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NPR—Best Books of 2016

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Use the filters below to explore more than 300 titles NPR staff and critics loved this year. (You can also combine filters!) Want even more recommendations? Check out our favorite books from2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010,2009, 2008

Another Un-Poem

 

I felt you turn from me.

I didn’t seek your return, or touch your hair,

rewind anything.

I played the records of loss,

heard about not knowing.

Fed my anger until there was another

standing there.

Our bodies were so sweet,

sweaty with sand and sun,

flesh against flesh.

un-poem


Something hidden by retreats
chiseled
Counted in rungs of iron beds
moving trucks
metal upon teeth
and still
your hair wound round my shoulder
your body across the stars

Dear Thief

Thoughts of the novel by Samantha Harvey continue to tug at me long after the read. So I keep checking back to see if anyone on the reviews has thought my thoughts on it. Not yet. I thought it was fairly obvious that the narrator is not at all in love with her husband, but the thief. It’s not the woman who has stolen the husband, but the husband who has stolen the woman. The affair is a betrayal, but not the way the narrator sees it. In fact, the narrator writes so well of the other woman that we see her, and not much of the husband. I don’t see this as a failing, in fact I believe this makes it stronger, better. It’s too bad that the author doesn’t see this, nevermind the narrator. I give the novel an overall B, not because of the misplaced longing, but because the prose does go on a bit. There’s no break in the pace, it’s pretty non-stop and a bit heavy handed. A good read. An even better thief, one I fell in love with too.

The Path

The Path