Throw my extended family together for the holidays and the inner nerd emerges.
Yes, there will be football on television. My parents have lived in Nebraska, the Cornhusker state, since they married in the late 1950s and my Dad is a retired sports copy editor.
But get away from the living room and youâll find clusters of us engrossed in âCities and Knights,â a game about gathering territory and resources. We might also be taking a quick trip to Hot Shops Art Center, a museum and store featuring dozens of Omaha artisans in a converted downtown mattress factory.
When we do, it takes less than 30 seconds for the conversation to turn to one of our common languages â books.
At Thanksgiving my sister and I were both reading âThe Dollhouse,â by Fiona Davis in a random coincidence. My nephewâs wife, Charlie, had polished off âAmerican Heiress,â by Jeffrey Toobin and âThe Crimson Petal and the White,â by Michel Faber. âAmerican Heiressâ is my favorite read of 2017. The book about the Patty Hearst kidnapping delves deep into the backgrounds of the Hearst family and Hearstâs captors to make sense of a crime that became part of my earliest memories. It was splashed across the evening news when I was 4-years-old.
âThe Crimson Petal and the Whiteâ is an illicit but not pornographic historical fiction novel about a Victorian-era prostitute in London. Get past the racy plot line and it gives life to a character that, Charlie pointed out, might have just been a mention in a Dickens novel. In doing so, it offers an important part of history about how limited options were for single women in that era. As a bonus, Charlie told me to skip Faberâs âThe Book of Strange New Thingsâ but recommended âThe Apple,â short stories that are a sequel to âCrimson Petal and the White.â
As fun as all of this was, on the airplane ride home back to Lewiston I realized I had gotten caught up in the moment and told a big, fat lie. I said that once I started a book, I rarely stopped until I finished.
With more reflection, I realized that 2017 was a year of as many false starts as finishes. Even more startling though, was that the books I left behind were really great. Usually they were abandoned because I couldnât finish them before they were due at the library. So this year, as a New Yearâs resolution, Iâm going to go back and get closure on these great works.
Here is my list in alphabetical order:
âAlexander Hamiltonâ by Ron Chernow. Chernow makes you understand the long odds America faced in its early days and the enormity of the patriotsâ sacrifices as you feel the cold, hunger and, at times, the desperation of Revolutionary War soldiers. And thatâs just in the first quarter of the book.
âAt Random: The Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf,â by Bennett Cerf and Christopher Cerf. I stole this book from my husbandâs shelf. Itâs the memoir of the founder of the publishing firm Random House. My husband ordered it after we found and watched old episodes of the game show âWhatâs My Line?â on Youtube, which decades later are still really compelling. Cerf had an eclectic personality and was a panelist on the show. As my husband was talking about this during Thanksgiving, we learned that my paternal grandparents liked the show so much they would interrupt their Sunday bridge game to watch.
âHomegoingâ by Yaa Gyasi. The story follows the lives of two half sisters born in Ghana in the 18th century. One stays in Africa and the other is sold into slavery. Like âAlexander Hamilton,â this explores a part of history that every American citizen should be aware of.
âLilaâ by Marilynne Robinson. This is the third in a series of books by Robinson set in the fictional town of Gilead. It holds up well on its own, exploring questions about faith, family and what it means to belong. An Idaho native who moved to Iowa, where my Dad was born, Robinsonâs life mirrors mine a little, in reverse.
âTalking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between),â by Lauren Graham. My daughter and I have watched the âGilmore Girlsâ from start to finish. She gave this book by the star of that show to me last Christmas. Itâs essential reading for any fan of the series.
âThe Secret History of Wonder Womanâ by Jill Lepore. I thought I knew the history of womenâs suffrage in the United States and then I made it mostly through this piece of nonfiction which, similar to âAmerican Heiress,â reads like a novel. Itâs worth your time even if you donât care about comic books. âââ Williams is the business editor at the Lewiston Tribune. She can be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.