citygirl's 2010 Awards Show: The Fun Starts Now

Welcome to the 2010 citygirl Year-End Book Awards Show! (Actually, this is the pre-Awards Show.)

We’re doing things a bit differently this year, as you can probably tell from my attire. Like more traditional awards shows, I’ll be offering little excerpts from, and descriptions of, the nominees. I’ll let the Academy have time to review the submissions and then I’ll unveil the winners. There might even be musical numbers and (I hope) guest presenters, so if you want to participate let me know. Also, if you have any ideas on how to make the show more exciting…

To start, I’ll list all of the books I’ve read this year (so far) and the ones I am certain to finish by 12/31, late entries are always a possibility. That’s the next post, if I can figure out how to make RSS feeds helpful in this case.

Obviously, I don't even know what RSS does.

Historical Fiction

Katherine – Anya Seton
Outlander – Diana Gabaldon (out of contention: reread)

Contemporary Fiction

We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver
Mathilda Savitich – Victor Lodato
A Thousand Acres – Jane Smiley
Roxanna Slade – Reynolds Price
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café – Fannie Flagg
The Help – Kathryn Stockett
Goldengrove – Francine Prose
The Reluctant Fundamentalist – Mohsin Hamid
Bel Canto – Ann Patchett
Everyone Worth Knowing – Lauren Weisberger
The Next Queen of Heaven – Gregory Maguire
Trust - Cynthia Ozick (out of contention: reread)
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
The Penultimate Peril - Lemony Snicket (kinda defies classification)

Not Quite Contemporary Fiction, Not Quite Classic

Right Ho, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
The Code of the Woosters – P.G. Wodehouse
Boston Adventure – Jean Stafford
Maudie - Anonymous

Classics

Persuasion – Jane Austen
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Mystery/Crime

The Likeness – Tana French
In the Woods – Tana French
Faithful Place – Tana French
A Density of Souls – Christopher Rice
The Snow Garden – Christopher Rice
Cutting Room – Louise Welsh
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Played with Fire – Stieg Larsson
Die a Little – Megan Abbott*
Queenpin – Megan Abbott*
This Body of Death – Elizabeth George
Body Work – Sara Paretsky
Money Shot – Christa Faust*
Bedelia – Vera Caspary*
Rampart Street – David Fulmer
A Question of Blood – Ian Rankin
To the Power of Three – Laura Lippmann
Little Girl Lost – Richard Aleas*

Autobio/Memoir

Audition – Barbara Walters
Black Like Me – John Howard Griffin
Self-Made Man – Norah Vincent
Identical Strangers – Elyse Schein
Born Standing Up – Steve Martin
Happy Hour Is for Amateurs – Philadelphia Lawyer

Nonfiction

Zeitoun – Dave Eggers
Now, Discover Your Strengths – Marcus Buckingham
The Bookseller of Kabul – Asne Seierstad
Blink – Malcolm Gladwell
Gifted Grownups – Marylou Kelly Streznewski
Snoop – Sam Gosling
The Monster of Florence – Douglas Preston
How to Read Literature Like a Professor – Thomas C. Foster
Predictably Irrational – Dan Ariely
Where We Know: New Orleans as Home – David Rutledge
45 Master Characters - Victoria Lynn Schmidt

Fantasy

The Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett
A Hat Full of Sky – Terry Pratchett
The Magicians – Lev Grossman
Redwall – Brian Jacques
Dead in the Family – Charlaine Harris
Buffy, Season 8, Issue 1 - Joss Whedon

Of course, there's overlap.

*Pulp!

cg - looking forward with some degree of anticipation.

Oh, good. My machinations are beginning to work!

Yeah, me too. I've already rejected or at most given an "eh, okay" to several of your books. It will be interesting to see whether any of those come out on top.

Robert

Fun! Although sadly I only have read two of those, though several others are on the wishlist.

No, Robert, I did not love all of them, so we'll see....

Which two, jane? Where We Know is one.

New Award: The Snake Charmer

You know how it is. You're moseying along, minding your own business, reading a book a day, or seven books at a time or whatever, and then lo! You open a book that looks to be just a regular book and you look in, and next thing you know it's 2 a.m. or you've missed your stop. Could be that your spouse or child is huddled, cringing in the corner because you've just bellowed, LEAVE ME ALONE YOU TROGLODYTIC #@*&%^$*, CAN'T YOU SEE I'M READING!?!? You see no reason to put your book down even though you're in the middle of your own surprise birthday party...or dinner with clients...or grandma's funeral (Why should she mind? She's dead.).

It's just that good.

7 - Yes, Where We Know and Zeitoun, which I read last year.

OK citygirl, I've read all of three of them, so I'll have to trust you. Very curious about your Snake Charmer.

Fabulous dress hair and makeup! (but are you experiencing abdominal pain?)

I've read five on your list, one in my TBRs, several on my wishlist.

Musical Presentation

To entertain you while I gather my thoughts ;-)

And, no, detailmuse, no tummy pain, I just need to run backstage to get the costumer to fix a leetle problem.

I have nominees, but I have to get quotes, so I have to wait til I'm at home this weekend.

In the meantime...

I have a fondness for good acceptance speeches, so here's one.

Feel free to add anything. Please.

Oh, I have a definite winner in the contemporary fiction genre. fingers crossed :o)

#8 - My most recent one of those was Bricks And Mortar which I finished in a day, partly because, having picked it up to read at breakfast, I had to keep reading while I walked to work (fortunately it's a quiet route at that time in the morning).

And, finally, our first category:

THE SNAKE CHARMER



The Nominees are:

The Likeness by Tana French. A literary mystery with a bold premise. French created characters so weird, intelligent and intriguing, who are interacting in such a delicate and dangerous situation that the pull of the storyteller's vortex is strong indeed. Cassie, our protagonist, is an Irish detective who takes on the identity of a left-for-dead (actually-dead, but only the police know that) grad student in order to infiltrate the communal home of the girl and her four creepily close housemates. It's likely that one or more of them killed her …but who? And why?

Bedelia by Vera Caspary. The pulpiest of pulp fiction, this one hails from 1946, and lacks skillful prose, complex characters, or deft descriptions. However. And, this I imagine, is the genius of pulp fiction: I couldn't put it down, at all. Bedelia is a suspected black widow, who may or may not be planning to murder her current husband, who is bedazzled (bewitched?) by his adorable, child-like wife, who happens to be a housewife extraordinaire. It is set in 1913, which I think adds another dimension to the book's appeal. It brings into question the role of women at that time. This is a true snake charmer because I just canNOT figure out how it entranced me.

Die a Little by Megan Abbott. Pulp, noir, mysterious ladies with great clothes and SECRETS, no one is what she seems, family bonds of an uncertain nature, sex, and murder most dark. And our narrator, sweet schoolteacher Lora, just trying to protect her brother from the demons of his bride’s past? Well, maybe she’s the most mysterious of all.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I really didn’t expect this book to be so compelling. It’s the frank, bewildered, and love-soaked voices of the two characters and their use of the present tense to describe their extremely unusual circumstances, those of a love affair that takes place in the disparate past, present, and future, all at the same time. It’s much harder to explain it than to allow oneself to be engulfed by the story itself.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. This is but the first nomination for this modern horror tale, a tale that could happen in any of our homes as we set about partnering and creating our own little families. I couldn’t put this book down although I wanted to. I just knew it was going to become more terrifying with each page, disturbing my silly, romantic ideas about motherhood. I knew this book wouldn’t leave me alone even after I’d finished it, but I kept going, because I just had to know how bad it was going to get and how Eva was going to deal and where was Franklin and… It was so much worse than I had imagined.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett. This book could have relied on templates of characters and the ghosts of books past, but it didn’t. Each of the women, her circumstances, her words and actions, her stories...it was all so completely compelling. Every event carried weight beyond the personal into the political, into humanity itself, and womanhood. The characters were so vulnerable or proud or insidiously rigid or brave or all and any of the above. The things that happened seemed inevitable yet not predictable. This is some serious storytelling.

WORST VILLAIN



Dastardly, cruel, depraved, nefarious, treacherous, sadistic, narcissistic, powerful, blind, mercenary, obedient, bloodthirsty, cowardly, cunning, apathetic, mendacious, conniving, duplicitous, unjust, greedy, frenzied, insane, satanic, insidious, ruthless…well, we could play this game all day, couldn’t we? Simply put, these are the characters and entities that made my blood boil this year.

The Nominees are:

The U.S. Government’s Response to Hurricane Katrina, in Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. It is hard to pick a villain in this one. Michael Brown? W himself? Whoever decided that the best uses for federal resources in the days after Katrina were building a prison and trolling for imaginary waterlogged terrorists, instead of rescuing people and saving homes? Whoever de-prioritized the fortification of the levees? The worst thing about this villain is its slippery, amorphous, changeable nature. It’s hard to find a target.

Hilly Holbrook in The Help. This sadistic bully uses her considerable energy to stomp people when they’re down and then pick their pockets, uses the behemoth of Mississippi racism under cover of the Junior League to deny the humanity of the black people in her path, and ruins the name of anyone who stands up to her, friend or foe. Dealing with this woman would possibly have driven me to murder. She kinda got hers in the end, but anything short of…well, let’s just say it would be hard to find the appropriate moral justice for such a repugnant, soulless woman.

Kevin in We Need to Talk About Kevin. I won’t do spoilers, but if you’ve read this book you know what I mean. And I don’t give a damn how old he was or how ambivalent his mother. He was evil personified.

The Italian Justice System as portrayed in The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi. Before reading this book, allegedly true, I had the notion that the Italian justice system was similar to the US’ or France’s, etc. While it is in form, in practice that is a whole other story. The investigation of serial killings in Tuscany in the latter 20th century was conducted by provincial police officers who took rumors of satanic motives as evidence and ignored obvious suspects. Even worse, a rigid, thick-headed prosecutor took the wrong man to trial (and conviction), allowing clearly biased witnesses and kooks to testify while jailing the journalist who was trying to get the real story out. I think it was the jailing of the journalist that really got to me.

I love your categories and your descriptions. Already adding to the TBR and you haven't even announced all of the categories or any winners!

Thank you, Lisa! I'm working hard to get this stuff rolled out. It's a bit more involved than last year. Which ones have you added to TBR?

>12 citygirl: I love that artists of wildly different music genres have such respect for one another.

This is very fun and the Academy is putting forth some fine, persuasive descriptions. I finally own We Need to Talk About Kevin because of you and now I'm scared to read it!

I know, isn't that cool?

About WNTTAK, sorry :-S but it is scary. Just read The Shining beforehand (I've never had the courage to read The Shining). If you can handle that one, Kevin should be no problem.

New Award: Best Cover

Self-explanatory I believe.



Thoughts?

I like Money Shot. That bill is beautiful!

Ain't it though? I just love the cheekiness of it.

>20 citygirl: Well, I tried to post earlier but my computer went wonky. So, added to the TBR pile are The Monster of Florence and The Help. I have read about both of these in other posts, but your comments inspired me to put them on the list. I am always leery of books that are really popular, as is The Help, so I was sort of ignoring it until now.

I know what you mean re popular books, but I read enough opinions by readers I respect to go for The Help and I was pleasantly surprised. My mother turned me on to The Monster of Florence, which is a very imperfect book, but a story worth telling.

CG... well, err, none of those covers actually makes me want to read the book. Zeitoun almost, but the short cover with page behind peaking through kind of kills it. Money Shot...I don't know what to say to that one. I'll vote for "Die a Little" for the retro pulpy feel.

You made me want to do my own cover competition.

I'd go for the Anya Seton cover - is that Elizabeth Siddal or Jane Morris on the cover? Anything vaguely post impressionist tends to attract my vote.

Oh! Are covers supposed to make you want to read the books? I've never thought of it that way. I chose those because I thought they were original or striking.

I'd like to see your cover competition.

zeno, I have to check. Book is on a high shelf and Husband's not here right now.

Are covers supposed to make you want to read the book?

But of course! Booksellers know this and exploit it when they position certain titles covers forward rather than spines forward. I'll admit to having bought books based solely on their covers. A Novel Bookstore being one, which a shrewd bookseller had displayed cover out, catching my attention (and many others I imagine).

I've a tag even, devoted to cool covers.

#30 Guess I should put mine on my thread...thinking...

OK, here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/90167#2390405

Best Mystery

I’ve wondered for years what it is about mysteries that has me hooked. One obvious answer is that I am logical-minded and they work very well with formulae; but that answer is incorrect. I think it has something more to do with the discarded layers of the characters within. The narrator/detective/protagonist, the victim, the perpetrator, their families and work environments, the relationships between them, and, of course, those dark motives. I think it is the perspective that mystery stories offer, with the drama, the extremis of murder.


Cutting Room by Louise Welsh.
Rilke, a shady Glaswegian antiques dealer gets a proposition from an elderly woman: her brother has died, and if he can get the house cleaned up and inventoried in a too-short time period he can take the lot to auction (or something like that). He finds a decades-old photograph that seems to depict a pornographic murder. He could have ignored it, but something pushes him to find out if the woman in the photo had been killed. We go with Rilke into Glasgow’s grimy, slimy underbelly (with which he is quite familiar) to unravel this mystery. Welsh’s first novel, it is original, with distinctive prose. I am looking forward to the next.

Die a Little by Megan Abbott.
I discussed this little pulp gem earlier, so I’ll refer you to the Snake Charmer nominations.


The Girl Who Played with Fire/The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larsson.
Like everyone else, I’ve been sucked into the fever over The Millennium Trilogy. Lisbeth Salander is one of the most compelling protagonists I’ve come across in genre fiction. In fact, she won Best Protagonist last year. These books are a roller coaster ride that led places I couldn’t have predicted, with a strong thread decrying violence against women.

The Likeness by Tana French.
The second nomination (so far) for this twisty gem. I can’t underscore enough what a magic pen French has. She’s published three books in the last two years and I’ve loved them all.


The Snow Garden by Christopher Rice.
I loved this icy whodunnit set in a fictional New England college. Grounding his characters in part with organic dialogue, Rice explores themes of sexuality, identity, passion, power, and fanaticism with his deft pen. The frigid winter setting helps keep everyone on edge.

BEST ARTIST NEW TO ME

How am I going to choose between a witty feminist pulp writer, a comic genius of the last century, an indelible new Irish voice in literary mysteries, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a young author whose talent surpasses a famous parent’s and who could give lessons in Settings from the earliest books?
I dunno, but I suppose I’ll have to:







Can you guess the names from the pictures and descriptions?

Okay. That's Jane Smiley, I'm almost positive, in the bathtub, the Pulitzer winner. Which book of hers did you read in '10? A Thousand Acres is my wife's all time favorite serious novel. I've had my eyes on The Greenlanders for awhile now, after reading Vollmann's The Ice-Shirt, and wanting to learn more about Greenland.

No clue re. the rest. Old guy looks like A.C. Clarke, but I don't think that's him.

That's a bingo! and then, not! Yes, that is Jane Smiley, the Pulitzer Prize winner. No, that is not A.C. Clarke, or at least it better not be.

I lurved 1000 Acres. Even better than King Lear (sort of); I mean, just brilliant what Smiley did.

Now, I want to read The Greenlanders, it looks so yummy, especially to someone on a diet. (See "citygirl cracks the whip.") And that ice shirt book seems quite interesting, too. But why would anyone wear an ice shirt? Maybe I'm just ignorant, but that seems like kind of a dumb thing to do.

Well, it seems counter-intuitive to me as well, but then eskimos stay warm inside homes built out of only snow ... maybe an ice shirt is like a wetsuit, only it's a frozen wetsuit ...

The codger, I am pretty sure, is Pelham Grenville, known as Plum.

Yes! Yes! Yes! zeno, you get a cookie, but first you gotta pry it out of this chick's mouth.



(Freeque, you get one, too.)

For those not as intimately acquainted with Plum, ol' boy, he is better known as P.G. Wodehouse.

Two down, three to go. And I'm not posting another category until all 5 are done....

Oh, and EF, I guess one would don a frozen wetsuit when it's time to wade out into the snow waves.

Feminist pulp = Megan Abbott?

I loved The Greenlanders. Now interested in the Vollman. Have you read any others in the series? It sounds very intriguing.

wanderingstar, YOU get a puppy!



Yes, second photograph is indeed Megan Abbott, author of feminist pulp.

EF, I think that second question was for you.

That just leaves photos 1 & 3: an indelible new Irish voice in literary mysteries and a young author whose talent surpasses a famous parent’s and who could give lessons in Settings from the earliest books. Hint: the young author with a famous parent is from New Orleans (in large part anyway).

Tana French and Christopher Rice?

I just want the Awards Show to continue!!!

Well, katie, you're the big winner! May I offer you:



New Category tomorrow!

40> Yes, I've read The Rifles and Fathers and Crows. I started Argall but somehow lost track of it at the time and didn't finish it--my fault not the authors. Vollmann is way out there, full of attitude and digressions, but he's always interesting. I've never been disappointed by him yet.

Want. Those. Shoes.

This is great! I love the new format! But how can you put a picture of the divine Marquise de Merteuil as "worst villain"? She is the best villain!

Great books, too, as always. My favorite thing about The Time Travelers Wife was the setting - the author used, as locations, lots of real bars and theaters and even a real bookstore that I used to go to and love when I was in college (Bookman's Alley in Evanston).

But of course La Marquise is divine! She so didn't deserve what she got. I just thought she'd be recognizable as a villain.

I'm having not-so-kosher feelings about those shoes, too. katie, I hope you appreciate them. If not, I'm sure someone will be glad to take them off your hands ;-)

>43 citygirl: LOVE those shoes and happily accept. It was the hints that did it for me, so maybe I should only get one shoe?

Oh, no, dear girl, there's no reason to have you Miss Havisham-ing about. Judging from your profile pic, you're quite happily married.

Snazzy thread you got here, citygirl. Leaves me somewhat dizzy.

pdub, now you know I love to hear that ;-)



New Category

IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU

I was really excited to meet each of these books. They had several attractive qualities: good looks in some cases, or a friend had talked them up, one in particular had a reputation for being brilliant and gorgeous, or they were just “my type” to a tee. So we went out: we ate together, took long rides, talked about the things we had in common, and eventually I took each one of them to bed, where, sadly, they were a disappointment. But in the end, I had to say to each one: Sorry, despite the initial attraction and early good times, I’m just not that into you.


The Next Queen of Heaven by Gregory Maguire. I’ll re-post my review here. Why: Wicked is one of my top twenty favorite books ever, probably, and so I read Maguire every so often. Away from his usual territory Maguire is. No fairy tales or Oz. Just regular people, in regular ol' America, the tiny town of Thebes, NY, upstate, to be precise. I have really mixed feelings about this book. I found it quite funny, the characters, the dialogue, the scenarios Maguire set up. He is jointly satirizing religion and exploring themes of faith, which can be compelling. You know, but it's not. It's just not. He split the view between two characters: fiesty teen slut, Tabitha, and wimpy gay Catholic church music director, Jeremy. Tabitha has all the fun, and all the fun scenes, and nutty, unpredictable thoughts. Jeremy has a friend dying of AIDS, gets no respect, and endures regular emotional torture from the now-married-to-a-woman love of his life. What a drip. Well, I guess the reasons for the mixed feelings are apparent. I can't recommend this book, and I can't not recommend it. I mean, the guy gives great prose. If only he'd used it to send Jeremy flying over a cliff.


Rampart Street by David Fulmer. Boy, was this guy a disappointment. He had everything I wanted on paper: New Orleans 1910, enigmatic bad boy detective with a gorgeous name (Valentin St. Cyr), racial conflict, pretty writing (but just at times), and a really handsome cover. But: the sum failed to equal its parts. But I’m sure he’ll pick up lots of other unsuspecting readers, many of whom will be satisfied, so he’ll be okay.


Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. You have to have heard of it, you may have even’ve read it. Maybe you loved it. I wanted to like this book with the gorgeous prose and deftly-colored characters. I wanted it to change my life, as apparently it has done for so many others. I wanted to get it. But I didn’t. It felt like this book took me 700 long years to finish. But finish it I did, and so I can justly say: it’s not me, it’s you.


To the Power of Three by Laura Lippman. I picked up this book because Lippmann is married to David Simon, the brilliant mind behind The Wire, Homicide and Treme. If you care to find my review, I go a little bit into the irrationality of expecting one spouse’s talent to match the other’s, but that’s what I was hoping for: something original, provocative, soulful and realistic. What’d I get: paint by numbers. Oh, well. At least it didn’t take long.

>48 citygirl: - I need to re-read Great Expectations... And yes, happily married just over a year now :-)

>50 citygirl: - I'm sorry you didn't enjoy Bel Canto. I thought I would hate it but ended up loving it. That said, I now remember very little of it so I guess it didn't change my life, either. I read Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman and liked it enough to get a couple of her other books at a library sale. But they certainly don't rise to the level of The Wire.

HALL OF MIRRORS: Best Memoir (The Category Formerly Known As “I Feel Like We’re BFFs Now “)

This is going to be tough. I read several fascinating memoirs this year, but I’ve chosen to nominate only three. What these three have in common are: a fascinating story to tell; a distinctive voice; and the storyteller’s gift. There was very little extraneous given and at the end of each I felt a sense of satisfaction.


Audition by Barbara Walters. I am young enough not to have realized that Walters had an entire career before the occasional 20/20 and Oscar specials. I can’t recall why I chose this book, but I was almost instantly swept into Walter’s world, from her youngest years to the day completed the book. Her childhood was unusual and fascinating: her father a famous nightclub impresario who reversed the family’s fortunes on a regular basis, her mother a depressive who scorned her husband and a developmentally-disabled older sister. Well, that’s just the beginning. If I get started, it’ll take forever to finish. (There’s a review somewhere.) Barbara Walters may be a hugely famous face on camera, but she started as a writer, and she is a writer.


Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent Norah Vincent got an idea one day and began studying to be a man. She took voice, movement and make-up lessons and then took her experiment on the road. She successfully infiltrated all-male social groups, dated women, worked jobs and visited public restrooms, all as a man. Brave and insightful, Vincent then wrote this forthright, provocative book. She found it exhausting and liberating to navigate the world where all the rules changed overnight, things from whom she could make eye contact with to (I didn’t realize that a man takes eye contact from a male stranger as aggression.) to how much bragging she was expected to do. Vincent is a lesbian and a feminist, and she was taken aback by how much sympathy she felt for the roles men are expected to perform. It was difficult and dangerous game she played, one that landed her in the psychiatric ward for a bit. Couldn’t put it down.


Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. Griffin also took on a back-breaking challenge. Go from life as a comfortable white journalist and family man in Texas to that of an itinerant black man in the Deep South. In 1959. His lucid and thorough record is one of the most deeply affecting of my life. Unlike Vincent in Self-Made Man, he had undergone treatments so that he couldn’t take off his disguise. He had to end the experiment when it became too difficult to walk another mile in a black man’s shoes. He was concerned about the effect of such constant hatred, abuse and dehumanizing treatment would have on his psyche.

52 - Added both Self-Made Man and Black Like Me to the wishlist.

50 - Great award! Disappointing about Rampart Street. I don't read mysteries really at all but always feel compelled to pick up the ones about N.O. Looks like I'll skip this one though.