Books I’ve Read in Norway Since Christmas

Just before Christmas, I posted the books I’d read in Norway up until then.  It turns out a lot of people really like book recommendations!  If you’re one of them, below are the books I’ve read since then, listed by how much I think you should read them.

Really Great

• Jesus’ Son, by Denis Johnson.
  This series of short stories about alcoholics and drug addicts are filled with life and realistic motivations.  Characters rise and fall, through luck, effort, and circumstance, getting ricocheted around a world not entirely within their control.  There aren’t many books about such a dark topic that will leave you feeling as hopeful as this one.
• What is the What, by Dave Eggers.
  Eggers turns his gift to good works; technically labelled a novel due to plausible-but-not-quite-remembered details and conversations, this is really a memoir of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, written in the first person.  Touching, empathetic, and brutal.
• Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations, by Ronen Bergman.
  Bergman does a nice job of not only getting people to tell him things they’re not supposed to, but also putting them in a useful context: when does assassination as a foreign policy tool help, and when does it make things worse?  Is it more important to win the day or win the decade, and how does leadership assassination fit into that?  His stories provide an interesting Israel-friendly viewpoint on recent Middle Eastern history, and lessons are easily extended to the US’s own drone program.
• I Was Told There’d Be Cake, Look Alive Out There, and How Did You Get This Number, by Sloane Crosley.
  I don’t know of any authors that I want to be friends with as much as Sloane Crosley.  These are really, really funny stories, and I read her three books in as many days, often laughing out loud.  I’ve listed them in decreasing order of how much I enjoyed them.
• The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath, by Leslie Jamison.
  Holy moly.  A remarkable memoir about alcoholism and recovery.  Part autobiography, part public policy report, part history of AA, and part literature review of alcoholic authors, Jamison has the skills to take the hard, boring work of recovery and turn it into great reading.  Strongly recommended.

Great

• We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman.
  What kind of people become Syrian refugees?  This book goes through the history of the Syrian revolution through first-person stories by Syrian citizens and refugees, as told to the author.  Heartbreaking and illuminating.
• John Adams, by David McCullogh.
  This book got some press a few years ago when it led to an HBO miniseries with Paul Giamatti.  I’ve liked others of McCullogh’s books, so this was an easy choice.  Well-written, balanced, and insightful.
• The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas.
  Technically “young adult,” this acclaimed book is good enough for anybody.  A great story for understanding the relationship between police and black America.  Anyone curious about understanding Black Lives Matter would learn a lot from this.
• Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee.
  An engrossing story about multiple generations of a 20th-century Korean family living in Japan, getting bounced around by fate like the pinball-like game of the book’s title.  Really beautifully written.
• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt.
  I think I’m the last person to read this true-crime book about a murder in Savannah, Georgia.  The characters and the city are wonderfully and entertainingly captured, making the plot almost beside the point.  I really enjoyed reading it, but wish he’d handled the story as lovingly as he did the people.
• There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Columbia, by Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno.
  Columbia’s three-sided war between the government, FARC, and the drug kingpins was heavily worsened by corruption and institutional decay.  This book is about three Columbians, an activist, a prosecutor, and a journalist, who fought for Columbia’s soul.  My reading of this kept on being interrupted, but the stories are pretty amazing and inspiring.

Worth Reading

• The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, compiled by Jesmyn Ward.
  The title references James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, and contains a series of essays about being black in America by young African-American authors.  Every one was thought provoking and worth reading, and the different writing styles and viewpoints kept my attention throughout the book.  Good, but maybe not great.
• Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela.
  Inspired by a visit to the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, this was the first of three biographies I read of Peace Prize Laureates.   I had known the broad strokes of Mandela’s life, but it was really interesting to fill in details and a timeline of such an important man.
• Until We Are Free: My Fight for Human Rights in Iran, by Shirin Ebadi.
  What happens to a Nobel Prize winner when they live under the regime they were recognized for fighting, too anti-establishment for acceptance, but too famous to arrest?  Ebadi’s story focuses on the costs to her family, career, and cause, ultimately ending in her self-defensive exile from her country.  A really good and interesting book.
• The Mediator: A Biography of Martti Ahtisaari, by Katri Merikallio and Tapani Ruokanen.
  I had never heard of this 2008 Peace Prize Laureate, but the book was recommended by the Nobel Peace Center.  Written with significant cooperation from Ahtisaari, the book covers his life as an international mediator, leading peace efforts in Namibia, Kosovo, and Indonesia, and dipping his toe in efforts elsewhere.  The book can be dry, but contains interesting lessons in diplomacy and leadership.
• One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway, by Åsne Seierstad.
  Just as the US has its 9/11, Norway has its 22/7.  On that date Anders Breivik, in an attempt to broadcast his belief that feminism and immigration were “cultural suicide,” killed eight in Oslo, then 69 teenaged members of the Worker’s Youth League (analogous to the Young Democrats).  This book covers his life and crime, in an interesting case study of far-right domestic terrorism.
• Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon, by Robert Kurson.
  When I grow up, I still want to be an astronaut.  This story about the rushed, risky, and courageous trip to be the first nation to orbit the moon was a lot of fun.
• A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, by James Comey.
  You know this one, and probably have an opinion already.  I found the moralizing a bit wandering, like it was missing a purpose, but enjoyed all the inside-baseball stories of his career in earlier administrations.
• On Grand Strategy, by John Lewis Gaddis.
  John Gaddis teaches strategy at the Naval War College and Yale, and has set out to write the On War of strategy.  His lessons are (self-admittedly) common sense, but illustrated well with historical examples.  I’m used to concise and clear scientific writing and so often have a tough time reading wordier political-science “I have some thoughts on the world, and so here’s 500 pages” type books, but I ended up enjoying this one.

Meh

• Macbeth, by Jo Nesbø.
  The Hogarth Shakespeare project invites modern authors to rewrite Shakespeare’s plots; Nesbø, a Norwegian best-selling thriller author, was given Macbeth.  I don’t think he made anyone happy with this one — I found the language in the translation simple, while online reviews are full of Nesbø fans upset at the veer away from his usual stories.
• Cloudbursts: Collected and New Stories, by Thomas McGuane.
  I didn’t love these, though I did finish the book.  He’s really good at making you care about his characters, but as soon as you do, the story just ends.  I felt like I wasn’t smart enough to understand what I was supposed to be getting from these stories.
• Eat the Apple, by Matt Young.
  A memoir by a Marine grunt who served in Iraq.  It was fine.  No, Navy readers, it wasn’t written in crayon.
• The Dinner Party: Stories, by Joshua Ferris.
  A collection of well-written short stories about men behaving badly.  The author has a great voice, but one that gets repetitive after a few.
• Calypso, by David Sedaris.
  I picked this up because I needed a break from significant reading after finishing The Recovering.  It was a good palate cleanser, and I laughed a couple times.