Book Review

“Friendfluence,” writes journalist Carlin Flora, “is the powerful and often underappreciated role that friends — past and present — play in determining the shape and direction of our lives.” Studies have shown that our friends help shape our identities and, as adults, subtly shape our beliefs, values and physical and emotional health. Our friends are both the most stable and the most flexible relationships we have, yet friendships are not nearly as well-studied or well-recognized as our relationships with our families and our spouses.

In 1973, Tracy Kidder was a young freelancer, looking for his first assignment at the prestigious The Atlantic Monthly in Boston. Fortuitously, Kidder was paired with editor Richard Todd to guide his story about a murder trial — a story Kidder naively thought of as the next In Cold Blood but other editors were ready to dismiss — from early drafts to publication.

In Mastermind, journalist and psychologist Maria Konnikova explores the genius of Sherlock Holmes, relying on the detective’s own metaphor of the “brain attic,” an organized, systematic process for organizing and recollecting the information and observations that made Holmes the brilliant detective he is. To fully understand Holmes, Konnikova also brings in the latest research in neuroscience and psychology to explore the character’s practices and offer suggestions how us mere mortals can improve our own perceptions to solve problems and enhance creativity.

Melanie Hoffert grew up on a farm near Wyndmere, North Dakota, a town of around 500 people on the edge of the prairie. Like many young people in rural America, Hoffert became part of a growing pattern of out-migration, moving to the Twin Cities to pursue her career and escape the pressured silence that surrounded her deepest secret.

I like to start out each new reading year with a clean slate, so I decided to do some mini-reviews of all the books that, for whatever reason, I ended up not writing about more fully this year. It’s a mixed bag — there are a few books I just didn’t have much to say about, and there are others that I had many thoughts but never got around to writing them down. There are several that I just felt “meh” about, and several others that I loved.

I think cheated a little bit, splitting out my favorite memoirs from my favorite nonfiction since technically memoirs are also nonfiction. But, this way I got to highlight even more of my favorite books from the year, and there’s nothing wrong with that, right? House of Stone by Anthony Shadid After years of being beaten down [...]

I tried, really, to get this list down to five books… but, you guys, I read a lot of fabulous nonfiction this year. So instead of ignoring some deserving books I decided to highlight 10 of my favorites in 140 characters or less each. The links with each title go to posts with my full reviews, if you want to learn more.

While I know that 2012 isn’t technically over, I decided to get a start on posting my favorite books of the year this week before the holidays hit and I lose all motivation blog. If I read any life-changing books before the end of the year, I’ll add an addendum to the lists or consider them for my favorite books of 2013. I’m starting with fiction, and over the next two weeks will have a series of posts on my favorite nonfiction, memoirs, and the books that got away.

It’s embarrassing that it’s taken me this long to write about Future Perfect, which I read almost as soon as it arrived in the mail in September. It was also a book that I seemed to read exactly the right time, a book that articulated a new-to-me political philosophy at a moment when the limits of a two party political system were starting to wear me down. Future Perfect is an exploration of a political worldview that is deeply optimistic that progress is still possible and that new solutions will emerge as we all learn to work better together.