The force of nature that is editor Sharyn November has happily checked in at Chasing Ray to share her favorite reads of 2007. For those of you who are not acquainted with November, she is a senior editor at Viking Children's Books and the Editorial Director of the Firebird imprint. (One of Firebird's current titles, Indigara by Tanith Lee, is reviewed in my December column.) To learn more about her you can visit her extensive web site which includes a ton of quirky information (her obsessive behavior patterns entry is a fav of mine) as well as major booklists for the past few years. Sharyn reads 1,000 words per minute, so there are a lot of books to those lists.

Here are five books she read and liked a lot this year:

Elizabeth Hand: GENERATION LOSS
Ellen Emerson White: LONG MAY SHE REIGN
Gabrielle Zevin: MEMOIRS OF A TEENAGE AMNESIAC
Gustav Hasford: THE SHORT-TIMERS
Kathe Koja: KISSING THE BEE

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Okay, I definitely have to read Liz Hand's book - Gwenda gave it lots of love also (as well as like a zillion other people) and so even if I don't get it for Christmas (it's been on my list for a month!) I will still be reading it next year. That's it - I'm committed to this one.

I just finished Long May She Reign and both loved it a lot and wanted to throw it across the room. I'm very conflicted by this book. I think White did an amazing job of showing PTSD in a teenager and also revealed so much about life in the White House that you wonder how she could write about it so effectively without having lived there. But...the big romantic relationship in the book did not work for me; it never seemed honest or real and frankly, I think any other girl would have dumped this guy in a second. So I'm frustrated by the overall story and feel a wee bit cheated.

See the conflict?

I have not read Kissing the Bee or Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, but I'm a fan of both authors and look forward to these books - Kathe Koja's especially. As for The Short-Timers, that title, as it turns out, is the basis for the movie Full Metal Jacket, one of the most impressive war movies ever made, in my opinion. Here's Harlan Ellison on the book:

"Nothing I've read that tried to convey the monstrousness of that grave-maker known as the war in Viet Nam even remotely approaches the eloquence of The Short-Timers. It is one of the most amazing stretches of writing I've ever encountered. Like Paths of Glory, Company K and The Red Badge of Courage, it is an unsparing, clenched-teeth, last will and testament that names us all as heirs to the madness of war. Gustav Hasford has written a fine, fine book: honest and painful and terribly important."

While the book is out of print (travesty!) Gustav Hasford has made the entire text available for download at this site. Chapter by chapter, this is on my list for 2008.

Thanks for the recommendations Sharyn!

[Be sure to check Bildungsroman where authors have been checking in all week with their favorite reads for 2007.]