Fun thread! Lemme see what I can remember, in no particular order:
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. Not at all what I normally read, it’s a novel set almost entirely (except for flashbacks) during a single Dallas Cowboys game. The protagonist is a 19-year-old hapless soldier. It’s funny and moving and vicious satire.
Doc: a Novel, by Mary Doria Russell. It retells Doc Holliday’s story, making him a much more pathetic but likeable character than I’d thought before. And now I REALLY don’t want to die of tuberculosis. Jesus Christ.
The Classic Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tatar. This one (and the next few) stand out in large part because I got to take a class with Dr. Tatar this summer and the experience was tremendous; but this is a stellar collection of both historical and modern retellings of fairy tales on its own, and the critical essays include some real gems.
Okay, I’m gonna stop linking, because it’s taking too long.
Hunger Games–really, the whole trilogy. I was skeptical, but I absolutely loved them. My favorite aspect of them was how they drew me in with the action and then subverted it with the PTSD. Sneaky.
Peter Pan. I’d never read it before, but I got to read it for the summer class, and it’s a work of art. A racist sexist work of art, but still Peter Pan is such an iconic deity, it’s difficult for me to believe that he didn’t exist prior to this book. Feels like he arose straight out of mythology.
The Hobbit. I hadn’t read it since I was a kid, and I got to read it to my three-year-old daughter and experience its beauty through her eyes. I’d forgotten how funny it is.
Arabian Nights. If I’d forgotten how funny The Hobbit is, I’d never known how racy Arabian Nights is. I knew there was some infidelity in the book, but I didn’t know said infidelity would involve 20 court ladies and 20 slaves in a mass, explicitly-described orgy. And it just gets better from there. Sex and violence aside, it’s a complex and sometimes subtle meditation on the tension between justice and mercy. Also for the summer course.
Angelmaker. I check a lot of stuff out of the library having no idea whether it’ll be great or be a total stinker, and about a third of the time it’s stinky. This one was great. Son of a glamorous London gangster and grandson of a clockmaker, the protagonist tries to keep his granddad’s legacy alive while running from his dad’s. Doesn’t work out so well for him. It’s tremendously funny stuff.
Daniel O’Thunder: A nineteenth-century boxer finds God and starts boxing for God. Honestly, I can’t remember why this one appealed so much to me, but I remember loving it.
Finally, The Tale of Despereaux. I read it to my students every year, and every time I read it I love it more. It’s the perfect children’s tale, beautifully written, funny, sad, full of lush symbolism that kids can grasp, complex characters, etc. It’s also nothing like the appalling movie, so don’t make that mistake.
