One very busy reader’s favorite books of 2013

I read a lot of books. I set out to finish 150 before December 31 this year — a personal record — and I’m close. But I can never keep up with the impossible number of books published each year.

I’m always seeking a balance between all that new stuff and an ever-growing stack of old books awaiting my attention. And then every December, I see “Best Books of the Year” roundups popping up, and I find that I’ve read only a fraction of what’s listed.

Is it a coincidence that many of the year’s talked-about titles I’ve missed are extremely long? Maybe. But did Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch really need to be almost 800 pages? Did Doris Kearns Goodwin require 900 pages to tell us about Teddy Roosevelt’s relationship with William Howard Taft? Seriously?

I’ll get to those books eventually, but I’ve spent this year reading others — titles that don’t take a month to read or feel like homework assignments. Among those books, I found a handful this year that I felt sure I could thrust at a friend and say, “Read this! You’ll love it!” Here they are.

FICTION

Best Novel Set in a War-Torn Country That Is Hard to Find on a Map
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
By Anthony Marra

Holy hell, is this book good. It’s set in Chechnya after the fall of the Soviet empire, when Chechen citizens were always in danger of being abducted or killed by federal forces. Don’t worry if you don’t remember much about the conflict — Marra focuses on the lives of everyday villagers who are just trying to survive. The story opens with a precocious little girl who hides in the woods as soldiers arrest her father. A kindhearted neighbor helps her escape to a nearby town and asks a doctor to look after her. Through flashbacks, the details of the characters and their families unfold, and the stories ebb and flow together in overlapping melodies. It also features the year’s most gorgeous prose.

Best Groundhog Day–like Novel
Life After Life
By Kate Atkinson

This is an engrossing story about a woman who keeps living her life over and over again, changing her behavior each time. When baby Ursula is first delivered, on an English country estate in 1910, the umbilical cord is wrapped around her throat, threatening a stillbirth. Ursula discovers that if she lives long enough to breathe, there are many other ways by which death will try to claim her. In each reincarnation, she has dark premonitions and tries to alter the outcome of a calamity. The plotting is masterful, and the story expands and folds back in on itself like an accordion. One of my favorite plot lines involves Ursula’s experience in Germany in the 1930s. What will she accomplish? What will she learn in this life? Questions we end up asking ourselves as we read.

Best Comeback of a Character Played by Renée Zellweger
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
By Helen Fielding

Bridget Jones is back! Our favorite singleton from the 1990s is now a 50-something mother with two children. Early in the book, it’s revealed that Bridget’s husband, the wonderful Mr. Mark Darcy, was killed in an accident, and now Bridget is emerging from her grief to start dating again. I think so many women liked the Bridget Jones books (and the movies) because the character allowed us to laugh at our own preoccupation with dieting, dating and self-improvement projects. Here we see Bridget become obsessed with Twitter, texting and dating a younger man — new challenges that Fielding presents with much humor. There’s also a sweet side to the story: Bridget genuinely loved her husband and was devastated by his death. Her forced cheerfulness as we rejoin her is touching because she’s trying to be a good mum, though she’d rather wallow in bed and eat ice cream. This novel made me laugh out loud, and I often smiled while I read. I declare it to be v.v. good.

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Best Jane Austen Fan Fiction
Longbourn
By Jo Baker

It has become a cliché to love Jane Austen, and many writers try to imitate her style. Longbourn is one of the few pieces of fan fiction that’s worthwhile. It retells the story of Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of the servants, and it makes the Bennet home come alive. I felt as if I actually lived in the same house as Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters. The story is told mostly by Sarah, a housemaid who has worked there since she was orphaned. We get glimpses of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley, but the “downstairs” plot stays focused on the lives of the servants. Plus, you learn a few secrets about the family that not even Miss Austen knew.

NONFICTION

Best Gossip About TV News
Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV
By Brian Stelter

I worked in a newsroom for more than 10 years, so I read this for its behind-the-scenes stories of what happened at NBC’s Today show. Why was Ann Curry replaced as co-host? Did she and Matt Lauer really not get along? How did ABC’s Good Morning America come to break NBC’s longtime winning streak? The best part of the book reports on “Operation Bambi,” which reportedly was the code name for the plan to fire Curry. There also are chapters on the rise of GMA, the genesis of MSNBC’s Morning Joe and the struggles at CBS. Stelter’s writing is a little bumpy, but media wonks will revel in the juicy details.

Best Reporting on a Hurricane
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
By Sheri Fink

This is a devastating account of what happened at a hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. After the storm, Memorial Medical Center was flooded and lost power, stranding a large staff and nearly 200 patients, some of whom needed ventilators to breathe. Rescue operations were slow due to communication breakdowns, a lack of emergency preparedness, and massive failures of both the hospital’s owner and the government. The staff said it was like a war zone. On the third day after the hurricane, some patients with slim chances of survival were administered drugs to help them die. Some called it euthanasia; others called it a necessary decision during an extreme disaster. This book is gripping and emotional, even requiring breaks to come up for air.

Best Biography of a Kansas City Jazz Legend
Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker
By Chuck Haddix

This is a marvelous biography about Charlie “Bird” Parker, who was born and raised in Kansas City. Chuck Haddix (host of KCUR 89.3’s Fish Fry and director of the Marr Sound Archives at the University of Missouri–Kansas City) tells lively stores about the saxophonist, who was known for his brilliant playing but also for his drug and alcohol abuse. Parker often disappeared before gigs to search out heroin. Having gone into withdrawal while traveling cross-country, he wandered off a train in the middle of the desert to look for a score. Among the fascinations in Haddix’s book are the details he includes about Kansas City’s history, including where Parker went to school and how he started playing music — and, of course, where the city’s hopping nightclubs were in 1951. Haddix lovingly describes Parker’s compositions and performances, making this a fine gift for a jazz fan.

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Best Book About Pop Culture
The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers, and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever
By Alan Sepinwall

This book covers the beloved dramas that Sepinwall says ushered in a new golden age of TV: The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mad Men, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Friday Night Lights, Oz, The Shield, 24 and Breaking Bad. Sepinwall gives the history of each show, interviewing the creators and network executives to describe how each found its way to air, along with details about the production process and what made the shows great. A key point he makes is that dramas have recently flourished on television partly because the motion-picture industry has all but abandoned them. As Sopranos creator David Chase puts it: “Movies went from something really interesting to what we have now.” This book compelled me to rewatch shows I hadn’t looked at in years, and drew me to some I hadn’t yet seen.

Best Book Written by a Woman Who Should Be My BFF
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
By Ann Patchett

Before becoming a best-selling novelist (Bel Canto, State of Wonder), Ann Patchett made a living writing magazine essays. This collection gathers her favorite of those pieces, with topics including her dog, her grandmother, a Catholic education, opera, censorship, solitude, bookstores (Patchett owns one), floods, Christmas, applying to be a police officer, and driving a Winnebago around the American West. My favorite is “The Getaway Car,” in which she lays out how she started writing and gives advice for anyone who wants to do the same. And in the memorable title essay, she discusses why her first marriage ended in divorce and how she came to be happily married to her second husband. Reading this book is like having a good chat with your wisest, most clever friend.

MEMOIR

Best Memoir by a Goonie
Coreyography: A Memoir
By Corey Feldman

Growing up with 1980s movies, I loved The Goonies, Stand By Me and even campy, campy The Lost Boys. What I didn’t know back then was that Corey Feldman, who appears in those three pictures, was enduring a hellish personal life. This memoir describes how his parents abused and neglected him, how their drug habits ate up his paychecks, and how he was molested by older men. Feldman charges that pedophilia is a serious problem in the entertainment business, and he mourns his longtime friend and fellow actor Corey Haim as one of its victims. To escape, Feldman started using drugs and misbehaving. Now, he hopes that his story might spare another child the same fate. Fans wanting behind-the-scenes stories will be rewarded, but Feldman also writes disturbing scenes of abuse.

Best Book About Autism
The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy With Autism
By Naoki Higashida

This is a deeply illuminating insight into the mind of an autistic child. Naoki Higashida was diagnosed with autism when he was 5. One of his teachers designed an alphabet grid to help Naoki communicate his thoughts, which were then printed into a book in Japan. Writer David Mitchell, who has an autistic son, found it and pushed to publish an English translation. In the introduction, Mitchell calls the book “a revelatory godsend” and adds: “Reading it felt as if, for the first time, our own son was talking to us about what was happening inside his head, through Naoki’s words.” It’s organized into short sections, with Higashida responding to questions about common behaviors of autistic people. Autism has affected so many families around the world; this book will help people understand it better.

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Best Memoir About Surviving a Tsunami

Wave

By Sonali Deraniyagala

Sonali Deraniyagala and her family were vacationing in Sri Lanka in 2004 when the tsunami hit, and her world fell apart. She managed to survive by clinging to a tree branch, but the rest of her family — husband, children, parents — perished. Wave is a grief memoir, with the author trying to adjust to a new life of being alone. She goes through a desperate period of wanting to kill herself. She drinks too much alcohol and barely leaves her room. She obsesses over the memories of her husband and children, wanting never to forget anything. This isn’t the kind of memoir that delivers the reader a triumph at the end, when the writer has survived and moved on. Your relief as you finish reading is simply that Deraniyagala survived at all.

Best Memoir Comparing the Taliban with Vampires

I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

By Malala Yousafzai, with Christina Lamb

Malala, 16, advocates for girls to have the same right to go to school as boys. In her native Pakistan, she lost that ability when the Taliban took over the area in which she lived. She writes: “I was 10 when the Taliban came to our valley. … It seemed to us that the Taliban arrived in the night just like vampires. They appeared in groups, armed with knives and Kalashnikovs.” The Taliban bombed schools and decreed that girls would be denied an education. Malala got media attention when she spoke out against the Taliban. She was threatened, and in October 2012, a man with a gun climbed aboard her school bus and shot her in the head. Amazingly, she survived and recovered. Her graciousness is such that she does not wish revenge on her attacker and instead prays for peace. This is a heartbreaking and inspiring story.

HUMOR

Book That Made Me Laugh Until I Cried
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
By Allie Brosh

Allie Brosh writes and illustrates the popular blog Hyperbole and a Half, and this collection culls her favorite Web comics, plus a few new ones. I’m glad to have her post “This Is Why I’ll Never Be an Adult” within permanent reach. It’s a well-told tale of how occasional bursts of motivation to Get Stuff Done are quickly overtaken by the exhaustion of being responsible. Other fun pieces chronicle her trying to train her “simple” dog, an early obsession with cake, a hilarious and terrifying attack by a goose, and some letters she writes to her younger self. She even handles a bout with depression in an amusing and self-deprecating way. Several of her chapters made me laugh so loudly and uncontrollably that I started crying. I say that’s a good thing.

Best Guy Humor

Power Moves: Livin’ the American Dream, USA Style
By Karl Welzein

This is a collection of two years of tweets from @Dadboner, written in an easy-to-read diary format. Karl Welzein, actually a character created by comedian Mike Burns, considers himself an average American guy: He hates his job (so sick of this), he’s separated from his wife (Ann is so boring, you guys), his roommate is gross, and all he wants to do is drink beer and eat some bold flavors. Welzein is looking forward to the weekend and is living the bad-boy life. To wit: He sets off fireworks in his apartment as a July 4 prank on his roommate. There also is the occasional dieting tip. He might ditch his cheeseburger’s bun to keep the meal in the “health zone.” At work, he likes to take naps in the toilet stall and scam chili from a food-donation bin. Keep livin’ the dream, Karl.

Diane Kockler Martin is a librarian at Metropolitan Community College. Her book reviews can be found at Goodreads and the blog Shelf Inflicted.