Ranking Recommendations

In talking with Lewis last week, I mentioned The Printmaker's Daughter, which I'd just blogged about. He wanted to know if it was really as good as I'd written because when I'd written about When We Danced on Water earlier in the year, I'd called it "the best work of fiction I've read in nearly a year." How could I then turn around a few months later and write that Katherine Govier's historical novel was "the best book I'd come across in ten—perhaps twenty—years"? It seemed to Lewis that I tended to wax overly rhapsodic in recommending favorite reads, but really, I'm not. Let me explain my recommendation philosophy.

As somebody who writes about books for a living, and has done so for well over a decade, I read, on average, a hundred books a year. The majority of books I read are average at best. In any given year I read several that I would consider in the "B" range, and only one or two that I would grade "A." I'm not actually assigning grades to the books I recommend here, but that doesn't mean I didn't assign grades to them in my personal reading database. Most of the books that I recommend here are the best of the best, those that earned A's from me.

Consider my recommendations analogous to flood event designations. A one-year flood is not very severe; it is likely to occur perhaps annually. A five-year flood, on the other hand, is more severe and more rare; it is likely to occur only once every five years. And a hundred year flood is so rare it is expected only once a century. When I write that a book is the best I've read in a year (like When We Danced on Water or How to Talk to a Widower), it's a great read, and better than probably the 98 or 99 other books I've read in a given year, but it's not as great as a ten or twenty year "flood" read like The Printmaker's Daughter.

Now that you know about the best books I've read this year—and where they rank overall—I'd love for you to share yours with me here on the blog. If you do, please let me know if they are one-year, five year, or ten-year reads...and why.

~Laurie

Book Recommendation: The Printmaker's Daughter

The Printmaker's Daughter

Katherine Govier

Historical Fiction

Harper Perennial, $14.99, 512p, ISBN: 978-0062000361

Also available digitally for Kindle and Nook

From the publisher: Recounting the story of her life, Oei plunges us into the colorful world of nineteenth-century Edo, in which courtesans rub shoulders with poets, warriors consort with actors, and the arts flourish in an unprecedented moment of creative upheaval. Oei and Hokusai live among writers, novelists, tattoo artists, and prostitutes, evading the spies of the repressive shogunate as they work on Hokusai’s countless paintings and prints. Wielding her brush, rejecting domesticity in favor of dedication to the arts, Oei defies all expectations of womanhood—all but one. A dutiful daughter to the last, she will obey the will of her eccentric father, the man who created her and who, ultimately, will rob her of her place in history.

Vivid, daring, and unforgettable, The Printmaker’s Daughter shines fresh light on art, loyalty, and the tender and indelible bond between a father and daughter.

---

Harold happened to be home the day I read the last hundred pages of Katherine Govier's The Printmaker's Daughter, and witnessed such an outpouring of tears that he counseled me to think of bunnies and unicorns. I tried to explain to him that he needn't be worried about my crying, that the experience of reading the best book I'd come across in ten—perhaps twenty— years was worth it. More to the point, all my crying was a testament to the power of Govier's writing, story-telling, and characterization.

Sometimes it's best to say little about a great work.

Buy this book. It goes on sale November 22nd.

Read this book.

Revel in its brilliance.

~Laurie