rick Bass

Lies My Mother Never Told Me*
Kaylie Jones

Dry*
Augusten Burroughs

Life
Keith Richards

Tedious, insider-baseball with a few juicy parts.

Garlic & Sapphires*
Ruth Reichl

All is Forgotten, Nothing Lost*
Lan Samantha Change

The Lacuna
Barbara Kingsolver

Wonderful first half, then it fell off a cliff.

The Company She Keeps
Mary McCarthy*

My 2009 Reading List

The Fig Eater
Jody Shields

Strawberry Fields*
Marina Lewycka

Ahab’s Wife*
Sena Jeter Naslund

The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Bridge of Sighs*
Richard Russo

How We Decide*
Jonah Lehrer

A Free Life*
Ha Jin

Goldengrove
Francine Prose

The Know-It-All*
AJ Jacobs

Jim the Boy*
Tony Earley

American Wife*
Curtis Sittenfeld

The Story of a Marriage
Andrew Sean Greer

The Mayfields
Annie Dillard

Brooklyn*
Colm Toibin

Obabakoak*
Bernard Atxago

Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard*
Isak Dinesen

The Accordianist’s Son*
Bernardo Atxago

Amsterdam: A Literary Traveler’s Companion
Manfred Wolf, ed.

We Used to Own the Bronx
Eve Pell

Writing Places*
William Zinsser

That Old Cape Magic
Richard Russo

The Angel’s Game
Carlos Luis Zafron

Await Your Reply*
Dan Chaon

I See You Everywhere
Julia Glass

The Help*
Kathryn Stockett

The Seamstress*
Frances de Pontes Peebles

Eat the Document
Dana Spiotta

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders*
Daniyal Mueenuddin

Juliet, Naked
Nick Hornby

Chronic City*
Jonathan Lethem

The Ramen King and I
Andy Raskin

Epitaph for a Peach*
David Mas Masumoto

Lit*
Mary Karr

My 2008 Reading List

Divisadero
Michael Ondaatje

Anil’s Ghost
Michael Ondaatje

The Unlikely Lavender Queen
Jeannie Ralston

Until I Find You
John Irving

The Spectator Bird*
Wallace Stegner

A Long Way Down
Nick Hornby

Imagining Argentina
Lawrence Thornton

Any Place I Hang My Hat
Susan Isaacs

The Double Bind
Chris Bohjalian

Summer*
Edith Wharton

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name*
Vendela Vida

Ten Days in the Hills
Jane Smiley

Summer
Edith Wharton

Emma*
Jane Austen

Eleven Minutes
Paolo Coehlo

Night Train to Lisbon*
Pascal Mercier

The Bright Forever
Lee Martin

Lush Life*
Richard Price

Away*
Amy Bloom

Girls in Trucks*
Katie Crouch

Summer Crossing
Truman Capote

All the Sad Young Literary Men
Keith Gesson

Foreign Affairs*
Alison Lurie

Unfinished Season*
Ward Just

Acts of God
Mary Morris

The Ministry of Special Cases*
Nathan Englander

America, America*
Ethan Canin

Truth & Beauty*
Ann Patchett

Do the Windows Open?
Julie Hecht

The Hunters*
Claire Messud

The Keep*
Jennifer Egan

The Birth of Venus
Sarah Dunant

Amsterdam*
Ian McEwan

Echo House*
Ward Just

The Year of Magical Thinking*
Joan Didion

Flights of Love
Bernhard Schlink

Dreams From My Father*
Barack Obama

The Hungry Tide*
Amitov Ghosh

Truth & Consequences
Alison Lurie

Taft
Ann Patchett

Feast of Love*
Charles Baxter

The Double*
Jose Saramago

Bonk:The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex*
Mary Roach

Easter Parade*
Richard Yates

My 2007 Reading List

Saturday*
Ian McEwan

On Mexican Time
Tony Cohan

Broken for You*
Stephanie Kallos

Social Intelligence
Daniel Goleman

Devil’s Highway*
Luis Alberto Ullea

The Tender Bar*
JR Moehdringer

The Wonder Spot
Melissa Bank

The Inheritance of Loss*
Kiran Desai

The Emperor’s Children*
Claire Messud

The Elephant Vanishes
Haruki Murakami

Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert

No Direction Home*
Marisa Silver

Oil on the Brain*
Lisa Margonelli

The History of Love*
Nicole Krauss

The View from Castle Rock
Alice Munro

I Feel Bad About My Neck
Nora Ephron

Lost City Radio*
Daniel Alarcón

The Diviners†
Rick Moody

You Don’t Love Me Yet†
Jonathan Lethem

The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell

Special Topics in Calamity Physics*
Marisha Pessl

What is the What*
Dave Eggers

Rise and Shine
Anna Quindlen

The Magician’s Assistant
Ann Patchett

Testimone Inconsapevole*
Gianrico Carofiglio

The Jane Austen Book Club†
Karen Joy Fowler

Year of Wonders
Geraldine Brooks

Five Skies
Ron Carlson

Ad Occhi Chiusi
Gianrico Carofiglio

The Lay of the Land*
Richard Ford

No One Belongs Here More than You*
Miranda July

Midwives*
Chris Bohjalian

Covergirl†
Maura Moynihan

Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell

The Descendants*
Kaui Hart Hemmings

Running with Scissors
Augusten Burroughs

Ordinary Love and Good Will
Jane Smiley

The Whole World Over
Julia Glass

Audrey Hepburn’s Neck
Alan Brown

Magical Thinking
Augusten Burroughs

The Lost Night*
Rachel Howard

The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls

The Law of Similars
Chris Bohjalian

A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini

Suite Francaise*
Irene Nemirovsky

Nice Work
David Lodge

Forgetfulness*
Ward Just

My 2006 Reading List

Interesting Women
Andrea Lee

The White Masai
Corinne Hofmann

Cold Comfort Farm*
Stella Gibbons

The Ha-ha*
Dave King

The Lives of the Muses
Francine Prose

Among the Missing*
Dan Chaon

Lunar Park*
Bret Easton Ellis

On Beauty*
Zadie Smith

A Sense of the World*
Jason Roberts

The Accidental
Ali Smith

Intelligence in Nature*
Jeremy Narby

Gilead*
Marilynne Robinson

Ex Libris*
Anne Fadiman

War by Candlelight*
Daniel Alarcón

Last Night*
James Salter

Out of Africa and
Shadows in the Grass
Isak Dineson

West with the Night*
Beryl Markham

The Snows of Kilimanjaro*
Ernest Hemingway

North of South
V.S. Naipaul

Prep
Curtis Settenfeld

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families*
Philip Gourevitch

Conspiracy of Murder: The Rwandan Genocide
Linda Melvern

The Sad Truth About Happiness†
Anne Giardini

Never Let Me Go*
Kazuo Ishiguro

The Unsettling
Peter Rock

Dusk and Other Stories*
James Salter

At the Jim Bridger*
Ron Carlson

The Brooklyn Follies
Paul Auster

The Return of Mavala Shikongo*
Peter Orner

Indecision*
Benjamin Kunkel

Everyman*
Philip Roth

Veronica*
Mary Gaitskill

Lightning Field*
Dana Spiotta

Devil’s Teeth
Susan Casey

Vietnam Now: A Reporter Returns
David Lamb

The Quiet American*
Graham Greene

The Things They Carried*
Tim O’Brien

How to be Good
Nick Hornby

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain*
Robert Olen Butler

Over the Moat*
James Sullivan

Happy Baby*
Stephen Elliott

The River King
Alice Hoffman

Garlic and Sapphires
Ruth Reichl

Dispatches*
Michael Herr

The Omnivore’s Dilemma*
Michael Pollan

A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Rebecca Solnit

King Leopold’s Ghost*
Adam Hochschild

The House on Dream Street*
Dana Sachs

Fire in the Lake*
Frances Fitzgerald

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