I See Good Reads in My Future: The Book List

If you were to tell me that the reading year was suddenly over and say that I had to choose all of my book award winners this instant, first up for best book and best fiction of the year would be an easy choice: Debra Ginsberg’s The Grift.

Good god, I loved this novel.

The Grift was, in one word, charismatic. From the characters to the plot to the setting, the book sang out clearly with a strong voice and style. Marina Marks is a psychic who uses analysis and observation to drive her business; despite an early encounter with a psychic who told her that she had the gift, Marina is a skeptic and cynic whose only goal in life is to have enough money in the bank to retire from the fortune-telling business by the age of 37 and begin anew—and as the novel begins to gather steam, we learn that she has two years to do so.

It’s her 35th birthday, combined with a move from Florida to San Diego that was facilitated by the trust of an elderly woman who sought out bad news, that sets the novel’s workings in motion. Marina’s world introduces us to a slew of characters—mostly her clients—who obsess over the news and remedies that she can provide them (for a generous fee—her clients are anything but hard-up). There’s Cooper, a man in love with a closeted psychiatrist; Madeline, the trophy wife of an engagement ring magnate, struggling to give her husband an heir; Eddie, a lothario who falls for Marina’s mystique; and Gideon, a man who enters Marina’s life on her birthday and imprints himself on her permanently. I realize, as I type out the character descriptions, that you may think to yourself that this sounds like a really bad romance novel, but you’d be wrong. Ginsberg’s writing is sharp, smart, and intricate—the way these characters connect and weave together is not unexpected, but watching it unfold is a fun, entertaining ride with a lot of touching moments and insights into human behavior that left this reader invested in all of them.

Marina’s involvement with these people leads to the main plot point: she develops actual psychic powers at a bad time: thanks to one vengeful person and her own actions in Florida, she’s suddenly thrown not only into a murder investigation, but a life-changing event that leaves her uncertain, scared, and unable to control all of the information that comes to her in unrelenting wave after unrelenting wave (it’s like the first day IP and I hit the beach while in Cancun—I’ve never been battered so hard by the ocean, ouch). How she deals with the information and her struggles to exonerate herself bring the novel to its climax, which is a fantastic convergence of all the characters’ dramas.

And because I think this is a worthwhile book and I will not spoil, I will just say this: the last two pages made me tear up a bit. Sniff. So touching and heartbreaking and yet so hopeful for what’s to come.

I’ve ordered Ginsberg’s first novel, Blind Submission, and one of her memoirs, About My Sisters. Unless something drastically changes, you will probably see her win Best Discovery for 2010.

Onto the book list:

Finished:

1) The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault
2) The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
3) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peal Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
4) Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron by Jasper Fforde
5) Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser
6) Unaccustomed Earth: Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
7) Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
8) Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
9) Shakespeare’s Wife by Germaine Greer
10) The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future by Robert Darnton
11) Under the Dome by Stephen King
12) Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge by Eleanor Herman
13) Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics by Eleanor Herman
14) The World in Half by Cristina Henriquez
15) The Road by Cormac McCarthy
16) The Hidden by Tobias Hill
17) The Best American Short Stories 2009: Edited by Alice Sebold & Heidi Pitlor (Series Editor)
18) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Translated by Reg Keeland)
19) The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
20) The Grift by Debra Ginsberg

Re-read:

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Currently Reading:

1) Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
2) Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea

Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Husband or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):

1) The Help by Kathryn Stockett
2) Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson
3) About My Sisters by Debra Ginsberg
4) Blind Submission by Debra Ginsberg
5) The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Translated by Lucia Graves)
6) Do Not Deny Me: Stories by Jean Thompson