nomadreader

Welcome to Day Five of My Best of 2015 Reading Round up!  As always, my Best of the Year lists cover what I read in 2015, which includes books published in any year. Today, I'm sharing my favorite nonfiction. Yesterday, I shared my favorite nonfiction . Wednesday I shared  my favorite mysteries . Tuesday I shared  my favorite comics . Monday I shared  Hawthorne's favorite board books . (Want to look at past year's lists. They're all linked  here .) 13. Outline  by Rachel Cusk ( my review ) Outline  is billed as a novel of ten conversations. It begins with Faye, a recently divorced writer with two sons, on a flight from London to Athens, Greece, where she will teach writing.  Outline  is a beautiful, thoughtful, engaging novel. I love the idea of it, and I loved the time I spent with it.  12. Hausfrau  by Jill Alexander Essbaum ( my review ) Anna Benz is a bored American housewife who has been living in the suburbs o...

The backstory: After loving both of Lauren Groff's other novels, Arcadia  and Fates and Furies , I finally made time to read her debut novel, which was a finalist for the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers . The basics: Willie Upton, a direct descendant of the founding family of Templeton, New York (based on Cooperstown, New York, where Groff grew up), returns home after having an affair with her married archaeology professor while on a digging trip. She's surprised to find her hippie mother, Vi, has become a conservative Christian. She's even more surprised to learn her mother has lied to her about her father's identity all her life, so she puts her academic research skills to the test to figure out his identity. My thoughts: I spent a magical summer in Cooperstown, New York in 2009 when I interned at the Baseball Hall of Fame's Research Library. The town remains one of my favorite places in the world, and while visiting for an all-intern reunion earlier thi...

The backstory: Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff's third novel, is on the 2015 National Book Award longlist. I l oved her last novel, Arcadia , so very much. The basics: Fates and Furies  is the story of a marriage and two lives. The first half is told from the point of view of the husband, Lotto. The second half is from his wife Mathilde's point of view. My thoughts: I had high expectations going into Fates and Furies . Arcadia  is both brilliant and moved me emotionally. And the buzz around Fates and Furies  is huge. It's the  book of fall. Plus, it was longlisted for the National Book Award (hooray!) This novel is a book in two parts. Because Groff chooses to split it into halves (Lotto's is a bit longer) rather than interweave the chapters, there's a fair amount of setting the stage the first half of the novel takes on. It builds up this fateful, epic love story, and in some ways, the second half tears it down. In that sense, the first half was slightly mo...

The basics: Arcadia is the story of a central New York commune. It begins in the 1960's, but it stretches into 2018. It's also the story of Bit, the narrator. He was the first child born to Arcadia. My thoughts: As I sat down to read Arcadia , I expected the story of an Ithaca, New York-inspired commune in the 1960's. I got that, but Groff delivered much more too. Although this novel is firmly grounded in realism, it exhibited many of the traits of a dystopian novel. There was a sense of world-building among the Arcadians. They shared the ideals, but they had to find ways to made ideals reality. I also didn't expect the novel to be narrated by Bit, who is five years old when it begins. I didn't particularly like Bit as a character, but I didn't dislike him either. His narration worked. I enjoyed seeing the world through Bit's eyes and mind. The open nature of Arcadia ensures there are not doors closed to him because of his age. While he does not understa...