Favourite books of 2007

Honorable Mentions: Pirate Freedom, Black Cherry, Vimanarama, We3, Evolution and Christian Faith, Born Fi' Dead, Nine Parts of Desire, British Summertime, The Necessary Beggar, The Fate of Mice.

10. Bienfait, by Stephen L. Endicott. I read this history book for a class but it's still on this list. That tells you it's pretty good. It's the story of miners in a little town in Saskatchewan, who went on strike in 1931. The mine operators and the government did various tricky and coercive things to try to break the strike. The RCMP ended up killing three of the miners during a parade that went awry, and it went awry largely because the police were out in full force to intimidate the strikers. Anyways, the author uses oral histories, previously confidential police reports and a lot of other sources to tell a very interesting and compelling story.

9. God's Continent, by Philip Jenkins. Jenkins examines the state of Christianity and Islam in contemporary Europe. Jenkins looks closely at up-to-date data and discredits politicized myths that are bandied about by the Left and the Right (he seems to enjoy doing this in most of his books.) It's a complicated story, but I don't think Europe is going to become "Eurabia" any time soon. Highly recommended for anyone interested in contemporary Christianity or Islam, contemporary Europe, or foreign policy.

8. In Pharoah's Army, by Tobias Wolff. I picked this up almost at random at a used book store, and it really impressed me. It's a memoir about Wolff's service in the Vietnam War. Brilliantly written. At one point out I went out to pick up food and sat there reading it and then suddenly realized I was in a Vietnamese restaurant and that the immigrant owners probably had their own stories to tell.

7. Flight, volumes two or three, edited by Kazu Kibuishi. I can't really choose between them, or remember which stories were in which volumes. Wondrous collections of short comic-book stories, ranging from hilarious to chilling, from cute to mystical.

6. All-Star Superman, by Grant Morrison. Morrison does a great job of capturing the essence of Superman & Clark Kent. He's a comic-book-genius-man, this much is plain to see.

5. Eifelheim, by Michael Flynn. A 14th century priest discusses Aristotelian cosmology with crash-landed aliens in the Black Forest... just before the Black Plague comes along. My review of this remarkable science fiction novel is here. This and Mirabilis made a great tag-team. Particularly when combined with the history of science course I had just taken.

4. Doctor Mirabilis, by James Blish. This is historical fiction about the life, travails and thought of Friar Roger Bacon, the great natural philosopher and empiricist of the thirteenth century. It's very well written (some of the images and phrases are permanently etched into my brain) and it's intellectually rigorous to boot (it seems like Blish immersed himself in the primary documents). Mirabilis came out in 1964, but even at that time Blish seemed well aware of the medieval roots of the Scientific Revolution. He shows all the complexities of contemporary political and intellectual currents. This is pretty impressive, given that this sort of scholarly reappraisal only seems to have been filtering down into public knowledge fairly recently. For example, Blish thinks that Bacon was indeed imprisoned by his order for years, but shows that this was about Bacon's sympathy for the Spiritual Franciscans, and not because of his scientific views. It's a scandal that this book is out of print. (I also wrote about the book here.)

3. The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene. What can I say? It's vintage Greene. (I'd already read the other three books in his 'Catholic quartet' - The Power and the Glory, Brighton Rock, and The Heart of the Matter.) Bleak existential insights into the treacherous human heart and mysticism at the core of suffering. And when you think you've figured him out, he twists the knife a bit more.

2. Post Captain, by Patrick O'Brian. I read twelve Aubrey/Maturin novels in 2007, up to and including The Letter of Marque. I can't keep them straight in my head anymore, so this marvelous novel stands in for all of them, in all of their splendour.

1. Watership Down, by Richard Adams. Somehow I had managed to avoid this stunning and profound fantasy novel about rabbits for thirty years. Well, better late than never! If you haven't read it, you really must.