BEST READS OF 2006

Below are my favorite reads of 2006. They are not necessarily in order of favoritism, although Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die! and Voices from Chernobyl were my top two favorite reads of 2006.

#1—Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die!
by Mark Binelli
The two anarchists, railroaded through the court system and then executed by the U.S. federal government, are reimagined as vaudevillians-cum-comedy team movie stars. Funny, sad, probing.

#2—Voices from Chernobyl
by Svetlana Alexievich
Firsthand accounts of victims of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. Alexievich, who spent three years in The Zone conducting interviews, now has immune disorders from her exposure.

#3—Lincoln's Melancholy
by Joshua Wolf Shenk
A biography of Abraham Lincoln, as seen through the lens of his depression. An interesting look at depression, its public perception then and now, how it shaped Lincoln and his presidency, and how he subsequently handled the Civil War.

#4—Europeana
by Patrik Ouředník
A weirdly poetic fever-dream constructed of facts about Europe, focusing on the past one-hundred years, especially the Second World War and the Cold War. It also looks at the effects of capitalism, communism, fascism, and the influence of the United States on Europe's identity. Is it a novel without characters? Is it a "biography" of Europe? It is subtitled "A Brief History of the Twentieth Century," but I am not sure that helps much.

#5—Mother Country
by Marianne Robinson
An examination of how Great Britain has allowed nuclear facilities to jeopardize the health of its poorest citizenry, and create one of the largest, mostly unnoticed environmental disasters. The book is banned in Britain because Greenpeace sued for libel, due to the unflattering light with which they are portayed. Read this book to see how government really cares very little about the individual.

#6—Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences
by Lawrence Wechsler
Wechsler sees the world differently than you and me, which is a good thing for us. He finds fascinating similarities in juxtaposed images and artworks. Then he write about them. This book also includes the images that he is writing about. The visuals are intriguing and the writing moreso.

#7—Atomik Aztex
by Sesshu Foster
The main character is a high ranking official in the twentieth-century Aztek culture that controls the Western Hemisphere and is now fighting fascism in WWII-era Europe. Or is he? He dreams he is a Latino working in the nightmare of a East Los Angeles meatpacking plant? Or is he? Because he dreams he is a high ranking official in the twentieth-century Aztek culture...

#8—St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
by Karen Russell
Short stories that reflect the collision of our contemporary world and the world of myth and legend. Modern fairy tales, if you will. The Minotaur helps pull his family's wagon in the westward migration that will become known as the Oregon trail. A young girl abandoned by her parents on their alligator farm/tourist attraction struggles with the deteriorating condition of her mentally ill sister and the visits of the Bird Man.

#9—The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
A father and son fight for survival in the apocalyptic wasteland that was once America. Most plants and animals are extinct, most people have banded together into cannibalistic clans, food is being scavenged from the detritus of the consumer culture of a few years prior. Where is God in the midst of it all? Where are most other people? Where are the women? The man and the boy are "keepers of the fire." But, will they survive?

#10—Thank You for Not Reading
by Dubravka Ugresic
Essays challenging the status quo of international publishing and book culture. Ugresic leaves no one unscathed—publishers, book stores, distributors, agents, other authors, even herself. Witty and funny, with enough sense to pull back when the sarcasm is about to become too much.