THE BEST of 2015

THE BEST OF 2015

This is a list of the best of the best of the 73 books that I read or listened to in 2015. They did not have to be released in 2015.

I broke the books into several categories. The titles are hyper-linked to their reviews. 
* indicates the best book in that category.

Fiction Books

I love Havill's Bill Gastner series - it is a shame that this series has not gotten the attention they deserve. The Battle of the Crater was a great description of a tragedy in the making and a look at leadership failure at all levels in the Union Army in the Civil War.  C.J. Box's Joe Pickett character is always a joy and these two books were excellent. But, the poorly named Insurgent (who knew that there would be a popular series with a book of the same title that would all but shove this book out of the spotlight?) was a book that made me think and made me turn the pages on my Kindle as quickly as possible. It is still the only book that I have purchased with real money on my Kindle in the last 7 years (there are so many freebies and the online library).

*Insurgent: Book 2 of America's Future by Charles Sheehan-Miles
Stone Cold by C.J. Box
The Battle of the Crater - by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen
Free Fire by C.J. Box
Red, Green, or Murder by Steven F. Havill


Fiction Audiobooks

So many good choices in this category. Enemies and Allies was a fantastic audiobook by Graphic Audio. To Try Men's Souls had iconic scenes that made you appreciate the generation of the Revolution all the more. The Giver is a classic with a sucker punch scene that took the air right out of me. And...Michael Connelly. There's a reason that he is listed in this category twice.

*To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Enemies and Allies by Kevin J. Anderson
To Try Men's Souls: A Novel of George Washington and the Fight for American Freedom by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen
The Burning Room by Michael Connelly
The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly
The Giver by Lois Lowry

Non-Fiction Books

I read so many good non-fiction books this year. Every one of these was worthy of being labeled the best. But, I am a teacher and Danza's foray into teaching was insightful, rewarding and reassuring.

*I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High by Tony Danza
A Thousand Miles to Freedom: My Escape from North Korea by Eunsun Kim and Sebastian Fallet
Gettysburg: The Final Fury by Bruce Catton
What Caused the Civil War: Reflections on the South and Southern History by Edward L. Ayers
The Price They Paid: Enduring Wounds of War by Michael Putzel

Non-Fiction Audiobooks

I also listened to a lot of excellent non-fiction audiobooks this year. The Good Shepherd pointed out exciting things that I had never read or thought about in 47 years of going to church. Food: A Love story was the more-often-than-not laugh out loud funny soundtrack to my family's summer vacation. The Aviators was an amazing triple biography. NPR's look at National Parks was fun and worthy of a listen by anyone. The Jefferson Rule was a great look at American history from a different perspective. But, in the end, I just remember the feeling I had as I was listening to MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail. Such a fantastic essay that just soars when it is read aloud.

*Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament by Kenneth E. Bailey 
Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan
The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh and the Epic Age of Flight by Winston Groom
The Jefferson Rule: Why We Think the Founding Fathers Have All the Answers by David Sehat
NPR Road Trips: National Parks Adventures: Stories that Take You Away by NPR

Childrens (Books and Audiobooks)

My entire family enjoyed the Avengers audiobooks. Woof is a very fun turn at a kids book by a veteran author. The Martha Washington book was a trip down memory lane for me. But, The Witch of Blackbird Pond still has it. The 1959 Newberry Medal winner still grips you and brings you into its world.

*The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (Print book)
Marvel's Avengers: Phase One: Captain America, the First Avenger by Marvel Press (audiobook)
Marvel's Avengers: Phase One: The Incredible Hulk by Marvel Press (audiobook)
Woof by Spencer Quinn (print book)
Martha Washington: Girl of Old Virginia (Childhood of Famous Americans Series) by Jean Brown Wagoner (print book)

THE HIGHWAY (Cody Hoyt #2, Cassie Dewell #2) (audiobook) by C.J. Box

Published by Macmillan Audio in 2013
Read by Holter Graham
Duration: 9 hours, 53 minutes
Unabridged

If you are a big fan of the TV show Criminal Minds or the movie The Silence of the Lambs you will probably enjoy this book quite a bit. For me, the fascination of getting into the head of a serial killer has long since passed and I end up feeling soiled and abused after every excursion into this area. But, I read The Highway because I do enjoy C.J. Box's work quite a bit and I grudgingly like his Cody Hoyt character - he is exasperating and full of gigantic character flaws but just when you have had enough of him he pulls himself together and he gets the job done.

In a bit of a reach (actually, in a real big reach) the young female characters from his book Back of Beyond  are caught up in another dangerous situation and Cody Hoyt is called out to rescue them once again. This time they have a run-in with a long haul trucker that kills himself the Lizard King. This name is a reference to the disparaging nickname for truck stop prostitutes, Lot Lizards. He traps, abuses and then kills these women. No one suspects him because most of the women live life off of the grid and he is often in a completely different state before they are even missed.

Cody Hoyt has been suspended and soon-to-be-fired because his new partner, Cassie Dewell, has caught him planting evidence in a crime scene to frame a guilty man. The evidence he planted is not even used to prove the guilt of the suspect - it just caused further investigation that led to the actual evidence. Nonetheless, he is on his way out and he falls off of the wagon and starts and epic drinking binge. That is, until his son interrupts him and tells him about the two missing girls. Hoyt sobers up and heads out to find them with the off-the-books logistical support of his ex-partner.

But, things take a surprising turn...

So, this book was way too creepy for my tastes and makes me want to question my penchant for stopping at truck stops on vacations. But, I was truly surprised at the mid-point of the book by a bold direction taken by C.J. Box and I do like the focus on Cassie Dewell a lot.

The audiobook was read by Holter Graham who did an excellent job of portraying the voices of a wide variety of characters, male and female, of different ages and emotional states (from horror to nearly drunken stupor). 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Highway

Link to my review of Back of Beyond

THE WITCH of BLACKBIRD POND by Elizabeth George Speare

First published in 1958

Winner of the 1959 Newberry Medal

When I was a kid I read this book twice, which for me was rare. I have always been one to prefer reading a new book than re-reading an old one. I had an emotional connection to the book dating back to fifth grade. But, I hadn't read it since fifth grade. For me, it was a book that I fondly pulled off of bookshelves as an adult but I never had the courage to re-read it out of fear of spoiling the memory of the book. What if it wasn't nearly as good as I remembered?

Finally, I decided to take the plunge and see if my memory was justified.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond is set in colonial Wethersfield, Connecticut in 1687. 16 year old Kit Tyler is coming from Barbados to live with her aunt who lives in Wethersfield because she is her last surviving relative. Her arrival adds strain to a family that was barely eking out a living.

More importantly, her upbringing in Barbados has not prepared her for life among the Puritans. Her clothes are seen as too frilly (and in reality, they are not suited for the work that everyone has to do just to make it through the day) and her willingness to talk to the elderly Quaker woman who lives on the edge of town makes everyone suspicious of her.

As a deadly illness spreads through town, Kit hears complaints about the Quaker woman and Kit must decide if she will risk herself to save her friend...

So, did it hold up after all of these years?

Yes, I found myself drawn into the book again. Speare does a masterful job of making the reader identify with Kit, the outsider who is learning about Puritan society along with the reader. Puritan society is portrayed is being much richer, much more nuanced than it usually is. The religion is practiced and debated by men of all social classes. Local politics comes into play as well.

I am pleased that I can still rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

MORTAL STAKES (Spenser #3) by Robert B. Parker

Originally Published in 1975

If you have not read a Spenser detective novel and you love the detective genre, pick one up and start reading. There are 40 original novels and they all follow a basic premise: Spenser gets a case. Spenser noses around, makes a lot of wisecracks, irritates people who certainly deserve to be irritated, and then he sees if there is a reaction to his nosing around. Usually, that is someone trying to warn him off or, perhaps, trying to kill him outright. From there, Spenser knows who is after him and can figure out why and he knows where to proceed and solve the case.

Sounds simple, doesn't it?

Of course, it is. And, the finest of wines are really just grape squeezings. Simple - but yet there is something else there.

The Spenser series is one of the few series that I am willing to re-read. In this case, I undoubtedly read Mortal Stakes nearly 20 years ago and I mis-remembered it more than I remembered it, so it made for a good re-read. 

In Spenser's third outing he is hired by the Boston Red Sox manager to check out their star pitcher. He is the best in the league but there is some reason to believe that he may have thrown a couple of games, or at least shaved some points (made the score closer than it would have to help out gamblers who bet it would be a close game).

So, Spenser pretends he is an author of an upcoming book about baseball so he can freely nose about the ballpark and talk to everyone who will talk to him. Soon enough, he roots out the truth but now he has another problem - does he really want the truth to come out?

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Mortal Stakes

MARTHA WASHINGTON: GIRL of OLD VIRGINIA (Childhood of Famous Americans Series) by Jean Brown Wagoner

Originally published in 1947.

In the 1930's, the "Childhood of Famous Americans" series was started with a simple biography of Abraham Lincoln's childhood. Eventually, there were dozens of books in this series. In my childhood I remember my small town library had a shelf full of these books and I read them all. Nowadays, this series has been picked up by Simon and Schuster.

This book focuses on the childhood of Martha Washington (1731-1802), or Martha Dandridge, nicknamed Patsy. There is not really an over-arching story here. Rather, this is mostly a series of scenes from her childhood including having a bear cub as a pet, posing for a portrait and learning to ride a pony. There are also visits from local Native tribes. This book could be read not just as a biography of Martha Washington but also as a sample of what life on a plantation would be like for the family that owns the plantation.

That being said, it doesn't really address the issue of slavery, preferring to call the family slaves "servants" instead and never discussing how the "servants" rate in the big scheme of things.

I liked the book all right. I would rate it 3 out of 5 stars, noting that it is very easy to read and fairly interesting. However, my ten-year-old daughter read it twice in the last couple of months and she enjoyed it both times. She would give it 5 stars out of 5.

So, in the spirit of compromise, that would make an average of 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Martha Washington: Girl Of Old Virginia

SHOTS FIRED: STORIES from JOE PICKETT COUNTRY by C.J. Box

Published in 2014

Normally, I am not much of a fan of short stories. For me, by the time I figure out what's going on in the story it's over and then I have to go through the whole process again in the next story. The exception to this has always been Stephen King - he creates characters that the reader can buy into very quickly in a story.

I will add C.J. Box to that list with Stephen King. Throughout Shots Fired Box quickly establishes the parameters of the story and then delivers 10 good short stories. Four of them feature his previously established characters joe Pickett or Nate Romanowski. Nine of them take place in modern times. Nine take place in Wyoming.

The one that does not take place in Wyoming features members of the Sioux nation who are working at Euro-Disney in France. It is one of my favorites in the collection.

A quote from the book: "Giving alcohol to an alcoholic makes him happy, but it doesn't help him. Buying stuff for people who won't work makes you popular, but it doesn't get them a job or any self-respect." (p. 174)

I rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Shots Fired: Stories from Joe Pickett Country

UNDER the SWEET WATER RIM by Louis L'Amour

First published in 1971

Louis L'Amour wrote well over one hundred novels with varying topics, including one science fiction novel. But, of course, he is most famous for his Westerns. Under the Sweet Water Rim is a Western, but it is a different kind of Western.

This novel is set in a lonely part of Wyoming during the Civil War. The war rarely intrudes out this far - usually if there is an issue it is with Indians that realized that the American national government is distracted and they can attack settlers moving out west. A wagon train setting out from Fort Laramie to the West Coast is attacked - but not by Indians. Instead, it is destroyed by a rogue group of Bushwhackers from the Kansas/Missouri/Arkansas led by a ruthless man who is known to be a superior frontiersman.

Louis L'Amour (1908-1988)

But, part of the wagon train survived. Right before the attack an officer from the fort who is supposed to be on leave pulled a single wagon out of the train and took. That wagon contained $60,000 in gold that was heading to an army base out west and the daughter of Fort Laramie's commander.

Now, the U.S. Cavalry is on the hunt for the missing wagon - but so are the Bushwhackers, causing the wagon train survivors try to cross the dreaded Sweetwater Pass to escape...

So, this plot sounds like a great one. It might even make a good movie so long as one thing happens. Take the star of the book, Tem Brian, down about 10 pegs. He is presented as a super-soldier throughout the book. Up until the end, when it is revealed that he is just as vulnerable as everyone else, I found him to be a tedious presence that removed most of the tension from the book (why worry about the good guys - Tem Brian is there!)

The only character that was really developed was the commander of Fort Laramie, Major Devereaux. Tem Brian just has an amazing resume that is referred to a lot but no real development. His American Indian sidekick is just there - we have no real idea why they are together except for a shared history that is not expanded upon.

So, I give it 3 out of 5 stars. The basic premise was interesting but I had a hard time actually caring if the characters lived or died.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: UNDER the SWEET WATER RIM by Louis L'Amour.