The Final Books of 2017

2018 is now upon us, but before I can get started on it I have one last chore to wrap up: I need to discuss the last few books I read in 2017.

73) Simon Garfield's Mauve was way more interesting than it seemed like it should be from a summary. It's a biography of chemist William Perkin, the man who invented the color mauve and the process for using it to color other objects, mostly through a laboratory accident. It's also the story of the growth and recognition of chemistry as a science, the ways in which industry impacted governments, commerce, the environment, and public health, and the ways in which our lives and world will change once fossil fuels, the source of so many artificial colors and dyes, are exhausted. There was a little bit in this book for everyone: science, history, fashion, and humor, and it was written at a conversational level that made it easy to get into.

74) Coming off of "Mauve" I went straight into Kassia St. Claire's The Secret Lives of Color, which tells the story of mauve but also of dozens of other shades of the rainbow. In short chapters of a few pages each, St. Claire describes when a color entered human history, how it was used and manufactured, and how it was and still is viewed. From colors restricted to only royalty (Imperial Yellow) to colors that led to the extinction of species (Tyrian Purple) to colors made from human remains (Mummy), this is a fascinating trip through history and a nice compliment to "Mauve", telling a similar story on a much grander scale.

75) While I enjoyed those two books, Mark Frost's Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier made me kind of angry, because it tells a bunch of stories we should have seen on the recent third season revival. Narrated by FBI Agent Tammy Preston, one of the key players in the third season, this is a report on all the main families and characters from the first two seasons of "Twin Peaks", and my problem with it is that this is the show I wanted to watch. Twenty five years later, I wanted to know where Donna Hayward was. I wanted to know what happened to Annie Blackburn. I wanted to know how James Hurley ended up working security at the Great Northern, and how Bobby Briggs became a deputy sheriff, and instead I got ten hours of hoping Agent Cooper would finally remember how to talk.

This book, to me, feels like a cheat. It feels like Mark Frost knew that fans of David Lynch would love the surreal, bizarre third season of the show, but fans of the show itself would walk away disappointed, and this book seems to be the attempt to appease both groups. Lynch fans got to watch 19 hours of unrestrained, bizarre television, and Twin Peaks fans get a two hour book report of everyone that the show didn't have time to cover.

76) A year after finishing the second book in Gordon Merrick's "Charlie and Peter" trilogy, I finally finished the third book, Forth Into The Light, which barely features Charlie and Peter at all. When they do show up, it's to muddle through the same conflicts as the last two books: do they really love each other, does being gay make them less manly, will they stay together or be torn apart by circumstances and their own self doubt, etc. In addition to the casual racism that the earlier chapters featured, this one has a side helping of condoning spousal rape and domestic violence, an attempt by Peter to become more heterosexual by convincing a lesbian to fall in love with him, and at least one suicide related to sexual orientation. Gay people, and gay literature, deserve way better than this book and, really, this whole trilogy.

77) Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians is a glittering, entertaining soap opera set in Singapore. Rachel Chu, a professor in New York City, agrees to attend a wedding in Singapore for her fiancé's best friend from childhood, unaware that Nicholas' family is one of the wealthiest families in the country and that her sudden appearance among them will ruffle the feathers of their complicated social structure. Is Nicholas planning to marry this girl he's bringing home? And who is she? What does she want? Now Rachel finds herself in a treacherous world of social climbers, private planes, luxury yachts, and a family that will stop at nothing to protect their ideas of class and the reality of their wealth.

This was a great vacation read, and I'm excited to see that it's a trilogy. Hopefully I'll end up enjoying it more than the one above.

78) L.A. Jacobs returns to the world of magical convict Mike LeBonte in Grimaulkin: Tempted, the second book in a series. When Mike's sister gets married, Mike agrees to housesit her apartment and dog while she and Dom are on their honeymoon. It sounds like it should be a quiet, restful couple of weeks, but then Mike's cousin, Becky, is being followed by the Mafia and by the creepy church cult she's trying to get out of. Possibly worse, Mike's boyfriend, Scott, is getting a visit from his ex. Mike is still forbidden from summoning entities to perform his magic, and all he wants to do is burn all his problems down. Will he succumb to the temptation of forbidden power to solve his mounting problems? Or will he manage to stay on the complicated path his parole officer has assigned him? This was a good read, but fast.

79) Elizabeth Hand's Wylding Hall is a short, slightly creepy story of music and tragedy. A few decades ago, the surviving members of British folk band Windhollow Faire spent a summer in the country at Wylding Hall, recovering from the suicide of one of their founding members. While there, they recorded an album that made their reputation and careers, but it would also be their last album, because their lead singer, Julian, disappeared inside Wylding Hall and has never been seen again. Now, in the present day, the surviving band members, their producer, a reporter, a photographer, and a member's former girlfriend all come together for a documentary about what happened that summer, and they each try to explain their part in it.

The band is on the edge of something great, but the house isn't what it seems. There are parts that are recently constructed, but they're built on top of older parts, that are built on top of even older parts. Doors are locked and unlocked at random, rooms seem to come and go, and the local farmer who brings their groceries each week constantly cautions them to stay out of the woods. Something lives in Wylding Hall, and it wants Julian. Even scarier, Julian seems to want it just as badly, and the rest of the band is caught in the middle.

This was short, but very atmospheric, and is a great haunted house story.

And now, with those books out of the way, it's time to start reading my way into 2018.