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MetroWest Daily News, Framingham, MA
  • Holmes: The best book I read in 2011

  • Let me begin our fourth annual selection of book recommendations by saying something nice about bestsellers. Sure, a lot of books make the bestseller lists because they are the latest in a series with a well-established following. Some make it because they’ve been heavily promoted by Fox News or some other political ...
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  • Let me begin our fourth annual selection of book recommendations by saying something nice about bestsellers. Sure, a lot of books make the bestseller lists because they are the latest in a series with a well-established following. Some make it because they’ve been heavily promoted by Fox News or some other political party. Others make it because they are about a dog and promise a good cry at the end. But the best books become bestsellers because they deliver what readers want: Good stories, memorable characters, the irresistible urge to turn the page, the pang of regret when the end is in sight.
    This year I read several bestsellers that deserve all the money they’ve earned. One is “The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett, which was recommended by my colleague Julia Spitz in this spot a year ago. The story of how the struggle for civil rights came to the kitchens and bathrooms of the Junior League ladies of Jackson, Miss., is touching, funny, evocative and well worth your time.
    The second bestseller on my list — and third, and fourth — are Steig Larsson’s trilogy: “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.” There are good reasons why everyone has been reading these thrillers. Despite some irritating habits — why must he tell us the unpronounceable names of every street in Stockholm? — the late Larsson left us three books those who start them simply cannot put down.
    But this year’s bestsellers aren’t the only books worth picking up. Again this year, I’ve asked colleagues at the Daily News and on the Holmes & Co. blog to share the best books they’ve read this year. They don’t have to be newly published — and some are golden oldies — but the hope is they’ll give some inspiration to those of you with a bookstore gift card burning a hole in your pocket.
    “American Gods,”by Neil Gaiman
    I wish I had the gift that Neil Gaiman exhibits in “American Gods.” He nimbly spins a complex murder mystery (or three) through the novel that kept me frantically turning pages. He also can turn a wonderful phrase and often made me laugh out loud.
    But underneath the twists and turns of his mystery and clever wordplay, Gaiman strikes at something even more appealing. In “American Gods” Gaiman subtly scrutinizes the things Americans have held sacred, from the earliest settlers in this country to now. It’s an interesting commentary on the things we worship, the things we believe to be true, and the things we fear.
    - Ian B. Murphy
    “Steve Jobs,”by Walter Isaacson
    Steve Jobs founded the world’s richest company and he made a lot of money. Will he be remembered? Not for business acumen, the precedents say. Few remember much about Fiske, Gould and Mellon. Who were the Fruggers, Welsers, Hochstetters, titans of an earlier time? But as an artist, Jobs has a chance, to judge from Walter Isaacson’s 571-page biography “Steve Jobs.” Shakespeare, Bach, Leonardo, those names might last forever, of some fraction thereof. The whole world recognizes a Van Gogh, the shimmering colors and transcendent vision. Jobs’ vision virtually shaped the modern personal computer, as Isaacson details from the start of Jobs’ collaboration with Stephen Wozniak. Jobs insisted his computer be easy and fun to use and that it be beautifully and meticulously crafted down to the smallest details, even those inside the computer the buyer would never see. He demanded his word processor have artistic fonts and colorful graphics.
    Page 2 of 4 - He imagined a computer that invites the user to use it and he made that dream a fact.
    Along the way, Jobs bruised a lot of feelings, made a lot of enemies (and friends) and lived a life in the peaks and valleys. His is a tale of pain and gain, well worth a reader’s time and attention.
    - Les Orsini
    The Elegance of The Hedgehog,” by Murial Barbery
    Murial Barbery’s “The Elegance of The Hedgehog” might first seem a little high-fallutin, written by a French philosophy professor, allusions to literary works, fine music, films, and paintings. But these knowing references aren’t in place to rarefy the air. Instead, the novel has us see those works (and life itself) as being of and about nothing more (or less) than beautifully resonant human moments.
    An oddly alien privileged young girl, an aging seemingly invisible seemingly lesser woman: In the end the novel is a piece of music upon the subject of friendship, love, upon simply being and surviving (or not) as a human being, something of a miracle.
    - Tom Driscoll
    “Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War,’’ by Karl Marlantes
    Thirty-five years after the end of the nation’s longest war, first-time author Karl Marlantes published “Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War,’’ the most honest and gripping fictional account of that conflict that still divides Americans.
    A decorated Marine lieutenant, Marlantes spent several decades writing and re-writing his searing novel about a company of Marines struggling to capture a mountain of dubious military value occupied by a determined enemy. Except for James Webb in “Fields of Fire,’’ no novelist has depicted the hardships of ordinary “grunts”, the physical misery of hunger and exhaustion and simmering racial turmoil with such brutal accuracy. But more than any novelist, Marlantes has captured how constant combat and comrades’ deaths throughout such an ambiguous war damaged combatants’ psyches and scarred their souls. Simply put, Marlantes has written a timeless novel that demands a place along with classics like Stephen Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage’’ and Norman Mailer’s “The Naked and the Dead.’’
    “Matterhorn’’ is an American “Iliad’’ that will endure as long as Americans go to war.
    - Chris Bergeron
    “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William Shirer
    “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” was published in 1960 to enormous popular acclaim.
    In combination with “Berlin Diary,” Shirer’s semi-autobigraphical journal on the day-to-day genesis of
    Nazi tyranny, on second reading it still remains to my mind the most authoritative analysis of national moral collapse and the horrors
    of war ever written. Shirer, who was based in Berlin from 1933 to 1941, when he was finally kicked out of the country by the regime,
    Page 3 of 4 - spoke fluent German and knew all the players in his capacity as a radio correspondent for William R. Morrow and CBS.
    Based on first-hand observation and meticulous analysis of tons of captured Nazi war documents, virtually every sentence
    of this exhaustive analysis rings with authenticity and astonishing insight.
    — Peter Golden
    “Remembering Fenway Park,” by Harvey Frommer
    “Remembering Fenway Park” is written by Dartmouth professor Harvey Frommer. It’s a coffee table book with many good pictures. What’s different about it is that he interviewed a lot of people and lets them talk in the first person. Fenway turns 100 next year, so the timing is good. Why should people buy it? I’m quoted in it four times; Lenny Megliola is quoted too.
    - Art Davidson
    “The Hunger Games,” by Suzanne Collins
    Although post-apocalyptic books are not my favorite, I found myself joining the hoards of readers this year that could not put down Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games.”
    Written for young adults, this book is the first in a trilogy that follows protagonist Katniss Everdeen as she is thrown into a man-made arena and forced to fight to the death against 23 other boys and girls her age, all while the rest of the nation watches from the comfort of their homes.
    Collins brilliantly captures our obsession with reality TV, touching on how the “stars” of the show must entertain viewers to get ahead, and makes you as the reader ask, “What would I do in this situation?”
    Easily the best book I’ve read this year, “The Hunger Games” offers a truly original adventure that will keep you hooked until the last page.
    - Kelleigh Welch
    “Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America,” by Nomi Prins
    Published in 2004, “Other People’s Money” shows how deregulation — particularly the stripping away of effective New Deal regulatory safeguards — opened the way to perverse financial incentives and opaque accounting that helped fuel the economic debacle at the start of the new millennium, exemplified by (though by no means limited to) the rise and fall of Enron.
    Detailed and readable, “Other People’s Money” illuminates the abuses and folly that gave rise to the financial reckoning in the early 2000s, reminding us that most of the culprits got away with it. It also serves as an ample rebuttal to the claim that no one could have seen what unfolded in 2008, providing prescient warnings about what we were headed for.
    - Phil Maddocks
    “Deadline Artists; America’s Greatest Newspaper Columnists”
    I highly recommend “Deadline Artists; America’s Greatest Newspaper Columnists,” an anthology of classic newspaper writing of the past hundred years, written by the giants of the profession. This book restores to prominence the images of American history from professional writers who experienced those things first hand. In a time of increasingly fleeting internet communication and off-the-cuff thought, this collection reminds us of the value of the on the scene reporter, and the importance and durability of the well-crafted, well-considered and well-stated written word. Skip the Mike Barnicle pieces; they are the weak link in an otherwise extraordinary book.
    Page 4 of 4 - - Rob Meltzer
    “Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played,” by L. Jon Wertheim
    If you like tennis, you’ll love “Strokes of Genius.” The book, by L. Jon Wertheim, covers all the bases of the epic Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal 2008 Wimbledon final and then some. If you’re like me, and you believe it was the greatest match ever played, you’ll love reading about it point-by-point. But the book also takes a deep look into both players, their backgrounds, their teams and their personalities.
    Even seasoned tennis players could learn a thing or two from the book about the players and the game itself. The book came out just a year after the match but it doesn’t feel rushed. The level of depth it explores in both players’ games could be a little too deep and inside baseball (or tennis) for some, but for those interested in the game, it’s a must read.
    –Paul Crocetti
    “The Killer Angels,” by Michael Shaara
    As the U.S. began in 2011 the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, any American who seeks to understand the human cost of this national tragedy should read — or re-read — Michael Shaara’s “The Killer Angels’’ about the Battle of Gettysburg.
    Writing in straightforward prose that never resorts to hyperbole, Shaara infuses scenes along the march and around campfires with the Shakespearean humanity of ordinary Yankees and Rebels struggling to understand why they must kill other men so much like themselves or be killed.
    Without prior military service, Shaara dramatized the defense of Little Round Top and Pickett’s Charge with the astounding immediacy of a documentary film. Whether viewing the conflict through Gen. Robert E. Lee’s visionary eyes, Gen. James Longstreet’s hard-bitten realism or Col. Joshua Chamberlain’s bookish idealism, Shaara has given this bloody turning point in U.S. history the shape and force of a Greek tragedy that is essential to understanding the Civil War.
    - Chris Bergeron

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