Top six books of the year so far

The Smartest book in the World by Greg Proops

So I know that qualitatively this wasn’t the best book I’ve read so far. It’s not… like a stunning piece of prose, but it is hilarious. It’s funny, it’s informative, and he has the ability to interest me in things I really have no interest in, like baseball. I know it’s a sport, and that people hit things, that’s about it. There’s a lot of baseball in this book, and I loved it. Which I feel like is a sign of a good storyteller. This is by Greg Proops, the comic behind the podcast the Smartest Man in the World, he was. This book is basically his podcast in book form. It was great. Purely for sentimental reasons I think.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

It’s so good. It’s so good. This is the first book in Brandon Sanderson’s epic 10 (?) book fantasy series. It’s sort of… Advanced Fantasy, if that makes sense. I don’t think it’s a good place to start if you’ve never read Fantasy, you have to be able to let go of the fact that you won’t get anything, but oh my god. The world is so huge and complex, and layered. The characters are so fascinating, and amazing. I love them! I’m going to buy The Words of Radiance as soon as I can.

Americanah by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie

I thought this was incredible. It’s my first Adichie book, and I need to read more of hers. It was great. I thought Ifemelu was an incredible main character. She was complex and flawed and incredible. I loved how it looked at race in America. I obviously have no insight into that, but it was fascinating to read about. I find human interaction really fascinating, as long as I don’t have to do the interacting, but can creepily watch it from a distance (that sentence went to a weird place). I loved it. It’s so good.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre is incredible. Yeah, that summed that up. Jane Eyre is the fictional biography of a woman named Jane Eyre. She becomes a governess to a little girl named Adele, the ward of Edward Rochester, a rich, very decisive man who gets whatever he wants. He wants Jane and he wants her and they decide to marry, but Rochester has hidden his crazy wife in the attic so it’s a bit problematic. It’s beautiful and feminist and badass and Jane is awesome.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

This book was so uncomfortable. It was so hard to read and it was so painful and it was great. The Bluest Eye is my first Toni Morrison and it made me want to read more for sure. It’s about Pecola, who is 12 years old, and who is raped by her father. The book goes back in time to see how Pecola’s parents ended up the way they are, and where they came from. It was heart breaking and painful and amazing. And Toni Morrison’s writing is gorgeous.

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

I feel like I’m using all the superlatives, but it’s so great. It’s so great. It’s about a young woman named Holly Sykes, and it tells the story of her life through the perspectives of other people in her lives. And it also tells the story of these two races of people who are immortal and they’re in a war, and Holly is at the centre of it. It’s incredible.