#4: Fleishman Is In Trouble, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
This was one of those books that as a writer, I read and think, “yes, that’s exactly the kind of book I want to write.” I read it over the course of a week I spent with my family at Beech Mountain and didn’t want to put it down, yet found it easy to get swept back into the narrative no matter what distractions surrounded me, including two toddlers bumbling around in their snow gear. The prose is witty, sly, and endlessly highlight-able (I had over one quarter of the book highlighted on my Kindle by the end, a rare feat for me in fiction).
One of my favorite narrative styles is when an author tells their story in a way that leads you see it from one perspective, and then unexpectedly tilts the frame so that you get an entirely new point of view. Brodesser-Akner spends the main portion of the novel pushing the reader’s sympathies towards the protagonist Toby as he deals with a divorce from his controlling, workaholic ex-wife, and only in the final pages shares a glimpse into her world, her struggles, and her ultimate inability to cope as a successful woman navigating a man’s world.
What made this book such a wild ride is that I found myself viewing the ex-wife Rachael with such scathing distaste, even though I am by all accounts exactly like her! As I read I found myself making mental notes about her behavior, compiling a “what not to do” list for my own relationships: don’t be condescending to the men who make less money or have less status than you; don’t act crazy when someone questions your choices (aren’t you working a lot, why do you look so tired today, don’t you want to get married/have kids/paint that white picket fence?), don’t laud your successes over other people, etc. I was incredibly sympathetic to poor Toby, a successful doctor and loving father just trying to keep it all together, and constantly thought about how if I ever get married I’ll never treat my spouse like this. And then I got to the end and realized that even though I’ve lived through so many of the same experiences as Rachael—the sexism at work, the misogyny of being successful in a male-dominated field, the efforts made to balance work and home life, the persecutions of being tense/bitchy/psycho—I still condemned her just as harshly.
The culture of male dominance is so prevalent that even living in it, we forget it exists. We forget how much of an impact it has on women. This book so masterfully proves that point, it gave me chills reading it. The only critique I had was the lose-lose situation Brodesser-Akner leaves us with in the end with the two main female characters. Rachael, a driven, independent business woman is left broken down and discarded, and the narrator Libby, who has resigned herself to a secondhand life with a husband she feels lukewarm about, writing a book she knows she will never publish. I have to believe that there’s a better outcome for intelligent women than that.
#5: Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson
If you view Steve Jobs as your entrepreneurial role model, read this book. Isaacson is a master biographer, and his portrait of Jobs gives such clear insights into who he was as an innovator, CEO, and human being. Jobs broke a lot of the “rules” I’ve been taught about building a successful business: he was secretive, he dominated conversations and didn’t make it easy for employees to dissent, he worked slowly and never released a product he wasn’t completely satisfied with, he passed blame onto others, he overspent, he worked harder not smarter. Yet he built a company that undeniably has shaped our past, present, and future.
I find myself conflicted writing this and trying to decide where to stand on my opinion of him, but ultimately it’s a conflicting choice. Jobs was a whiny, entitled crybaby who abandoned his family and gained success on the backs of people closest to him, people who arguably were far more intelligent and worthy of the accolades he later accepted (i.e. Steve Wozniak). But he was also a relentlessly dedicated builder who saw his products as a way to bring delight, simplicity, and access to people, and he refused to bend on his vision. He is a man who I think people should view critically, but ultimately you also have to respect his legacy.
#6: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
If you’re interested in reading a novel of ideas, this is definitely the one I would recommend. A novel of ideas represents a philosophical point of view, using fiction as its medium, so it’s sort of like combining theory with story. Some noteworthy novel of ideas examples: The Handmaid’s Tale, 1984, and Ulysses (which, ok, I’ve never read but it’s on my list). Sometimes this can result in really dry, textbook-like reading (like, in my opinion, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) and other times it can lead to stilted characters that are more representative than realistic (also in my opinion, like Candide). But Kundera strikes the balance of interesting ideology and compelling plot to make this novel both inquisitive and readable. As the title suggests, the novel contradicts the idea that heaviness—whether it be physical, mental, or emotional weight—is more burdensome than the appearance of lightness. It focuses mainly on the lightness of love and sex as fleeting, haphazard, and fickle, so basically the perfect book to read during ze month of luhve (say it in your head with a gushy French accent, it’ll be fun).
#7: Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, by Erik Larson
I’ve heard nothing but good things from my fellow book lovers and history nerds about this work of non-fiction that reads like a novel, and truly Larson is a gifted researcher and writer. Unfortunately, I never got hooked by the plot, and found the chapters covering the construction of the fair completely boring. I was only half-heartedly interested in the serial killer, because from the onset you know exactly what’s going to happen: he’s going to murder someone. I would still try Larson’s other books, but this one wasn’t the right subject matter for me.
#8: Meet 100 People, by Pat Hedley
Approximately 100 pages of stuff you already know, and therefore isn’t worth your time revisiting. I skimmed in in about fifteen minutes to see if any unique insights came up, without success.