2010s - A SPECTACULAR Read! Holy Smokes! | Reading Through the Decades

[00:00:00]Within this project, I have taken a little bit of a break and I'm feeling slightly rusty, but without, you know, hello.

[00:00:07]Hello. Oh my gosh.

[00:00:12]Hi. Hello. Welcome or welcome back.

[00:00:17]Today, I am going to be discussing the 2010s in terms of literature. I'm very excited to get into this with you. I've read a lot from this decade and so I think it will be rich with um a lot of information, I believe. So, if you are new, then you have stumbled across a channel entitled my name, Shelley Swearingen, where I talk about books and what I'm reading. And this is This video is particularly a video that's in a larger project where I read a book for a single decade and I went through 10 consecutive decades and I'm doing a like a a summary a round-up of global events, uh defining books of the decade, what I've read, and then I go into a single book review on what I have, you know, what what I read for the project in particular. So, um subscribe if you're not yet subscribed and you're interested in it. But without any further rambling on, let's go ahead and get into the meat of this video. I like to talk about global events to kind of frame up what was going on in terms of geopolitics and the globe at large. I really speed run through this. So, the first major event that happened between 2010 and 2011 was something entitled Arab Spring, which was a wave of anti-government protests, uprising, and rebellions that swept across the Middle East and North Africa, toppling leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. In part because of Arab Spring, the Syrian Civil War escalated, causing a huge humanitarian crisis and mass displacement, uh paving the way for the rise of ISIS in Syria. In 2015, the United States legalized same-sex marriage. In 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. It is sort of tickley called Brexit. The first image of a black hole was taken in 2019, which is just so incredible. And of course, we see the rise of smartphones and social media rampant all through the 2010s.

[00:02:24]Let's look at what LitHub chose as the 10 defining books of the decade. This article came out in 2018, so they tickley said the 10 defining books of the decade so far since you can't include the rest of 2018 and 2019. So, we'll keep that in mind. Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, it's a musical interconnected short story kind of novel. The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht. The first translation of this very popular novel came out in 2012. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. 10th of December by George Saunders. Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric.

[00:03:04]Karl Ove Knausgård's first translation of My Struggle came out in 2014. The ultimate soul-destroying read A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Another Pulitzer Prize-winner, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. And There There by Tommy Orange. Let's talk about what I read from the decade and I'm really cherry-picking because I have read so much from this decade. And a lot of what LitHub highlighted, I'm going to also go over because I've read a lot from their list. So, the first is going to be Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, first translated into English in 2012 by Ann Goldstein.

[00:03:46]This is an interesting book because before a certain moment, which I will get to in just a second, Before a certain moment, this book was popular to a point. I think it really attracted litfic readers, people who were interested in women in translation.

[00:04:02]Um I think that it sort of had I a certain je ne sais quoi with readers.

[00:04:07]Then it got a television adaptation, which is not the moment that I'm talking about. The moment is that the New York Times put together this massive list of the best books of the century so far, and it landed with a splash for anybody who reads or pays attention in a certain way to the book world, you would know that the New York Times put out this massive list, and their number one book was Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend. And it is the story of two young girls growing up in a very poor town in Italy, and it is the 1950s thereabouts, and there is a real strong undercurrent of what it's like to grow up in poverty, to be friends as young women who are definitely the second sex in this town, in this city, and that's how they are treated, what education can do for you, what it's like to be a very smart young lady and growing up with the sort of stigma of, you know, women aren't supposed to be educated. A lot of those themes while navigating a friendship that is very meaningful and very important, but has its ups and downs. And as you move through different stages in your life, you realize or recontextualize moments that happened years ago, months ago. And so, you know, it's you're always sort of learning and growing, and it really captures that quite well of a friendship, a young woman, young women who are smart, who are learning, who are growing, and who are definitely under privileged and not celebrated for their intelligence. And so, there was a lot obviously a lot of themes that I I really liked in it.

[00:05:46]Though, as time has passed and as I have finished out the four-book quartet that goes with My Brilliant Friend, it's it's a four-book quartet, I sometimes question as to whether it should really have been the number one book for the 21st century, according to the New York Times and according to the century so far. It's good to a point. Let's pivot to a little bit of historical fiction, and we'll start with Bring Up the Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, which was published in 2012. This is the second book in her Thomas Cromwell series, and this is going to be focusing on the downfall of Anne Boleyn. And very famously doesn't give Henry the heir that he the male heir that he so desperately wants. And she starts to fall out of favor, and he is trying to figure out a way to divorce her. And so the the concoction, the story that that is her downfall is that she was unfaithful to her husband the king. And the the ending of the book is so like magnificent and energized. It's this court case.

[00:06:57]People are being questioned, and you just it's like I don't know that the way that Hilary Mantel puts it all together is just like this rush of energy. It's almost unputdownable. It's so good. And and it's her shortest of her three books.

[00:07:12]And to me, the way that I see this series is that you have Wolf Hall, which sets up Thomas Cromwell's rise to power. And the Anne Boleyn years is Cromwell's peak to power, and as he is peaking, Anne Boleyn is falling. And so that that sort of trajectory and and dichotomy and like watching it all happen and watching it all unravel in the way that Hilary Mantel does so is is so fascinating and enjoyable. I love the book if you couldn't tell. On a more sobering note, another historical fiction work is Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, which was first published in 2016 and was the first of two Pulitzer Prize wins to his name. So, this is a story in which the it is about the Underground Railroad, which was a system devised among many many many people to help slaves run away from their plantation being owned in the South and run away to freedom in the North. And so, we're following a principal character who is on this journey on the Underground Railroad, but Colson Whitehead really spins this narrative on its tail because there is a lot of incorporation of magical magic just like magic magical realism and and it it it is the levity to the absolute um harsh and and really difficult moments to read. When I was reading this book, and it took me about a week to read or or 5 days the entire 5 days I had nightmares that the book conjured into my head. It was like nightmares that of scenes that I had read within the book because it it is just so harsh.

[00:08:54]And it's so sad because Whitehead was only using what actually happened in American history to those who were of color to slaves. And so, he's not inventing in a way. He's not inventing any of these these harshities. He's using reality to create this nightmare and this energy because then you really start to root for this main character and you just you just want her to find peace and freedom.

[00:09:20]And yet there is this juxtaposition of this like true like gritty heart heart like hard moments to read. I often have said now I've read two Whitehead books.

[00:09:30]I read both of his Pulitzer Prize-winning books. So, The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad. And what I've said is that he's just too good at his craft for me. He writes horror-esque, like difficult books to read, horror-esque works, and they really do get in the midst of me in a way that other reads other horror books do not.

[00:09:51]Since we're on a a rather sobering note, we'll continue in this vein with Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life. This is a story about four friends, at least it opens with this story of four friends who are young adults, uh all young men, and they are living in the northeast of the United States, and slowly we learn that this book is actually going to be about one friend, Jude, who has a mysterious past, um and not mysterious in a fun way, like mysterious in a very dark and haunting way, and slowly we we learn the traumas and and terrifying uh upbringing that Jude lived through as uh he has just made finally made his way to being an an adult, which is nothing short of being a miracle. And the scenes are so cinematic and so dark and so sad, and yet so compulsively readable. Um and this is a very polarizing book. I read it, I think, kind of like sort of right before it really skyrocketed into popularity, um with on the internet for people like filming themselves and crying while they're reading it. That's like a whole thing. There's a lot of memes and a lot of trends that have come out of the reading of Little a little life, which is, you know, that you need a box of tissues when you read it, or like capturing yourself crying on camera while reading the book. Um I I was not quite there when this these trends were happening. I think I read it pre-the trends, um uh or I just sort of read it organically and I didn't see those trends. I'm not really sure. So, when I read it, I read it sort of in good faith, not knowing that it was going to be sad, and holy smokes, it was just so so sad. So sad.

[00:11:34]Like amazing that anybody could have, not that this is a true story, but just like amazing that anybody could have lived through the childhood that Jude lives through, through the young adulthood that he lives through. Just immensely heart-wrenching. And it really is playing off Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, which is also one of the saddest books ever written.

[00:11:53]Hanya Yanagihara now competes with that title with Thomas Hardy because of her book A Little Life. And it it's just like no mistake. I don't think there's any mistake that this young man is named Jude, and it's also competing for another sad book named after someone named Jude.

[00:12:09]And it it it's heartbreaking, but it's also beautiful. Like it's one of my favorite books. It really just made me I don't I was so lost in its pages when I read it.

[00:12:21]And I have just I've really loved the book. And like I've said, it's just a very polarizing book, especially to talk about on the internet. So, leave your comments in in a polite way if you have some a different opinion than mine. Though I really love the book even though it was sad. It was just like so good. How long are we going to stay on this sad train?

[00:12:42]So, we're going to we're going to pivot to something a little bit different, but also going to be kind of sad. So, we have H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald Macdonald, who's just had a film adaptation come out of of her book. And this is a memoir, and it's a memoir of the grief of losing her father. So, Helen her father passes away, and what she decides to do in the months after her father's death is to train a goshawk.

[00:13:09]And she is just in this this just like these waves of grief of losing some somebody that she really loved. And so, as she feels almost like a menace to society in a way, that she now feels like just so isolated within her own grief, um and is doing this thing that is also isolating to society, which is training a good goshawk, which is its own sort of ordeal. She starts to think deeply and to meditate on someone else who trained a goshawk who also felt like somebody on the outside of society, which was T.H. White, the author of the the Once and Future King. And as she is thinking about her own It's like she They are connected in their grief because T.H. White was a queer man and was never really allowed to live out, um his queerness. And so he is, you know, he is sort of within himself living this grief of his life as she is now living the grief, um of her life at having lost a parent. And then they all They both retrieve into their grief in the same manner, which is by training a goshawk.

[00:14:16]And so it is beautifully It is just beautifully rendered. It really, um braids these, uh narratives together, the grief of her father, the grief of T.H. White, and the training of the goshawk. And she really just braids it all together just so beautifully. It is such a beautiful book. And, um I I highly recommend it to to anybody for which this might sound remotely like your kind of thing. A book that I I feel very mixed about, okay?

[00:14:45]And this author, she has just skyrocketed in popularity. She has She is a an author that people read and will continue to read, um as far as I am concerned that I could see If I could see into the future, I'm like, people will be reading her for decades to come because of her popularity. And it is Sally Rooney, and it is her book Normal People, which is her second book. Um it was the second book that she had published, and it was longlisted for the Booker, which is known to be one of like the snobbiest, most elite prizes in the, um in the literary world, we'll say. Uh and it has a reputation for picking very sort of snobby and um you know, highfalutin books, right? Now, Normal People doesn't fall into that category per se. It is really a It is a rom-com book. It is a light book. It is a about a relationship of two young people in high school um really trying to figure out who they are and they sort of are like magnets at times um being pulled towards each other, but at times also repelling each other. And you sort of have this push and pull between a couple of these two people um through their high school years and a little bit after their high school years. And what was interesting about it is that you one would sort of categorize Normal People as like women's lit, chick lit, um not necessarily romantic comedy uh but it could be sort of like uh romantic like a dramedy almost like a something that sort of is within both categories of being a little bit lighter and yet has like the elements of drama to it.

[00:16:23]And so, I think there was at the time a lot of discussion about you know, sort of the validity of Normal People being on the Booker while also being praised by a lot of readers saying finally a book that I actually enjoy that is on the Booker. And so, I think a lot of this really skyrocketed, really fueled this fire of Sally Rooney becoming the author that she is today meaning that every book that she writes she already has like a base audience that will go out and read it that is quite large. Um her base audience being uh quite quite a few people. Um and and the thing is is that I read this and before sort of before I knew all of the uh the conversation surrounding uh Normal People and I just thought it was okay. I was like, "Yeah, it's entertaining to a point. Um it's enjoyable to a point. I don't think it will stick with me." And it really hasn't and uh and and then you sort of realize that you know, some people just think she's the most brilliant writer that ever has laid a pen to a page and I'm like, that's just truly not true. It's just not true.

[00:17:24]And And so, I think it kind of irritates me or it sort of bristles me a little bit that she does have this sort of reputation as a literary author that I feel like is is just not as not not well-earned in in a sense.

[00:17:40]Gosh, I really hope I didn't make anyone mad by saying this. I just think that she's overrated. There you go. She is overrated. Let's talk about a book that I I think deserves all the hype all the hype that it gets and it is Milkman by Anna Burns. This won the Booker in the year that it was submitted so either in 2019 or 2020. And I love this. I I love this book. It is about a young woman growing up in Northern Ireland and she is she she's just she's just not normal. I mean, she just sits right outside the sort of spectrum of of being normal. She reads while she walks. She reads while she walks and that is like her thing and people around her knowing that there are dangers about going in Northern Ireland in that she could be targeted not only for her age and for her gender, but also because she's doing this weird thing that is making her stand out and a lot of people who care about her say, "Stop making yourself stand out." basically.

[00:18:36]>> [snorts] >> Um and and it's the story and this conflict that is very much talking about and set within the troubles of Northern Ireland, but also just just this conflict among among her family and the disagreements that they have amongst each other. And it is written in this incredibly weird, but charming way in that everybody has a nickname. And I'm not talking nickname like Poodle or Tutsi or Frankie or Georgie. No, no, no. It's everyone that is in relation to the young woman who is telling the story. So, she is nameless, but then she also gives everybody the nickname in that, you know, if she's talking about her brother-in-law, she'll just say my sister's husband. Um, or when she's talking about her younger sibling, she'll say the three little ones. Um, or you know, that's why the milkman is actually his name. It's not like a nickname for I mean, it is a nickname for someone who actually has a name, but that's all he's named in the book is milkman, um, who is uh, just somebody who is a menace to the neighborhood. And so, it's told in this way, but it does this really weird thing, which I think is quite effective, is that it feels as if I'm talking to a friend. And maybe it's a friend I I haven't seen for a really long time, and I don't really know her circumstances. And so, she is telling me, instead of being like, my, you know, my aunt Becky, or Becky, my aunt, my my dad's sister, instead she'll just be like, my dad's sister, my dad's sister, my dad's sister, instead of being like, trying to remind me of who that person's name is. And so, it kind of created this really interesting intimacy as a reader that I was like very invested in her story, and it really felt like somebody that I knew. There was some there was like a a sort of intimacy that it created that I quite liked. And the story is extremely extremely well done, um, and really creative, and really just, I mean, it has it kind of has a little bit of everything in it, um, in that it's got funny moments, and and less serious moments, and really quirky moments. It is overall a very quirky book. I do think that the ending could have been fleshed out a little bit better, but overall I'm not mad at it.

[00:20:31]We'll end with two non-fiction books.

[00:20:33]The first is going to be Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. This came out in 2015, and I have read it twice. It is a phenomenal book. It is structured like letters to his son. Um, I think it's three letters to his son.

[00:20:47]And he's talking to his son about his upbringing, pivotal moments in Ta-Nehisi Coates's life, um, of what it was like to grow up as a black man in the United States, and different experiences that really opened his eyes to the world, both good and, um, ill, uh, for good and for ill, that of of things that really shaped him. It is a powerful book. It is an emotional book. There is an indictment against the American dream and who that is available to, the American dream is available to, but it also is just a very smart book and just like charged. It's a charged book. Um and I I really learned a lot from it and I really um have I have gleaned a lot from it and it it still sticks with me to this today. Another book that has stuck with me fully is uh Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, which this book is phenomenal. I guess I had two books on uh the Troubles in Northern Northern Ireland because that's what this is about. This is about the Troubles in Northern Ireland and it starts with that uh the fact that there was a missing person. Uh there was a mother that was missing and she disappeared um not not exactly sure what happens. And so it has this like who done it feel, like what happened to this mother um who was living in Northern Ireland. And um and so he follows a lot he he uses that to kind of get you in and then talk about, you know, how the Troubles started and who were the major players in it and then always kind of touching back to what happened to this woman. Um and uh just it was such it's such a phenomenal book. Again, it's so energetic and so um so just well like well constructed, well written, but just charged in a way that like you it's like you almost want to just be in it in its pages. Uh it has this like compulsory compulsory Is that am I even saying that right? Uh read reading uh compul Ah! It was compulsively readable. Well, that's what we'll say.

[00:22:50]Um but the the book itself is just it was so good. It was it really explained the situation well, you know, in in a way that I I felt like I was being told a really good story. I was extremely invested and walked away with feeling like I I could have a conversation about Northern Ireland and the troubles that have happened and why they've happened and why they sort of were shaped the way that they were shaped. I thought it was a phenomenal book. It was a phenomenal book and just again like you wanted to go back to it. You wanted to reread it.

[00:23:22]You wanted to be back in its pages and and just I mean a fantastic book to boot. Okay, I have rambled and rambled and rambled and rambled. So, I'm going to hand this off to Shelley who read a book for the 2010s and this was a banger of a book. I'm just going to tell you right now I'm probably spoiling the review, but this was so good and I am shocked that not more people have read it. So, I'll hand it over to other Shelley who's going to be reviewing that book.

[00:23:49]>> Hi. Hey, so I'm so excited to talk to you about my 2010s pick. Now, for most of these books I have chosen American authors and books that are set in America. This one I strayed, but it's it's such a good book.

[00:24:04]It's it's such an unusual unusual book that I thought I just I just couldn't leave it out of this project. And as this project has developed, I've actually chosen books that I've really really gotten along with. Like I'm saving gems. I don't want a middling book to be the book that represents this decade. I want a really good book that represents this decade. And for that I have a constellation of vital phenomena by Anthony Marra.

[00:24:29]Now, this is set This book is about and set during the Chechnyan War and our present timeline is actually in 2004 in this war-torn country that I knew nothing about and that Anthony Marra so gently and so delicately and respectfully starts to tell his readers about how Chechnya is a war is a war-torn country that has suffered from two wars in the last 40 years with a reprieve of about of about 10 maybe 15 years in between the two wars.

[00:25:03]And so in this war-torn country, we start off with like a quite a dramatic event. Um though the implications of how heavy the event is isn't revealed until later. However, it opens with this little girl Hava. Her father is taken from the Feds, which is just an an extremist group um fighting for control and power in this country.

[00:25:28]And Hava Hava's neighbor Ahmed takes her away before the Feds can get to her. And the Feds burn down the house to absolutely nothing.

[00:25:39]And now Ahmed has this little girl.

[00:25:41]She's maybe 8 years old.

[00:25:43]And he's kind of in this place of what do I do with her? Um she's not necessarily safe in my house. Um she's like where can I put her where she will be safe? In a place where there there is very little trust among the people.

[00:26:00]There [snorts] is a lot of violence. And there like everybody is affected by this war.

[00:26:08]And so it's like what do what do we do in this situation? What does he do in this situation? Like he wants to do right by this girl from a neighbor who was also his friend. Um but he doesn't really know how. So he thinks of this name that was given to him of a doctor that is um with like a few miles away.

[00:26:29]This doctor named Sonya.

[00:26:31]And he on faith on like faith and in a prayer takes Hava to the hospital. And Sonya is very brusque. She's not very likable. She is very focused on her work. And you get the sense that the hospital is not a refuge, but also a like it is also at the mercy of this war, meaning like you open a door and suddenly you realize that it was supposed to be a closet, but that closet was blown off in an explosion and now when you open that door, it is just open to the elements outside.

[00:27:06]And so Sonya, who's extremely busy, she's like the only doctor in the area and is serving a community that is being affected by war and bombings and shootings and that is what her life is like as a doctor.

[00:27:21]Um now she's like having to at least deal with or address this little girl being sent to her um through a stranger.

[00:27:30]So Ahmed, you know, he's like cannot what can I do?

[00:27:35]And she's like, well, you know, you make yourself useful essentially. And he's like, I am a I am also a doctor.

[00:27:43]Ahmed, he's like, I'm a doctor, so I'll help you out in the hospital.

[00:27:46]And our present timeline, which is again in 2004, spans for about I think it says 5 days. And you have this little um this little timeline timeline graph at the very top of the chapter so you know where you're at in time within the chapter. Although Marai likes to still kind of play around with time. It is very malleable within the chapters themselves even though it is anchored it to a certain year, right?

[00:28:10]And so we have we have that. Um and what was I going to say? So Ahmed starts helping out in the hospital. We find out he's a terrible doctor. Um so we have his kind of light bright cherry sort of I don't know, like like his um like he I don't know, almost like he doesn't take life too seriously kind of attitude. Um we have Ahmed who which is contrasted to Sonya, who's hard and really we find out right away that Sonya's sister is lost, is not there.

[00:28:42]And so her driving question is what happened to my sister Natasha? And she's always wondering that and she's always drilling down into that that question.

[00:28:52]That's what drives her.

[00:28:54]>> [snorts] >> And and then we experience these characters and how they connect and how they relate. We also get another neighbor, um another one of Akhmed's neighbors that's separate from Hava and her father. It's an older man and his son who is an informer for one of the extremist groups.

[00:29:12]And so it's like you have this I don't know this person who is choosing wrong, the informer, and you have this father who is grieved deeply by that.

[00:29:23]Um we have, you know, Akhmed who's trying to do right by this little girl.

[00:29:27]We have Sonya who's looking for her sister and we have Hava who's just a little girl trying to trying to make it through this difficult period. Me and meanwhile we want to know like what happened to her father and why are all these questions lingering of these like what what ends up being a core group of about eight characters and slowly, very slowly, Anthony Marra starts to tell the story of each of these characters. And oh my goodness, is it satisfying? Is it interesting? It lit me up. If you think that what I had shared is any kind of spoiler, it is absolutely not. The what I have said will just kind of set you up for what the novel is actually about.

[00:30:09]And in some ways, which is one of the highest compliments I can give it, it gives me vibes of like Rabih Alameddine who wrote An Unnecessary Woman and The Truth About the Story of Roger the Gullible in that we are in a war-torn country. A country that even if you are not part of the war, you are affected by the war. And to be in that setting is is hard and difficult and I think in some ways the question that Marra is asking at the center of it all, as well as Alameddine in his works, is how do you maintain your humanity even in a place like this that is constantly trying to take your joy, that is constantly challenging your beliefs and your faith and your faith in humanity, right? And so, I just love this.

[00:30:56]I love this. I loved learning about Chechnya. I loved the way that Anthony Marra told the story. I loved how we got such a satisfying conclusion for each of the characters. I'm not saying that it's a happy ending for each of the characters and I will say that much of this is very like there are some really dark and brutal moments in this book, but they all felt like they were there to drive the story forward and to drive the narr- the narration forward and the character development. And you just at at at all all of it all of that the center of all of it is like you cared deeply about these characters and you wanted them to find what they were looking for and find peace in their situation. And so, it just it was just an incredible book. I loved it so much.

[00:31:47]I was like, oh my goodness. So, I learned a little bit about Marra. I mean, just through the back flap. I have this other book, which I heard is not as ambitious nor as well executed as this one and I forget what it's called. I'll flash it on the screen if I remember. Um but I have that book now, but I'm like this one if it's not nearly as good as this one, I'm like this one's just so good. I'm like I still I loved it so much. So, um yeah, he was he oh, he got his MFA at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is currently um at a fellow at Stanford. Anyways, he studied Eastern Europe and now resides in Oakland, California. And I was like, oh man, that's I mean, the fact that he studied Eastern Europe really shows and he doesn't flaunt his knowledge. He's just yeah, just makes good company and that he's in Oakland, California in person. I lived somewhat near Oakland. So I was like, we have that connection. Man, this it just like for like 48 hours after this reading this book, I like couldn't I I was like bursting at the seams to talk about it with anybody because I just thought it was so good.

[00:32:54]It's like humanity through war, how to find peace in these like inter-violent times, like when humanity surprises you in some ways.

[00:33:03]So good. So good and so interesting and it all ties up really well and really smartly. I just really love this, okay?

[00:33:10]So, this is our 2010 book. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for being here and spending this time with me. I appreciate [music] you so much and I hope to see you all in my next one.

[00:33:21]Bye.

[00:33:30]>> [music]