The 1st Annual Books of the Year Awards

This has been a great year for books; and in the spirit of Amazon.com issuing their Best of 2009 already, I decided to get on the bandwagon and release mine. I have read some great books this year and I have read some not so great books. Here are the good, the bad and the 5 best books I have read this year.

The Clive Cussler Award (The "I Could Not Put it Down" Award):

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

This book was a masterful thriller that twisted, turned and finally had the reader spinning in complete circles. It keeps you from truly placing a label on it by being so many different books crammed into one thrilling package - a thriller, a serial killer mystery, industrial espionage and a straight up whodunnit. Terrific writing, and I have heard the second in the series is as good, if not better.

The David Simon Award (The "Smartest Book" Award):

The Things they Carried by Tim O'Brien

A masterful blend of fact and fiction that plays off the darkness of Vietnam while also taking a metaphysical view on storytelling itself. Not to mention the fact it makes you want to keep reading it incessantly...without any pause. A personal favorite portion - when O'Brien tells you about war stories; how they are never heroic and how a true war story makes you feel sick afterwards. Compelling, vivid and the rare book that truly deserves the handle: masterpiece.

The James Patterson Award (The "Worst Book I read this Year" Award):

Thug Life by Sanyika Shakur

To be honest I only read 100 pages but you can get a sense of a book in 100 pages. I loved Monster by Shakur, it was a book that changed my life. Unfortunately, lightening only struck once for this reformed gangbanger. Atrocious does not begin to describe this text. Not only was this the worst book I attempted to read this year, it definitely falls into my top ten worst books I have read in my life. It was that bad. Not recommended.

The Rick Reilly Award (The "Best Written Line of the Year" Award):

Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried pg. 68

"A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue."

Michael Paterniti - "Never Forget" the opening of a haunting article about the shattered remenants left behind by the brutal Khmer Rouge.

"Once upon a time - 1975, actually, in Cambodia - there was a regime so evil that it created an antisociety where torture was currency and music, books and love were abolished. This regime ruled for four years and murdered nearly 2 million of its citizens, a quarter of the population. The pervasion was so extreme, the acts so savage, that three decades later, the country still finds itself reeling. Now, as the surviving leaders of the regime go to trial and unimaginable past rises again, we're left with this question: What took us so long to remember?"

The Top 5ish Book of the Year

5. Travels by Michael Crichton - Given that Crichton died recently, I figured he deserved a place on the list with one of his lesser known books. This book challenges the way you look at the world and is written as well as any of his previous thrillers. An autobiographical look at the world and the things in it we do not understand.

5A. A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr - The fifth book in Kerr's series about former Nazi Bernie Gunther took the character to Argentina in 1950. As usual, he uncovers a trail of death and destruction he is powerless to stop. Powerfully written, haunting, hilarious, stunning and with twists that literally take your breath away, this is one of the best of the series and without a doubt one of the best written books of the year.

4. The Way of the Dog by Don Winslow - As I recently wrote, this examination of the growth of the Mexican drug cartels spirals into an epic saga wrought with the consequences of revenge. Expanding outward and yet intently focused inward, this book was quite simply incredible.

3. The Stand by Stephen King - Given our fears about H1N1 this book is very topical...except for that fact it was originally written in 1978 and revised/added to in 1990. King mentions swine flu and creates a horrific picture of a world devestated by a superflu and the battle of the survivors against an even worse evil. Thematic, allegorical and a triumph of modern literature, this is the best book King has written and, will likely ever write.

2. Generation Kill by Evan Wright - Firstly, any book in which I can draw parallels from HBO's The Wire is tops in my list. Secondly, this book forced me to completely reexamine my position on the Iraq conflict. I tried to ignore the books about the war that weighed down the history section but this book changed that for me. It takes the chaotic first few weeks of the conflict and shatters all you thought you knew about it. The author's final stand that we have abandoned a generation we sent off to do our dirty work is one of the most profound - and important - things I read this year.

1. American Tabloid by James Ellroy - For me, only one book could be number one this year. James Ellroy has created a book that is completely unlike any other out there. He strips language down to its brutal base and crafts a machine-gun style that spits out evocative prose that peppers the reader and says more with less. That is only the praise of his writing style. Plot wise, Ellroy takes the magnificently large canvass of American History in the Kennedy years...before he takes a sawed-off shotgun to it. His history turns on the dark undercurrents and goings on behind the scenes in the tumultuous times. His characters rise and fall along Shakespearean arcs that are indelibly complex and perfectly crafted. When each of the three main characters turns on the Kennedy Brothers, you know where Ellroy is headed...Novemember 22, 1963. This book also boasts one of my all-time favorite characters in print "Big" Pete Bondurant, a sadistic, ex-LAPD, mob killer who works tirelessly to create the invasion of Cuba - while also serving the CIA, Jimmy Hoffa and working as a Howard Hughes goon. Without a doubt this one of the best books I have ever read.

Book #14

The Ticket Out by Michael Sokolove is the incredible true story of the most talented collection of high school basbeball players in history: this team featured two future major league all-stars including Darryl Strawberry. This collection of young men were incredible players and from Crenshaw, of the worst parts of South Central LA. This book functions on many levels - it shows how powerful sports can be in overcoming socio-economic status (and the lures of gang life) but also details the perils of stardom which can lead to the downfall of young men who grew up with nothing; Strawberry serving as the prime example.

The team was so good they stormed through the regular season and playoffs, virtually unchallenged. However, in the league championship they met a previously unknown foe: John Elway - yes, that John Elway. Ultimately, Crenshaw lost that game and the players went their seperate ways. While many have been moderately successful, others have been completely destroyed. Strawberry's story is a tragic and cautionary tale but pales in comparison to that of his teammate, catcher Carl Jones. After succumbing to the street, Jones was sentenced to an automatic 25 years in prison for violating California's three strikes laws.

The book serves as an examination of the laws which are in place to punish those who can least defend themselves. Sokolove examines the "three strikes" rule and argues passionately against it, detailing how even the man for whom it was enacted knows the difference between "the life of his daughter and someone stealing an air conditioner for the third time".

The examination of this talented but troubled team is a haunting account which weaves through time, lives and the power of sports to provide a ticket out.

Book #13

The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow is an incredible complex novel detailing the rise of the Mexican drug cartels and their impact on life in Mexico and the United States. This is a page turner, but it is also a thought provoking book. Several themes dominate throughout including a meditation on the destructive seduction of revenge. In the novel, revenge is on the mind of each of the four, interwoven, main characters. They are, in no particular order, Art Keller (a DEA agent waging war with a Mexican cartel due to the torture and murder of his partner); Nora (a hooker who forms a complicated bond with a kingpin); Adan Barerra (the aforementioned drug kingpin who takes the drug trade in Mexico to amazing heights with his genius and brutality) and Callan (an Irish gun for hire who drifts through the carnage of the drug world).

Ultimately, the journeys of these characters is what makes this novel a deeply satisfying read. There is more of course, as we witness the drug trade from a unique standpoint - the winning side. These are criminals who are making hundreds of millions of dollars and have become so engrained in politics and society it is virtually impossible to root them out. "Good guys" or "heroes" is a lax term in this book and the characters are rich, vivid and perfectly drawn. This book is impossible to put down and stays with the reader long after the final page is turned.

Book # 12

The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin is a great, thrilling read. Some books are hard to put down - this book grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go. This book is taut, harrowing, powerful, thought-provoking and detail oriented. Levin has created a masterpiece of the genre and it shows through the ridiculously tense scenario he perfectly plots. One of the reasons the book works so effectively - in just nine precise chapters - is his plot is semi-plausible and a good mixture of fact and fiction. He begins with a cabal of former Nazi's in Brazil led by the infamous Josef Mengele - he has a plan and needs their help. Before long, an aging Nazi hunter is investigating a series of mysterious murders and trying to piece the puzzle of Mengele's plan together.

If there is a better example of how a thriller should be written I have yet to find it.

Levin's vision is brilliantly crafted and builds a plausible scenario that incorporates what Mengele was doing at Aushwitz and how deeply engrained the Nazi ideology was in South America at the war's conclusion and on into the seventies.

Evocative, haunting and literally impossible to put down.

Book #11

James Lee Burke has written more than a dozen mysteries featuring New Iberia detective Dave Robicheaux and each has been critically acclaimed and sold well. That said, The Tin Roof Blowdown is his best book.

How can one distinguish between a plethora of similar works by Burke, each featuring inevitable confrontations between Robicheaux and the darker elements of New Orleans? Easily as this book takes Hurricane Katrina as its backdrop. Not only is this a fantastic mystery about Robicheaux, but it also serves as what may be the best book for understanding Katrina and its impact on Louisiana. At the opening, the hurricane hits and in the pages that fly by afterwards we see the devestation and apocalyptic aftermath of the tragedy.

Into the void of this destruction comes (Burke's best known character) Dave Robicheaux, a former alcholic with inner demons constantly consuming him, and his journey post-Katrina is not a pretty one. Burke has always had the ability to draw the reader into his books and you do not simply read one of his books - you live it. Burke evokes all the smells, tastes, feelings and descriptions other writers dream about. You feel every haunting, searing, beautiful, near poetic sentence as you are drawn deeper into the dark and seamy underbelly of New Orleans.

This book, written shortly after the disaster has a much darker and more cynical tone than his previous works (which I would not have thought possible) and as usual the characters pop off the page into reality as truly as if they were sitting beside you. New Orleans culture and community was severly damaged in the storm and this book is an anguished swan song for a city that will never be the same. It is truly a book that only an author as talented as James Lee Burke could write and it says something about the skill of the writer when his 14th book featuring the recurring characters is without a doubt his best work to date.

Book #10

American Tabloid by James Ellroy represents a departure from the "master of noir"; instead of investigating dark and twisty crimes in LA, he dives headfirst into the web of conspiracy surrounding the Kennedy Presidency. Some books are hard to put down. Some books are page turners. When I bought this one, the guy behind the counter told me to get ready to lose a week. I didn't lose one week - I lost a week and half.

This book explodes and sprawls like the literary answer to an incendiary grenade. It consumes the reader in the underworld beneath American History as it examines the "truth" of complex times. Ellroy contends that America was never innocent and JFK was killed at the perfect time to ensure martyrdom - just before all his discretions came to light.

The three central characters are conflicted, deep and perfect. They rise and fall along a Shakespearean arc with such real life figures as (among others): Howard "Dracula" Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover, RFK, Santo Trafficante, Jack Ruby, and Jimmy Hoffa. These men, Pete Bondurant (a brutal, mob-connected, Cuba entwinned, pimp, former policeman); Kemper Boyd (an FBI agent turned CIA asset bent on Castro's assassination) and Ward Littell (a disgraced drunk turned mob lawyer), manipulate the years 1957 - 1963. We see them at their lowest and at their highest and the plot swirls them in new directions with a single, perfectly carved sentence. Ellroy's style is machine gun bursts of beauty and deplorable violence.

This book surges like a tidal wive toward the brutal axis the reader knows is coming: November 22, 1963. This may just be the best book for understanding not only the conspiracy surrounding Kennedy's death but also the mob men who played a role in his rise and (possibly in his) demise.

Better yet? There are two more books following American Tabloid which complete Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy. So when he leaves you twisting, off-balance and in complete awe on Novemeber 22, 1963, you can be assured that yes, there is more.

Book #9

Generation Kill by Evan Wright is a story about and beyond Iraq. It reads like the best novels and informs like the best history. The ideas in this book helped shift my opinion of the Iraq war and its ultimate consequences on the American populace. And I almost didn't read it.
In my humble opinion, books on the Iraq war tend to be out too quickly - it is hard to get real depth on an ongoing conflict. Once they began cluttering up the Military History and New Releases book shelves I began to make a beeline away from them. It seemed hard to read about something which we do not yet have a historical perspective on. This is an evolving engagement which requires continual adaption. Certainly the definitive account has yet to be written.
Some would argue of course the definitive account of World War Two has yet to be written
and we are closing in on seventy years gone.
That said, Generation Kill is an incredible achievement. If you want to read one or two books on the Iraq war to understand the ground conflict, make sure this is at the top of your pile. The author was embedded with the Marines who formed the "tip of the spear" on the initial engagement. They were trained for a completely different mission and used against type. Through his writing, Wright exposes incompetence among command and a general sense of what could they possibly have been thinking? However, his human portraits of the men in the unit and their commitment despite bad decisions is richly detailed and defined.
Ultimately, Wright argues, the American people have let down the current generation who are fighting in our wars - we sent them away and abandoned them when we turned against the war. Regardless of the reasons for war, we must accept responsibility for the mess we rode a wave of patriotism for. As Slim Charles stated in HBO's epic The Wire: "Whether or not we fight on a lie, we got to fight...We in it now."
Powerful stuff.