List o' Book Lists

I love list. And no, I'm not just looking at things and saying I love them. Lists make my life possible: grocery lists, To Get Done lists, I Do lists (what I call my wedding to do list), contact lists, and, of course, book lists. With the end of the year always comes a deluge of "best of" lists, and none are more enticing to me than the best books lists. It is a special sort of joy to read through a list of books that come highly recommended that you haven't already read so that you can, naturally, put them on your To Read list. I've collected here some of the Best Books of 2013 lists that I appreciate for one reason or another:

NPR's Book Concierge: Our Guide to 2013's Great Reads

This year, NPR decided to forego a list and has created an innovative, interactive site of tiled book covers that you can adapt to your reading preferences. I'm quite smitten with this design.

75 Notable Translations 2013 (World Literature Today)

Luckily, it seems like every year more and more contemporary fiction books get translated. This list is a real resource, in my opinion. Scroll to the very bottom to see WLT editors' picks for best translations of the year.

Riot Round-Up: The Best Books of 2013
Self-described as a list "as eclectic and indiosyncratic" as the Book Riot bloggers are, this list has a few books I just can't wait to read, and many more I hadn't even heard of this year. Who doesn't like hearing about new books?

The Overlooked Books of 2013 (Slate)
If you're interested in what Slate editors consider to be the books from 2013 that you haven't heard about but should have, then here you go.

Independents' View of 2013's Best Books (The Guardian)
We can't forget about our friends across the pond, and independent bookstores throughout the United Kingdom provided The Guardian with their picks for books of the year.  

Favorite 2013 Books of 50 Famous People (The Wall Street Journal)
I'm always intrigued by what famous people are reading--and in this case, who The Wall Street Journal thinks of as famous and noteworthy. There are some pretty interesting picks on this list.

River City Reading's Best Books (and Blogger Voices) of 2013
I appreciate this list because it features 10 books that are the compiler's favorites of the year along with the thoughts of her favorite reviewers and bloggers.

100 Notable Books of 2013 (The New York Times)

This list is on the lengthy side, including 50 non-fiction and 50 fiction titles, and has enough suggestions to perhaps keep you reading until the next decade.

The 10 Best Books of 2013 (The New York Times)

If 100 is too many titles to digest, NYT narrowed their list of 100 notable titles down to their picks for the 10 best books of the year.

2013 Puddly Awards (Powell's Books)

Okay, so technically this award was given in early 2013 to great 2012 books, and you'll have to stay tuned for the 2014 award nominees for the best of 2013 books (thus its position on the list). The webpage provides numerous great titles from the previous year from Powell's Books readers. Also, how cute is the name Puddly Awards?

Happy reading in 2014!

Mark Dunn's Ella Minnow Pea

According to The Christian Science Monitor, "There's a whiff of a classic about Ella Minnow Pea." I would have to argue that point: I think the book reeks of a classic with a stench of pure ingenuity. In fact, it is quite possibly one of the most clever books I have ever read. I discovered the book via the Powell's Books Daily Dose, which sends daily book recommendations from Powell's customers. The description led me to a simple conclusion: I must read this book. I was not disappointed.

Ella Minnow Pea (think L-M-N-O-P) is an epistolary novel that consists solely of letters exchanged between characters. The novel is set on the fictional island of Nollop, named after the inventor of the legendary pangram, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." The pangram is proudly posted on a statue in the center of the island until one day a tile with a letter falls off. The governing body of the island decides Nollop is speaking from beyond the grave. The message? That the fallen letter is no longer allowed to be used in writing or in speech. As tiles continue to fall from the statue, letters continue to be banned. In an effort to avoid the banned letters, the epistolary-inclined Nollopians must creatively author their letters. As the permissible letters decrease, Mark Dunn sneakily and eloquently continues the epistolary exchange, but, by the end, the letters resemble text speak, and each acts as a bit of a literary puzzle that necessitates some phonetic gymnastics. Not only is the plot engaging, but the spelling is downright inventive. The true treat comes at the end of the book when the citizens attempt to create their own pangram with less than 32 letters in order to restore legal use of the entire alphabet.

This book could have been about many things: censorship, separation of church and state, or literary culture. Though the novel would be a successful commentary on any of these topics, the most successful aspect of the book is its charm. It was amusing, unique, and thought provoking. As I finished this book in record time at the JFK airport at the beginning of a very long, post-Egypt layover, I could only regret that I had not savored the story longer.

RECOMMENDED: Highly

NEXT READ: Lev Grossman's The Magicians

REREAD: Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate

Dunn, Mark. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters. New York: Random House, 2001.