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Sunday, Dec 23, 2012 3:55 PM UTC

What To Read Awards: Lev Grossman

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Topics: Books, What To Read Awards, Best of 2012,

What To Read Awards: Lev Grossman

Lev Grossman is the book critic for Time magazine.

Lev’s top 10:

1. “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green
2. “Bring Up the Bodies” by Hilary Mantel
3. “My Friend Dahmer” by Derf Backderf
4. “The Casual Vacancy” by J.K. Rowling
5. “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” by Ben Fountain
6. “At Last” by Edward St. Aubyn
7. “The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There” by Catherynne Valente
8. “Are You My Mother?” by Alison Bechdel
9. “Building Stories” by Chris Ware
10. “Code Name Verity” by Elizabeth Wein

1. Explain why your No. 1 book was your favorite title of the year: John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars” is accessible, engaging and charming, but both its charm and its genre category (young adult) are deceptive: This book is an emotional powerhouse about death and disappointment. It’s wrenching and raw and dark and true.

2. What was the strongest debut book of 2012? Ben Fountain’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.”

3. What book sits outside your list, but has either been overlooked or deserves more attention? I can think of two: Josh Bazell’s “Wild Thing” and Michelle Hodkin’s “The Evolution of Mara Dyer.” Both fiercely smart writers hell-bent on entertaining readers and inverting genre expectations and just generally raising the stakes of the genres they write in. If they weren’t writing novels they’d be hunting for missing bosons — they’re that smart.

4. Was there one book, either on your list or off your list, fiction or nonfiction, that seems to best encapsulate America in 2012? Ben Fountain’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.” That’s pretty much the whole point of that novel.

5. What was the single most memorable character from a 2012 book? Jeffrey Dahmer in “My Friend Dahmer.”

6. What is the book from 2012, either from your list or not, fiction or nonfiction, that is most likely to join the canon, or still be discussed 20 years from now? Chris Ware’s “Building Stories.”

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Lev Grossman is a novelist and journalist who lives in New York. More Lev Grossman.

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  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

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