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Writers are readers, always have been, always will be.
So who better to recommend worthy books during the holiday season. What follows are the best books read in 2006 by notable Northwest writers:
Tom Robbins, "Villa Incognito," La Conner.
"Don't Point That Thing at Me" by Kyril Bonfiglioli. "Laden with ornate language and a dangerous wit, this is the first volume in a reissued trilogy of British comic crime novels that feature a degenerate aristocratic art dealer and his thug of a butler. It's like P.G. Wodehouse with live ammunition."
Jayne Ann Krentz, "White Lies," Seattle.
"The Messenger" by Daniel Silva. "This features Silva's art-restorer/assassin/spy Gabriel Allon, and the backdrop is terrorism. Silva's research alone makes the book a terrific read, but the bottom line is that he is one heck of a storyteller."
Greg Bear, "Quantico," Seattle.
"The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" by T.E. Lawrence. "An astonishing chronicle of guerrilla warfare against the Turks during the First World War ... observations on the clash of Islamic desert culture with the West hit the bull's-eye every time -- more than prescient."
Karen Fisher, "A Sudden Country," Lopez Island.
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. "This lean, pure story of survival is predictably stylized and infernal, and the prose (as always) opens its author to both parody and profound admiration. But if love is the engine of human endeavor, this dark parable -- stripped and pushed beyond extremes -- shows how beautiful, how terrible, how rational and mad that engine is."
Charles D'Ambrosio, "The Dead Fish Museum," Portland.
"Straight Life" by Art Pepper. This autobiography (of the noted jazz musician) is a really worthy look at a very complex man ... who lived without a pose and paid the price, over and over. Just as good as Genet."
Timothy Egan, "The Worst Hard Time," Seattle.
"The Perfect Mile" by Neil Bascomb. As a runner, this really got my juices flowing. It's the story of three men in the 1950s, from three different continents, trying to break the four-minute mile. Sort of a 'Seabiscuit' for human trotters in the pre-Nike age."
Kristin Hannah, "Magic Hour," Bainbridge Island.
"The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. "It's a beautiful, emotional story, elegantly told, about a young man's search for the missing author of his favorite novel. An absorbing mystery, a heartbreaking romance and a fascinating portrait of post-war Spain, it's truly one of the best books I've read in years."
John Vaillant, "The Golden Spruce," Vancouver, B.C.
"Shadow of the Bear" by Brian Payton. "This is a courageous, surprising and fascinating series of encounters with the world's eight surviving bear species ... (that) takes us first-hand into the complex and sometimes highly dangerous relationships between human beings and those endangered lords of the mountain, forest, ice and jungle."
David Guterson, "Snow Falling on Cedars," Bainbridge Island.
"Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996" by Seamus Heaney. "What a pleasure it was to read just one or two of these poems a day for months on end this year and find Heaney never missing a beat, always moving."
Stella Cameron, "A Marked Man," Kirkland.
"Dressed for Death" by Donna Leon. "This is one of a series of stories set in Venice and starring Commissario Guido Brunetti. The plot is a grabber, grisly, humorous in places, devoid of cliche or coincidence. But it is Brunetti ... who steals the show."
Charles R. Cross, "Room Full of Mirrors," Seattle.
"The Lay of the Land" by Richard Ford. "This -- the third of Ford's trilogy of Frank Bascombe -- is the kind of reaching, beefy American novel that I grew up wanting to write but now I'm just pleased that any writer is tackling work this ambitious."
Jonathan Raban, "Surveillance," Seattle.
"The Prince of the Marshes" by Rory Stewart. "Experience the tragic folly of trying to occupy and govern Iraq as seen first hand by a young and once-idealistic diplomat. Stewart brings to life on the page, the multitude of tribal, sectarian, political and class divisions in his sector of the country -- divisions that we should have understood before we launched our catastrophic Mesopotamian adventure."
Heather McHugh, "Hinge and Sign," Seattle.
"Poems the Size of Photographs" by Les Murray. "The book that struck most deeply was a book in which a single poem so wowed me (and reminded me of its author's prowess) that I can't forget it. The poem (sheer genius) is 'At the Widening of War.' "
Erik Larson, "Thunderstruck," Seattle.
"Berlin Diary" by William L. Shirer. "His eyewitness account of Germany in the years before World War II reads like a thriller -- a particularly bleak thriller. For any student of the Bush administration's manipulation of public sentiment over the last half-decade, Shirer's observations will have powerful resonance."
Brenda Peterson, "Animal Heart," Seattle.
"Reading Like a Writer" by Francine Prose. "This is the book I wish I had written for its clarity and generous guide to meeting other writers on the page."
Charles Johnson, "Dr. King's Refrigerator and Other Stories," Seattle.
"Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July" by James A. Colaiaco. "This book examines a really important speech that Douglass gave in which he challenges his audience to look at the major freedoms that black Americans do not have. The author uses the speech as a springboard to the drama of events precipitating the Civil War. ... We need to realize how we got here."
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