Books of the Year

The most influential book of the year for me was Super Sad True Love Story (below). I was really struck by the innovative and effective way the book was written, and the social commentary. The material isn't entirely new, but the style was. And it's hard to find something new these days.

However, I have to say that the books I tore through the fastest were the Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins. The story reminded me of Ender's Game meets 1984, so of course I enjoyed it, even if the writing was pretty basic. I almost couldn't believe that young people (the books were written for teens) would be so interested in such depressing material, but the insanely quick-moving plot would keep anyone turning pages I think. And she wasn't afraid to kill off characters, ohhhh no. I was impressed by her storytelling and the fact that she could keep kids engaged in a post-apocalyptic world devoid of ANY of the modern teenager's beloved technology. It made me want to try it.

What the two have in common is that they speculate on where American society may end up in the future, though Shteyngart's guess seems a lot more probable. Neither vision is very comforting. Anyway, I guess the future is kind of my thing, and presumably a lot of other people's thing considering that both were bestsellers this year. 

Next year I think I would really like to see some flowery, beautiful, romantic, whimsical literature in the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Haven't seen much of that in awhile.