Loving Books

Loving Books

I work in the world of book publishing. As one of my earlier blogs detailed, it is definitely a business. Because of the topics treated in many of the projects I work on, for me it is also a mission. But whether people are reading them in hardcover or paperback, listening to them in audio format, or downloading the ideas digitally, they are books! They are stories. They are life-changing ideas. They are, in fact, everything good books can be. Working as a book publisher is of the great joys of my life.

I say all that so that you’ll understand why I am amazed to interact with people in our industry and occasionally discover one that is simply not a book person. Never mind that such folks don’t love books; they rarely even read them. You might assume I’m talking about salespeople or marketing types, but I’m not. Some of the biggest book lovers I know work in those areas. No, often these non-book lovers are working on editorial teams. And that just blows my mind.

So today’s blog is for real book lovers. Here are the four books I enjoyed reading most in 2005. A more subjective list you could not find, and—for several obvious reasons—I disqualified anything published by my house.

My Losing Season by Pat Conroy

This is the powerful account of Conroy’s arduous years playing basketball at the Citadel, eventually scrapping his way to team MVP his senior season. In a sense, it is yet another depiction of the incredible jerk his father was. The Great Santini gave his son all sorts of encouragement, such as telling Conroy he couldn’t carry his father’s jock in basketball and assuring him that it must be a sorry team if his son was the MVP of it. But the book is so much more than that. For me it is an eye-opening account of perseverance, of loving something you aren’t sure you can endure. It is not easy reading from an emotional standpoint, but I highly recommend it.

Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer

Setting aside the many ways I was informed and enlightened by this serious look at faith in the world of Mormonism, it a compelling book by a gifted writer who has a journalist’s eye for details. Krakauer admits he is agnostic at best on the spiritual front, which only makes the book that much richer. He explores the mainstream LDS Church as well as various fundamentalist strains. He weaves throughout the book the story of the Lafferty brothers, one of whom receives a revelation telling him to kill his brother’s wife, her baby, and two friends. As a person of faith, I found the consideration of fundamentalist zeal disturbing and fascinating.

Train by Pete Decker

Train is a brilliant (and extremely gritty) novel about a young black man (Train), his eventually blind and addled cohort Plural, and their connection to a violent murder and rape. Train is a gifted golfer in a time when all he can do is caddy, but his relationship with enigmatic lawman Millard Packer leads to some big paydays betting on Train’s matches with unsavory types. Some readers say too many plot threads are left hanging at the end of the book, and that’s true. But the atmosphere and the characters Decker creates transcend the weaknesses in this book.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

This is hands-down my favorite book of the year. So much praise has been lavished on the novel my fear is some readers will avoid it as over-hyped. So I’ll keep my comments brief. The writing in this story is beautiful and true. I came to the book with no particular knowledge of or interest in Afghanistan, and it didn’t matter. The spare, moving treatment of the theme (“There is a way to be good again”) is amazing. I can give the novel no higher praise than to say my heart was with Amir and Hassan every step of the way. If you enjoy fiction, read this wonderful book.