Malcolm Gladwell’s Year in Reading: I am, first and foremost, a fan of thrillers and airport l
Malcolm Gladwell’s Year in Reading: I am, first and foremost, a fan of thrillers and airport literature, which means the number of books that I read this year that reach the literary level of the typical New Yorker reader is small. Best “literary” I read all year? Tom Rachman’s “The Imperfectionists.” After that is mostly work of a lower brow. Stephen Hunter’s “I, Sniper,” brings back one of the great characters in modern thrillerdom, Bob Lee Swagger, everyone’s favorite lethal, dour Southerner. I kind of want Swagger to meet up with Lee Child’s Jack Reacher one day, in a contest to see who could say the least while doing the most damage. Speaking of Child, his latest Reacher effort—“61 Hours“—I would rate a B-plus, keeping in mind that Child’s B-pluses are everyone else’s A-pluses. I was trapped in an airport, on a ground delay this fall, and read Vince Flynn’s “American Assassin.” It wasn’t bad! But then I went back and read another of his books, and it was so dreadful that I simply stopped reading, somewhere on Kansas City, and sat in silence until we landed at Newark. Don’t go there. A far better bet is to go back and read the wonderful oeuvre of Olen Steinhauer—principally “The Tourist,” but also this years excellent “The Nearest Exit.” Milo Weaver, Steinhauer’s hero, is the opposite of Swagger and Reacher—he is conflicted and neurotic and hopelessly sentimental—but no less entertaining. One final gripe. Why no new thriller from David Ignatius this year? Argh! -- source link
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