Working to Make a Dream Come True.

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Late last week, historians of all kinds converged on New York City for the annual meeting of the American Historical Association. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to AHA. There are a variety of reasons for that, none of which have to do with a lack of interest in what my colleagues are doing. Social media now provides pretty complete, near simultaneous coverage of many of the sessions, so I followed along with some that interested me.

There was a lot going on at AHA in terms of public history and digital history and how to be a public intellectual in the 21st century. At least two sessions focused on publishing, the area of public engagement I have been struggling with my entire career. History always appealed to me for its great stories. I have always liked to write. So I figured I could find a way to make the two work together.

Despite a 4-4 teaching load and limited leave opportunities, I have published two books, each with a different university press. You can see them on this website. I love both of those books. Few people have read them.

This AHA session on writing trade history is very illuminating:

https://storify.com/ColdWarScience/writing-trade-history

Tomorrow I will write more about that leap from university press publishing to trade publishing.

Other Books I Enjoyed in 2014

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Even with the number of novels I read every year, only a handful really knock my socks off, which earns them a place on my Top Ten list. But every year I read a lot of books that I end up liking a lot. So, here they are, divided into historical and contemporary categories:

Historical

Quiet Dell by Jayne Phillips

Let Him Go by Larry Watson

Longbourn by Jo Baker

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

The Wind of Not a River by Brian Payton

Euphoria by Lily King

Rose Gold by Walter Mosley

Crimson Angel by Barbara Hambly

Contemporary

Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George

Bark: Stories by Lorrie Moore

Through the Evil Days by Julia Fleming-Spencer

Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin

An Untamed State by Roxane Gay

The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

The Arsonist by Sue Miller

The Dog Year by Ann Garvin

A Dangerous Fiction by Barbara Rogan

The Silkworm by Richard Galbraith

Almost Done With My Top Ten: The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit

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Los Alamos

During World War II, the United States launched the Manhattan Project, which culminated in the development of the atomic bomb. In this surprising novel,TaraShea Nesbit focuses on the women who were caught up in this because of the men they happened to be married to. It is a marvelous slice of wartime life. What particularly struck me about Nesbit’s book, in addition to the little-known subject matter and her deft use of historical detail, is the fact she chose to tell the story in the first person plural. The humming hive of “we” works brilliantly, allowing Nesbit to highlight both the collective and the individual. Mesmerizing.

The Elegance of Marilynne Robinson’s Lila

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lila

Lila is every bit as stunning as Gilead and Home, all part of a trilogy examining religious faith and theology in small town America. (Each book can be read as a stand-alone.) It reminds me of Orfeo–both novels illuminate their subject matter through elegant, precise language with a keen sense of what matters to their characters.

Lila, as many readers will know from the previous books, is the young woman who appears in Gilead, Iowa, circulating at its margins, until she connects with a local minister, John Ames. John has been a widower for decades but he falls for the quiet, mysterious Lila, and the two marry. This is Lila’s story–where she came from, how she survived until she reached Gilead, and what she plans to do when she outlives her husband. Its beauty is quiet and powerful. Robinson is a master.

What I Didn’t Like in 2014: Books that Failed to Appeal

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Favorite lists are highly subjective, I know. I end up liking most of what I read in a given year, probably because by now I’m very familiar with my own tastes and I read a lot of book reviews. Yet it still happens that I sit down with a book I fully expect to like, and when I put it down I think something along the lines of WTF.

So, these are those for 2014:

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I have to admit I’m also probably one of a very few who didn’t like her first highly-praised novel, The Secret History. But enough time had passed and the reviews for this one were so glowing that I decided to give it a try. I liked about the first third of the novel, then simply stopped caring about the main character.

Frog Music by Emma Donoghue. I loved Slammerkin so I was happy to hear Donoghue was returning to historical fiction after her popular and gripping Room. For me, this was also a failure of characters. The plot and setting were irresistible but the characters left me flat.

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. I think my heart skipped a few beats when I found out Mitchell had a new novel coming out. His Cloud Atlas is one of my all-time favorites, and I also liked Black Swan Green and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Although I found the character of Holly Sykes fascinating, the story spun out of control, and not in a good way.

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. Comparisons to Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow should have tipped me off because I was hugely disappointed in that novel. I understand Faber was going for the whole moody thing here, but for me there was either too much or it or too little.

Tomorrow I’ll continue with my Best of 2014 list.