Literary The 2010s • December 2019

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Help select what we'll read and discuss for the last month of the 2010s!


The topic is The 2010s.

This is for books written and published in the 2010s (so from January 2010 until now, December 2019).


Detailed nominating and voting guidelines can be found here. Basically, nominations are open for about four days and each person may nominate up to three literary selections which will go automatically to the vote. Voting by post then opens for four days, and a voter may give each nomination either one or two votes but only has a limited number of votes to use which is equal to the number of nominations minus one. Any questions, feel free to ask.

We hope that you will read the selection with us and join in the discussion.

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Nominations are complete. Voting is now open! Results through post #27-

• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
  Post . Goodreads . Preview . 341 Pages . Votes 4 . 2010 . U.S.
  
  
• The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
  Post . Goodreads . Preview . 443 Pages . Votes 3 . 2012 . U.S.
  
  
• The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
  Post . Goodreads . Preview . 368 Pages . Votes 0 . 2010 . England
  
  
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
  Post . Goodreads . Preview . 541 Pages . Votes 1 . 2014 . U.S.
  
  
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
  Post . Goodreads . Preview . 339 Pages . Votes 5 . 2014 . Canada
  
  
• A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
  Post . Goodreads . Preview . 402 Pages . Votes 2 . 2013 . U.S.
  
  
• Euphoria by Lily King
  Post . Goodreads . Preview . 261 Pages . Votes 2 . 2014 . U.S.
  
  
• In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
  Post . Goodreads . Preview . 338 Pages . Votes 5 . 2012 . Cambodia & U.S.
  
  
• Shelter by Jung Yun
  Post . Goodreads . Preview . 336 Pages . Votes 1 . 2016 . South Korea & U.S.

[AnotherCat]

Without the passing of time sweeping away the dross I found this hard going rummaging amongst it all. Furthermore I got the impression that most published over the last 10 years had some of lotsa pages, lotsa wokiness, lotsa propaganda, lotsa sex, lotsa gruesome, etc. or lotsa words about nothing much at all .

Since it is holidays for some and winter for others I've given up and gone for what suits me best out of those; lotsa pages.

A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan (2010)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Visi...the_Goon_Squad
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...the-goon-squad

The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson (2012)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orphan_Master%27s_Son
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...n-master-s-son

The Hare With Amber Eyes - Edmund de Waal (2010)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hare_with_Amber_Eyes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...ith-amber-eyes

[Bookworm_Girl]

Great nominations, AnotherCat. All of them are on my TBR list. For my nominations, I’ll probably start by searching books that I own and haven’t read.

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Two are also on my tbr list and the third looks interesting.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I just wanted to check in and say that I will post my nominations on Thursday morning. I am taking the day off work for a much needed break. Looking forward to sleeping in and relaxing with some coffee while deciding on my choices.

[sun surfer]

Sounds good, Bookworm_Girl! Take your time and enjoy your coffee. I've got my longlist here and am narrowing it down to three while I sip my strong tea.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Got a cup of hot coffee and I'm working on my list.

[Bookworm_Girl]

My first nomination is All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2015. I have been wanting to read something by this author for a while.

From Goodreads:

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

[Bookworm_Girl]

My second nomination is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel published in 2014. It is described as post-apocalypic literary science fiction, different than what I would typically nominate. It won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Fiction in 2015 and was also nominated for several prestigious literary awards such as the Women's Prize for Fiction and US National Book Award.

From Goodreads:

Set in the days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.

[Bookworm_Girl]

My third nomination is A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra published in 2013, which has been on my TBR a long time. It was nominated for several prestigious literary awards when it was published.

From Goodreads:

A brilliant debut novel that brings to life an abandoned hospital where a tough-minded doctor decides to harbor a hunted young girl, with powerful consequences.

In the final days of December 2004, in a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa hides in the woods when her father is abducted by Russian forces. Fearing for her life, she flees with their neighbor Akhmed—a failed physician—to the bombed-out hospital, where Sonja, the one remaining doctor, treats a steady stream of wounded rebels and refugees and mourns her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Akhmed and Sonja reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery of coincidence, betrayal, and forgiveness that unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate.

With The English Patient's dramatic sweep and The Tiger's Wife's expert sense of place, Marra gives us a searing debut about the transcendent power of love in wartime, and how it can cause us to become greater than we ever thought possible.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

Without the passing of time sweeping away the dross I found this hard going rummaging amongst it all. Furthermore I got the impression that most published over the last 10 years had some of lotsa pages, lotsa wokiness, lotsa propaganda, lotsa sex, lotsa gruesome, etc. or lotsa words about nothing much at all .

I have to agree with this assessment. I unintentionally ended up nominating books about war/conflict, although I was looking for something more cheerful. I mostly searched through items that I had wish-listed in different places such as my local library.

[sun surfer]

One of my nominations will also be about war even though I'm not particularly a fan of books about it. People love to write books about war! Regardless I've liked many books about war so I try to judge prospective books that include war on their other merits.

I have a very light and cheery book that I'm considering as my third nomination out of three possibilities though at the moment I'm leaning towards another. I have two nominations chosen and will decide on the third while I'm posting the first two.

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My first nomination is Euphoria by Lily King. Goodreads, Preview, 261 pages, 2014, U.S.

Inspired by the true story of a woman who changed the way we understand our world.

In 1933 three young, gifted anthropologists are thrown together in the jungle of New Guinea. They are Nell Stone, fascinating, magnetic and famous for her controversial work studying South Pacific tribes, her intelligent and aggressive husband Fen, and Andrew Bankson, who stumbles into the lives of this strange couple and becomes totally enthralled. Within months the trio are producing their best ever work, but soon a firestorm of fierce love and jealousy begins to burn out of control, threatening their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives...

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Second is In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner. Goodreads, Preview, 338 pages, 2012, Cambodia & U.S.

For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. Soon the family's world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus.

Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labor, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood - the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival. Displaying the author's extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyan is testament to the transcendent power of narrative and a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience.

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Last is Shelter by Jung Yun. Goodreads, Preview, 336 pages, 2016, South Korea & U.S.

Why should a man care for his parents when they failed to take care of him as a child?

Kyung Cho is a young father burdened by a house he can’t afford. For years, he and his wife, Gillian, have lived beyond their means. Now their debts and bad decisions are catching up with them, and Kyung is anxious for his family’s future.

A few miles away, his parents, Jin and Mae, live in the town’s most exclusive neighborhood, surrounded by the material comforts that Kyung desires for his wife and son. Growing up, they gave him every possible advantage—private tutors, expensive hobbies—but they never showed him kindness. Kyung can hardly bear to see them now, much less ask for their help. Yet when an act of violence leaves Jin and Mae unable to live on their own, the dynamic suddenly changes, and he’s compelled to take them in. For the first time in years, the Chos find themselves living under the same roof. Tensions quickly mount as Kyung’s proximity to his parents forces old feelings of guilt and anger to the surface, along with a terrible and persistent question: how can he ever be a good husband, father, and son when he never knew affection as a child?

As Shelter veers swiftly toward its startling conclusion, Jung Yun leads us through dark and violent territory, where, unexpectedly, the Chos discover hope. Shelter is a masterfully crafted debut novel that asks what it means to provide for one's family and, in answer, delivers a story as riveting as it is profound.