Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Best Books of 2017! Part 1.

Well, not the "best of 2017" so much as "the best books I remember reading in 2017...

I went through a bit of a dark phase with Sherman Alexie's You Don't Have to Say You Love Me.  It was, actually, published in 2017.   I listened to it and read it and will many more times.  It is wrenching and beautiful.  We've all lost a difficult person at some point.  The grieving process is more complicated.  Not better or worse than those we simply love or hate, but more complicated.

Then there was/is David Sedaris' Theft by Finding.  This too was published in 2017.  It also deals, partly, with the loss of a difficult person.  Both Sedaris and Alexie write about losing their alcoholic mothers.  Alexie's had quit drinking.  Sedaris' hadn't.   Sedaris also deals pretty openly, as far as one can tell, with his addictions and foibles as a human.  I look forward to the next installment.  I bought it on CD and as a hardback.

Last night I read Miriam Elia and Ezra Elia's The Diary of Edward the Hamster 1990-1990.  Published in 2012This is a graphic novel and I laughed out loud.  Several times.  I might need to own this one.  It is brilliant.