\n
The Fireman<\/strong>, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on.<\/p>\nWant a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,<\/a>\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before it’s too late!<\/p>\n(and before you ask, yeah, they ship everywhere, as long as you’re willing to pay the postage.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRECOMMENDED READING: 2016<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\nYou don’t even have ten full days to find those last couple Christmas gifts and maybe you’re starting to sweat it just a little. Don’t give in to panic. I’m here to help. The best thing you can do for your loved ones is get ‘em a book. Nothing will more convincingly show your love.<\/p>\nDiamond ring? Pfff. What’s a cold little rock next to the scintillating wit and warmth of great literature!? The latest gizmo? Just more crap you need to keep charged. Who needs another fucking charging cable??? Cool new app? To hell with that. It’ll probably get hacked in six months and uncork a flood of embarrassing personal revelations. A book is the only Christmas present you can really count on.<\/p>\nBut\u00a0what<\/em>\u00a0book? What if you accidentally get your lover\/parent\/child\/best friend something BORING? Oh, man! You don’t want to give a Christmas gift that feels like homework! You want something that’s going to give the person you care about a great time – a rocket that’s going to take them out of the every day drudge at Mach 4. You want something that’s going to make them feel all the feelings and keep them up too late at night.<\/p>\nYou want something with an Awesomeness Guarantee.<\/p>\nI’ve got you covered.<\/p>\nHere are my 10 favorite books, culled from my year of reading, and every one of them comes with my personal\u00a0King of the Hill Awesomeness Guarantee<\/strong>. If ANY of these books fails to entertain, it means the person reading it is badly broken inside,I guarantee it<\/em>.<\/p>\nBest of all: 9 of the books on this list are available for purchase right now!! (I’m mentioning the 10th, because Christmas comes every year, and it’s not too early to get a head start thinking about the 2017 holidays).<\/p>\nThe following has been arranged in alphabetical order, because I didn’t want to do a 10 – 1 countdown.\u00a0I’ve also put an asterisk next to my very favorite book of the year. Here’s hoping you find something here for the loved one in your life… and maybe something for you too. Because let’s face it: the best Christmas gifts are the ones you get for yourself!!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\nThe Throwback Special<\/strong>\u00a0by Chris Bachelder (2016)<\/p>\n\u201cYou were never actually halfway through your life. Not in the sense that you were halfway through a\u2026 tank of gas or a trip home from the beach. You were always, instant by instant, at the very edge of your life, at the end of it, in it\u2019s entirety, and so never at any point in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Throwback Special<\/em>\u00a0is a morbid, hypnotic deep drill down into the essence of busted 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century masculinity, a horribly funny, horribly sad look at the state of the middle-aged, mostly broke, mostly disappointed, emotionally inarticulate, curiously adrift American male. As a side note, I read this book in serial form in\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>, where it was published in four parts. Got a writer in your life? A subscription to the\u00a0Review<\/em>, with its reliably great fiction, and amazing interviews with working writers, would be money well spent. I learn something from every issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nKindred<\/strong>\u00a0by Octavia Butler (1979)<\/p>\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s history. It happened whether it offends you or not.\u201dA black woman of the free love 70s contracts a bad case of history and begins to suffer from feverish leaps backward in time\u2026 spells that fling her into the days of pre-Civil War slavery, where she finds herself forced to protect a man-child who views her as a sub-human. For if anything were to happen to her great-great-great grandfather, the monstrous and tragic Rufus Weylin \u2013 a white slave-owner with a penchant for trouble \u2013 her own existence would be erased from time. For more in this vein, see\u00a0The Underground Railroad<\/em>, which is also on this list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n\nAll The Light We Cannot See<\/strong>\u00a0by Anthony Doerr (2014)<\/p>\nAll The Light<\/em>\u00a0has had over a hundred weeks on the\u00a0New York Times Bestseller<\/em>\u00a0list, and let me tell you\u2026 it is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0rare for a book to have that kind of unstoppable success and really deserve it. This book really deserves it. Doerr follows the lives of two kids caught up in the tidal surge of history, trying not to be drowned: a blind child who has accidentally come into possession of an invaluable diamond, and a German orphan with a genius for radios. As the war intensifies and destroys everything and everyone around them, they are driven relentlessly toward an encounter with one another\u00a0in the blazing, bomb-shattered ruins of Saint-Malo. Every chapter has the exquisite perfection of a carefully designed circuit board. Brilliant, unexpected history; fierce, desperately exciting storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,<\/a>\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before it’s too late!<\/p>\n(and before you ask, yeah, they ship everywhere, as long as you’re willing to pay the postage.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRECOMMENDED READING: 2016<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\nYou don’t even have ten full days to find those last couple Christmas gifts and maybe you’re starting to sweat it just a little. Don’t give in to panic. I’m here to help. The best thing you can do for your loved ones is get ‘em a book. Nothing will more convincingly show your love.<\/p>\nDiamond ring? Pfff. What’s a cold little rock next to the scintillating wit and warmth of great literature!? The latest gizmo? Just more crap you need to keep charged. Who needs another fucking charging cable??? Cool new app? To hell with that. It’ll probably get hacked in six months and uncork a flood of embarrassing personal revelations. A book is the only Christmas present you can really count on.<\/p>\nBut\u00a0what<\/em>\u00a0book? What if you accidentally get your lover\/parent\/child\/best friend something BORING? Oh, man! You don’t want to give a Christmas gift that feels like homework! You want something that’s going to give the person you care about a great time – a rocket that’s going to take them out of the every day drudge at Mach 4. You want something that’s going to make them feel all the feelings and keep them up too late at night.<\/p>\nYou want something with an Awesomeness Guarantee.<\/p>\nI’ve got you covered.<\/p>\nHere are my 10 favorite books, culled from my year of reading, and every one of them comes with my personal\u00a0King of the Hill Awesomeness Guarantee<\/strong>. If ANY of these books fails to entertain, it means the person reading it is badly broken inside,I guarantee it<\/em>.<\/p>\nBest of all: 9 of the books on this list are available for purchase right now!! (I’m mentioning the 10th, because Christmas comes every year, and it’s not too early to get a head start thinking about the 2017 holidays).<\/p>\nThe following has been arranged in alphabetical order, because I didn’t want to do a 10 – 1 countdown.\u00a0I’ve also put an asterisk next to my very favorite book of the year. Here’s hoping you find something here for the loved one in your life… and maybe something for you too. Because let’s face it: the best Christmas gifts are the ones you get for yourself!!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\nThe Throwback Special<\/strong>\u00a0by Chris Bachelder (2016)<\/p>\n\u201cYou were never actually halfway through your life. Not in the sense that you were halfway through a\u2026 tank of gas or a trip home from the beach. You were always, instant by instant, at the very edge of your life, at the end of it, in it\u2019s entirety, and so never at any point in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Throwback Special<\/em>\u00a0is a morbid, hypnotic deep drill down into the essence of busted 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century masculinity, a horribly funny, horribly sad look at the state of the middle-aged, mostly broke, mostly disappointed, emotionally inarticulate, curiously adrift American male. As a side note, I read this book in serial form in\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>, where it was published in four parts. Got a writer in your life? A subscription to the\u00a0Review<\/em>, with its reliably great fiction, and amazing interviews with working writers, would be money well spent. I learn something from every issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nKindred<\/strong>\u00a0by Octavia Butler (1979)<\/p>\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s history. It happened whether it offends you or not.\u201dA black woman of the free love 70s contracts a bad case of history and begins to suffer from feverish leaps backward in time\u2026 spells that fling her into the days of pre-Civil War slavery, where she finds herself forced to protect a man-child who views her as a sub-human. For if anything were to happen to her great-great-great grandfather, the monstrous and tragic Rufus Weylin \u2013 a white slave-owner with a penchant for trouble \u2013 her own existence would be erased from time. For more in this vein, see\u00a0The Underground Railroad<\/em>, which is also on this list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n\nAll The Light We Cannot See<\/strong>\u00a0by Anthony Doerr (2014)<\/p>\nAll The Light<\/em>\u00a0has had over a hundred weeks on the\u00a0New York Times Bestseller<\/em>\u00a0list, and let me tell you\u2026 it is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0rare for a book to have that kind of unstoppable success and really deserve it. This book really deserves it. Doerr follows the lives of two kids caught up in the tidal surge of history, trying not to be drowned: a blind child who has accidentally come into possession of an invaluable diamond, and a German orphan with a genius for radios. As the war intensifies and destroys everything and everyone around them, they are driven relentlessly toward an encounter with one another\u00a0in the blazing, bomb-shattered ruins of Saint-Malo. Every chapter has the exquisite perfection of a carefully designed circuit board. Brilliant, unexpected history; fierce, desperately exciting storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
(and before you ask, yeah, they ship everywhere, as long as you’re willing to pay the postage.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
RECOMMENDED READING: 2016<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\nYou don’t even have ten full days to find those last couple Christmas gifts and maybe you’re starting to sweat it just a little. Don’t give in to panic. I’m here to help. The best thing you can do for your loved ones is get ‘em a book. Nothing will more convincingly show your love.<\/p>\nDiamond ring? Pfff. What’s a cold little rock next to the scintillating wit and warmth of great literature!? The latest gizmo? Just more crap you need to keep charged. Who needs another fucking charging cable??? Cool new app? To hell with that. It’ll probably get hacked in six months and uncork a flood of embarrassing personal revelations. A book is the only Christmas present you can really count on.<\/p>\nBut\u00a0what<\/em>\u00a0book? What if you accidentally get your lover\/parent\/child\/best friend something BORING? Oh, man! You don’t want to give a Christmas gift that feels like homework! You want something that’s going to give the person you care about a great time – a rocket that’s going to take them out of the every day drudge at Mach 4. You want something that’s going to make them feel all the feelings and keep them up too late at night.<\/p>\nYou want something with an Awesomeness Guarantee.<\/p>\nI’ve got you covered.<\/p>\nHere are my 10 favorite books, culled from my year of reading, and every one of them comes with my personal\u00a0King of the Hill Awesomeness Guarantee<\/strong>. If ANY of these books fails to entertain, it means the person reading it is badly broken inside,I guarantee it<\/em>.<\/p>\nBest of all: 9 of the books on this list are available for purchase right now!! (I’m mentioning the 10th, because Christmas comes every year, and it’s not too early to get a head start thinking about the 2017 holidays).<\/p>\nThe following has been arranged in alphabetical order, because I didn’t want to do a 10 – 1 countdown.\u00a0I’ve also put an asterisk next to my very favorite book of the year. Here’s hoping you find something here for the loved one in your life… and maybe something for you too. Because let’s face it: the best Christmas gifts are the ones you get for yourself!!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\nThe Throwback Special<\/strong>\u00a0by Chris Bachelder (2016)<\/p>\n\u201cYou were never actually halfway through your life. Not in the sense that you were halfway through a\u2026 tank of gas or a trip home from the beach. You were always, instant by instant, at the very edge of your life, at the end of it, in it\u2019s entirety, and so never at any point in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Throwback Special<\/em>\u00a0is a morbid, hypnotic deep drill down into the essence of busted 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century masculinity, a horribly funny, horribly sad look at the state of the middle-aged, mostly broke, mostly disappointed, emotionally inarticulate, curiously adrift American male. As a side note, I read this book in serial form in\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>, where it was published in four parts. Got a writer in your life? A subscription to the\u00a0Review<\/em>, with its reliably great fiction, and amazing interviews with working writers, would be money well spent. I learn something from every issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nKindred<\/strong>\u00a0by Octavia Butler (1979)<\/p>\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s history. It happened whether it offends you or not.\u201dA black woman of the free love 70s contracts a bad case of history and begins to suffer from feverish leaps backward in time\u2026 spells that fling her into the days of pre-Civil War slavery, where she finds herself forced to protect a man-child who views her as a sub-human. For if anything were to happen to her great-great-great grandfather, the monstrous and tragic Rufus Weylin \u2013 a white slave-owner with a penchant for trouble \u2013 her own existence would be erased from time. For more in this vein, see\u00a0The Underground Railroad<\/em>, which is also on this list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n\nAll The Light We Cannot See<\/strong>\u00a0by Anthony Doerr (2014)<\/p>\nAll The Light<\/em>\u00a0has had over a hundred weeks on the\u00a0New York Times Bestseller<\/em>\u00a0list, and let me tell you\u2026 it is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0rare for a book to have that kind of unstoppable success and really deserve it. This book really deserves it. Doerr follows the lives of two kids caught up in the tidal surge of history, trying not to be drowned: a blind child who has accidentally come into possession of an invaluable diamond, and a German orphan with a genius for radios. As the war intensifies and destroys everything and everyone around them, they are driven relentlessly toward an encounter with one another\u00a0in the blazing, bomb-shattered ruins of Saint-Malo. Every chapter has the exquisite perfection of a carefully designed circuit board. Brilliant, unexpected history; fierce, desperately exciting storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
You don’t even have ten full days to find those last couple Christmas gifts and maybe you’re starting to sweat it just a little. Don’t give in to panic. I’m here to help. The best thing you can do for your loved ones is get ‘em a book. Nothing will more convincingly show your love.<\/p>\n
Diamond ring? Pfff. What’s a cold little rock next to the scintillating wit and warmth of great literature!? The latest gizmo? Just more crap you need to keep charged. Who needs another fucking charging cable??? Cool new app? To hell with that. It’ll probably get hacked in six months and uncork a flood of embarrassing personal revelations. A book is the only Christmas present you can really count on.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0what<\/em>\u00a0book? What if you accidentally get your lover\/parent\/child\/best friend something BORING? Oh, man! You don’t want to give a Christmas gift that feels like homework! You want something that’s going to give the person you care about a great time – a rocket that’s going to take them out of the every day drudge at Mach 4. You want something that’s going to make them feel all the feelings and keep them up too late at night.<\/p>\nYou want something with an Awesomeness Guarantee.<\/p>\nI’ve got you covered.<\/p>\nHere are my 10 favorite books, culled from my year of reading, and every one of them comes with my personal\u00a0King of the Hill Awesomeness Guarantee<\/strong>. If ANY of these books fails to entertain, it means the person reading it is badly broken inside,I guarantee it<\/em>.<\/p>\nBest of all: 9 of the books on this list are available for purchase right now!! (I’m mentioning the 10th, because Christmas comes every year, and it’s not too early to get a head start thinking about the 2017 holidays).<\/p>\nThe following has been arranged in alphabetical order, because I didn’t want to do a 10 – 1 countdown.\u00a0I’ve also put an asterisk next to my very favorite book of the year. Here’s hoping you find something here for the loved one in your life… and maybe something for you too. Because let’s face it: the best Christmas gifts are the ones you get for yourself!!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\nThe Throwback Special<\/strong>\u00a0by Chris Bachelder (2016)<\/p>\n\u201cYou were never actually halfway through your life. Not in the sense that you were halfway through a\u2026 tank of gas or a trip home from the beach. You were always, instant by instant, at the very edge of your life, at the end of it, in it\u2019s entirety, and so never at any point in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Throwback Special<\/em>\u00a0is a morbid, hypnotic deep drill down into the essence of busted 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century masculinity, a horribly funny, horribly sad look at the state of the middle-aged, mostly broke, mostly disappointed, emotionally inarticulate, curiously adrift American male. As a side note, I read this book in serial form in\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>, where it was published in four parts. Got a writer in your life? A subscription to the\u00a0Review<\/em>, with its reliably great fiction, and amazing interviews with working writers, would be money well spent. I learn something from every issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nKindred<\/strong>\u00a0by Octavia Butler (1979)<\/p>\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s history. It happened whether it offends you or not.\u201dA black woman of the free love 70s contracts a bad case of history and begins to suffer from feverish leaps backward in time\u2026 spells that fling her into the days of pre-Civil War slavery, where she finds herself forced to protect a man-child who views her as a sub-human. For if anything were to happen to her great-great-great grandfather, the monstrous and tragic Rufus Weylin \u2013 a white slave-owner with a penchant for trouble \u2013 her own existence would be erased from time. For more in this vein, see\u00a0The Underground Railroad<\/em>, which is also on this list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n\nAll The Light We Cannot See<\/strong>\u00a0by Anthony Doerr (2014)<\/p>\nAll The Light<\/em>\u00a0has had over a hundred weeks on the\u00a0New York Times Bestseller<\/em>\u00a0list, and let me tell you\u2026 it is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0rare for a book to have that kind of unstoppable success and really deserve it. This book really deserves it. Doerr follows the lives of two kids caught up in the tidal surge of history, trying not to be drowned: a blind child who has accidentally come into possession of an invaluable diamond, and a German orphan with a genius for radios. As the war intensifies and destroys everything and everyone around them, they are driven relentlessly toward an encounter with one another\u00a0in the blazing, bomb-shattered ruins of Saint-Malo. Every chapter has the exquisite perfection of a carefully designed circuit board. Brilliant, unexpected history; fierce, desperately exciting storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
You want something with an Awesomeness Guarantee.<\/p>\n
I’ve got you covered.<\/p>\n
Here are my 10 favorite books, culled from my year of reading, and every one of them comes with my personal\u00a0King of the Hill Awesomeness Guarantee<\/strong>. If ANY of these books fails to entertain, it means the person reading it is badly broken inside,I guarantee it<\/em>.<\/p>\nBest of all: 9 of the books on this list are available for purchase right now!! (I’m mentioning the 10th, because Christmas comes every year, and it’s not too early to get a head start thinking about the 2017 holidays).<\/p>\nThe following has been arranged in alphabetical order, because I didn’t want to do a 10 – 1 countdown.\u00a0I’ve also put an asterisk next to my very favorite book of the year. Here’s hoping you find something here for the loved one in your life… and maybe something for you too. Because let’s face it: the best Christmas gifts are the ones you get for yourself!!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\nThe Throwback Special<\/strong>\u00a0by Chris Bachelder (2016)<\/p>\n\u201cYou were never actually halfway through your life. Not in the sense that you were halfway through a\u2026 tank of gas or a trip home from the beach. You were always, instant by instant, at the very edge of your life, at the end of it, in it\u2019s entirety, and so never at any point in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Throwback Special<\/em>\u00a0is a morbid, hypnotic deep drill down into the essence of busted 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century masculinity, a horribly funny, horribly sad look at the state of the middle-aged, mostly broke, mostly disappointed, emotionally inarticulate, curiously adrift American male. As a side note, I read this book in serial form in\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>, where it was published in four parts. Got a writer in your life? A subscription to the\u00a0Review<\/em>, with its reliably great fiction, and amazing interviews with working writers, would be money well spent. I learn something from every issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nKindred<\/strong>\u00a0by Octavia Butler (1979)<\/p>\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s history. It happened whether it offends you or not.\u201dA black woman of the free love 70s contracts a bad case of history and begins to suffer from feverish leaps backward in time\u2026 spells that fling her into the days of pre-Civil War slavery, where she finds herself forced to protect a man-child who views her as a sub-human. For if anything were to happen to her great-great-great grandfather, the monstrous and tragic Rufus Weylin \u2013 a white slave-owner with a penchant for trouble \u2013 her own existence would be erased from time. For more in this vein, see\u00a0The Underground Railroad<\/em>, which is also on this list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n\nAll The Light We Cannot See<\/strong>\u00a0by Anthony Doerr (2014)<\/p>\nAll The Light<\/em>\u00a0has had over a hundred weeks on the\u00a0New York Times Bestseller<\/em>\u00a0list, and let me tell you\u2026 it is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0rare for a book to have that kind of unstoppable success and really deserve it. This book really deserves it. Doerr follows the lives of two kids caught up in the tidal surge of history, trying not to be drowned: a blind child who has accidentally come into possession of an invaluable diamond, and a German orphan with a genius for radios. As the war intensifies and destroys everything and everyone around them, they are driven relentlessly toward an encounter with one another\u00a0in the blazing, bomb-shattered ruins of Saint-Malo. Every chapter has the exquisite perfection of a carefully designed circuit board. Brilliant, unexpected history; fierce, desperately exciting storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Best of all: 9 of the books on this list are available for purchase right now!! (I’m mentioning the 10th, because Christmas comes every year, and it’s not too early to get a head start thinking about the 2017 holidays).<\/p>\n
The following has been arranged in alphabetical order, because I didn’t want to do a 10 – 1 countdown.\u00a0I’ve also put an asterisk next to my very favorite book of the year. Here’s hoping you find something here for the loved one in your life… and maybe something for you too. Because let’s face it: the best Christmas gifts are the ones you get for yourself!!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
The Throwback Special<\/strong>\u00a0by Chris Bachelder (2016)<\/p>\n\u201cYou were never actually halfway through your life. Not in the sense that you were halfway through a\u2026 tank of gas or a trip home from the beach. You were always, instant by instant, at the very edge of your life, at the end of it, in it\u2019s entirety, and so never at any point in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Throwback Special<\/em>\u00a0is a morbid, hypnotic deep drill down into the essence of busted 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century masculinity, a horribly funny, horribly sad look at the state of the middle-aged, mostly broke, mostly disappointed, emotionally inarticulate, curiously adrift American male. As a side note, I read this book in serial form in\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>, where it was published in four parts. Got a writer in your life? A subscription to the\u00a0Review<\/em>, with its reliably great fiction, and amazing interviews with working writers, would be money well spent. I learn something from every issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nKindred<\/strong>\u00a0by Octavia Butler (1979)<\/p>\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s history. It happened whether it offends you or not.\u201dA black woman of the free love 70s contracts a bad case of history and begins to suffer from feverish leaps backward in time\u2026 spells that fling her into the days of pre-Civil War slavery, where she finds herself forced to protect a man-child who views her as a sub-human. For if anything were to happen to her great-great-great grandfather, the monstrous and tragic Rufus Weylin \u2013 a white slave-owner with a penchant for trouble \u2013 her own existence would be erased from time. For more in this vein, see\u00a0The Underground Railroad<\/em>, which is also on this list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n\nAll The Light We Cannot See<\/strong>\u00a0by Anthony Doerr (2014)<\/p>\nAll The Light<\/em>\u00a0has had over a hundred weeks on the\u00a0New York Times Bestseller<\/em>\u00a0list, and let me tell you\u2026 it is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0rare for a book to have that kind of unstoppable success and really deserve it. This book really deserves it. Doerr follows the lives of two kids caught up in the tidal surge of history, trying not to be drowned: a blind child who has accidentally come into possession of an invaluable diamond, and a German orphan with a genius for radios. As the war intensifies and destroys everything and everyone around them, they are driven relentlessly toward an encounter with one another\u00a0in the blazing, bomb-shattered ruins of Saint-Malo. Every chapter has the exquisite perfection of a carefully designed circuit board. Brilliant, unexpected history; fierce, desperately exciting storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cYou were never actually halfway through your life. Not in the sense that you were halfway through a\u2026 tank of gas or a trip home from the beach. You were always, instant by instant, at the very edge of your life, at the end of it, in it\u2019s entirety, and so never at any point in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Throwback Special<\/em>\u00a0is a morbid, hypnotic deep drill down into the essence of busted 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century masculinity, a horribly funny, horribly sad look at the state of the middle-aged, mostly broke, mostly disappointed, emotionally inarticulate, curiously adrift American male. As a side note, I read this book in serial form in\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>, where it was published in four parts. Got a writer in your life? A subscription to the\u00a0Review<\/em>, with its reliably great fiction, and amazing interviews with working writers, would be money well spent. I learn something from every issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nKindred<\/strong>\u00a0by Octavia Butler (1979)<\/p>\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s history. It happened whether it offends you or not.\u201dA black woman of the free love 70s contracts a bad case of history and begins to suffer from feverish leaps backward in time\u2026 spells that fling her into the days of pre-Civil War slavery, where she finds herself forced to protect a man-child who views her as a sub-human. For if anything were to happen to her great-great-great grandfather, the monstrous and tragic Rufus Weylin \u2013 a white slave-owner with a penchant for trouble \u2013 her own existence would be erased from time. For more in this vein, see\u00a0The Underground Railroad<\/em>, which is also on this list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n\nAll The Light We Cannot See<\/strong>\u00a0by Anthony Doerr (2014)<\/p>\nAll The Light<\/em>\u00a0has had over a hundred weeks on the\u00a0New York Times Bestseller<\/em>\u00a0list, and let me tell you\u2026 it is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0rare for a book to have that kind of unstoppable success and really deserve it. This book really deserves it. Doerr follows the lives of two kids caught up in the tidal surge of history, trying not to be drowned: a blind child who has accidentally come into possession of an invaluable diamond, and a German orphan with a genius for radios. As the war intensifies and destroys everything and everyone around them, they are driven relentlessly toward an encounter with one another\u00a0in the blazing, bomb-shattered ruins of Saint-Malo. Every chapter has the exquisite perfection of a carefully designed circuit board. Brilliant, unexpected history; fierce, desperately exciting storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nKindred<\/strong>\u00a0by Octavia Butler (1979)<\/p>\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s history. It happened whether it offends you or not.\u201dA black woman of the free love 70s contracts a bad case of history and begins to suffer from feverish leaps backward in time\u2026 spells that fling her into the days of pre-Civil War slavery, where she finds herself forced to protect a man-child who views her as a sub-human. For if anything were to happen to her great-great-great grandfather, the monstrous and tragic Rufus Weylin \u2013 a white slave-owner with a penchant for trouble \u2013 her own existence would be erased from time. For more in this vein, see\u00a0The Underground Railroad<\/em>, which is also on this list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n\nAll The Light We Cannot See<\/strong>\u00a0by Anthony Doerr (2014)<\/p>\nAll The Light<\/em>\u00a0has had over a hundred weeks on the\u00a0New York Times Bestseller<\/em>\u00a0list, and let me tell you\u2026 it is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0rare for a book to have that kind of unstoppable success and really deserve it. This book really deserves it. Doerr follows the lives of two kids caught up in the tidal surge of history, trying not to be drowned: a blind child who has accidentally come into possession of an invaluable diamond, and a German orphan with a genius for radios. As the war intensifies and destroys everything and everyone around them, they are driven relentlessly toward an encounter with one another\u00a0in the blazing, bomb-shattered ruins of Saint-Malo. Every chapter has the exquisite perfection of a carefully designed circuit board. Brilliant, unexpected history; fierce, desperately exciting storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cThat\u2019s history. It happened whether it offends you or not.\u201dA black woman of the free love 70s contracts a bad case of history and begins to suffer from feverish leaps backward in time\u2026 spells that fling her into the days of pre-Civil War slavery, where she finds herself forced to protect a man-child who views her as a sub-human. For if anything were to happen to her great-great-great grandfather, the monstrous and tragic Rufus Weylin \u2013 a white slave-owner with a penchant for trouble \u2013 her own existence would be erased from time. For more in this vein, see\u00a0The Underground Railroad<\/em>, which is also on this list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n\nAll The Light We Cannot See<\/strong>\u00a0by Anthony Doerr (2014)<\/p>\nAll The Light<\/em>\u00a0has had over a hundred weeks on the\u00a0New York Times Bestseller<\/em>\u00a0list, and let me tell you\u2026 it is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0rare for a book to have that kind of unstoppable success and really deserve it. This book really deserves it. Doerr follows the lives of two kids caught up in the tidal surge of history, trying not to be drowned: a blind child who has accidentally come into possession of an invaluable diamond, and a German orphan with a genius for radios. As the war intensifies and destroys everything and everyone around them, they are driven relentlessly toward an encounter with one another\u00a0in the blazing, bomb-shattered ruins of Saint-Malo. Every chapter has the exquisite perfection of a carefully designed circuit board. Brilliant, unexpected history; fierce, desperately exciting storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n
All The Light We Cannot See<\/strong>\u00a0by Anthony Doerr (2014)<\/p>\nAll The Light<\/em>\u00a0has had over a hundred weeks on the\u00a0New York Times Bestseller<\/em>\u00a0list, and let me tell you\u2026 it is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0rare for a book to have that kind of unstoppable success and really deserve it. This book really deserves it. Doerr follows the lives of two kids caught up in the tidal surge of history, trying not to be drowned: a blind child who has accidentally come into possession of an invaluable diamond, and a German orphan with a genius for radios. As the war intensifies and destroys everything and everyone around them, they are driven relentlessly toward an encounter with one another\u00a0in the blazing, bomb-shattered ruins of Saint-Malo. Every chapter has the exquisite perfection of a carefully designed circuit board. Brilliant, unexpected history; fierce, desperately exciting storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
All The Light<\/em>\u00a0has had over a hundred weeks on the\u00a0New York Times Bestseller<\/em>\u00a0list, and let me tell you\u2026 it is\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0rare for a book to have that kind of unstoppable success and really deserve it. This book really deserves it. Doerr follows the lives of two kids caught up in the tidal surge of history, trying not to be drowned: a blind child who has accidentally come into possession of an invaluable diamond, and a German orphan with a genius for radios. As the war intensifies and destroys everything and everyone around them, they are driven relentlessly toward an encounter with one another\u00a0in the blazing, bomb-shattered ruins of Saint-Malo. Every chapter has the exquisite perfection of a carefully designed circuit board. Brilliant, unexpected history; fierce, desperately exciting storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The Switch<\/strong>\u00a0by Elmore Leonard (1978)<\/p>\nPrime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Prime. Like listening to late 60s Stones, or watching an early 70s Bronson flick. Elmore Leonard, like Le Carr\u00e9 in his field, or Richard Stark in his, will always be fundamental.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nThe Horse and His Boy<\/strong>\u00a0by C.S. Lewis (1954)<\/p>\n\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cHe had not yet learned that if you do one good dead your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m reading my way through the Narnia books for the first time in my life. I missed \u2018em as a kid, except for\u00a0The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, which we read together as a family, and which I loved. People spend so much time atomizing the Christian subtext of these books; I wish a little more attention would be paid to C.S. Lewis’s unmatched sense of humor. Lewis wrote funnier sentences than just about anyone. The first line of\u00a0The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>\u00a0might just be the best opener in the history of children\u2019s lit (\u201cThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it\u201d).<\/p>\nHorse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Horse and his Boy<\/em>\u00a0is far from perfect \u2013 we are occasionally very aware we are reading a book by a white Christian Englishman who genially assumes the superiority of his culture over all others. But it seems to me the main narrative is clearer and stronger here than in any of the other Narnia books that I\u2019ve read, except for\u00a0Wardrobe<\/em>. That said, I won\u2019t get to\u00a0Silver Chair<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Battle<\/em>\u00a0until 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
*\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/strong>\u00a0by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)<\/p>\n\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cSome animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is an excruciating work of suspense married to a masterful exploration of what it\u2019s like to be expelled by your own country and become an alien in another. The narrator is a communist sympathizer who has worked his way up into the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, spying and lying all the way. When Saigon falls, the sympathizer is sent to America along with the last dregs of the fallen South Vietnamese army, to make sure the defeated stay that way.<\/p>\nOur nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Our nameless anti-hero catapults from concussive\u00a0battles to squalid little murders, from hushed stealth missions to interrogation room mind-fucks. In his first novel, Nguyen pulls off the greatest trick in literature, right before your eyes:\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is a relentless page-turner that never-the-less dares to explore big ideas. And the biggest of those ideas is the notion that the Vietnam War was something that\u00a0actually happened to Vietnamese people<\/em>; it wasn\u2019t just the steamy jungle backdrop for stories about John Rambo and Colonel Kurtz.\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>\u00a0is great entertainment. It\u2019s also a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThe Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The Reverse of the Medal<\/strong>\u00a0by Patrick O\u2019Brian (1986)<\/p>\nThe Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The Aubrey-Maturin novels are, to my mind, the best set of serial adventures ever written, surpassing even the Holmes-Watson stories. This one, the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0book in the run, ends with a sledgehammer of mingled horror and triumph. By the time this novel came out, O\u2019Brian had been writing about his heroes for over a decade and a half, but his vigor, focus, and feel for action\u00a0are just as sharp as when he began. (If you’re looking for a Christmas gift, though, best to start at the beginning, with\u00a0Master & Commander<\/em>).<\/p>\n\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe Secret History<\/strong>\u00a0by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/p>\nThe Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The Secret History<\/em>\u00a0introduces maybe the most adorable, erudite gang of murdering misfits in the history of fiction and it\u2019s a story on a classic theme: that some moral errors, made at a young age, can never be fully recovered from. Beneath the surface crackle of wit and cleverness, there\u2019s a low, deep hum of despair running throughout the book, like an abandoned radio station transmitting a dead, dreadful silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/strong>\u00a0by Colson Whitehead (2016)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cWhether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0is a (subtly) alternate history that plunges us into a blood-stroked, nerve-shredding vision of American slavery. The craft is set to a high literary pitch, but the underlying engineering of this railroad is pure widescreen horror. Whitehead\u2019s locked down, fully armed America looks and sounds like the 1800s, but feels like the post-apocalypse. His heroes are the hunted, not because they\u2019re the rebels of District Nine, or because they\u2019re the sworn enemies of Immortan Joe. Their crime is blackness. The sentence is slavery, torture, death, or any combination of the three. This train runs screaming at full speed, from the moment it leaves the station, to the very last violent stop. Get on board.<\/p>\n\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSea of Rust<\/strong>\u00a0by C. Robert Cargill (unpublished \u2013 expected in 2017)<\/p>\nI left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I left this one for last because\u00a0you can’t have it yet<\/em>. But you’ll want to keep it on your radar. I saw a very early draft this fall and was blown away.\u00a0Sea of Rust<\/em>\u00a0is a cruise missile of action and feeling, and blasts along like the guy who wrote it is a specialist in engineering summer blockbusters (oh, right, he\u00a0is<\/em>: Cargill scripted this year\u2019s\u00a0Doctor Strange<\/em>, maybe the best Marvel origin story since the original\u00a0Iron Man<\/em>).<\/p>\nI just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I just could not fucking\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0how hard this book runs. It\u2019s relentless in a no-time-to-catch-your-breath way and I flew through it faster than I flew through any other book this year. It is to the science fiction novel what\u00a0Fury Road<\/em>\u00a0was to the science fiction movie\u2026 something that resets all the rules and all our expectations.<\/p>\nIt turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
It turns out it really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0better to RUST than to fade away\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne more for the road…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nBorn to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Born to Run<\/strong>\u00a0by Bruce Springsteen (2016)<\/p>\nAt the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
At the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to about a third of the Bruce Springsteen memoir on audio… which is enough to tell you that this book has all the thrills and delights and thunderous power of a Springsteen concert. It might just be the best gift option on the list. I’ve already bought three copies of the audiobook to give to friends this holiday season (and I do think\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to it, read by the Man himself, is the ideal way to enjoy it).<\/p>\nIt’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\nMerry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
It’s so goddamn funny. It’s also a remarkably vivid recounting of what happened to this country in the last 50+ years. Family, heartbreak, young lust, race, upheaval, personal discovery, work, faith, and rock & roll… it’s all here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Merry Christmas to you: the first new issue of\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0in three years is out on December 21st. Like “Grindhouse” and “Small World,” this is a throwback story to the beginning of the 20th century, part of a future collection to be named\u00a0The Golden Age<\/em>. It is, uh, increasingly clear that’s an ironic title.<\/p>\nI’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I’ll be signing issues of\u00a0Locke & Key: Small World\u00a0<\/em>in Portsmouth New Hampshire, at Stairway to Heaven comics, 4PM<\/a>\u00a0on the 21st. And when you think about it, wouldn’t a signed funny book by yours truly be a\u00a0waaaaaaay<\/em>\u00a0better gift than any of the books on the above list??? Yeah, I’ll see you there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\nI know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\nBut I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\nHowever bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 joehillfiction.com, All rights reserved.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Wow, that was a lot, wasn’t it?<\/p>\n
I know it’s been a shitty year, in so many ways. It’s been so rotten, I almost didn’t do this list. It just seems things are happening that make recounting our favorite books and movies and shows of the year kind of silly.<\/p>\n
But I still believe art matters. Maybe in times like these, it matters more than usual. A good story can set\u00a0you free from the day-to-day shitty horribleness of the world. A good story can teach you how to make a stand (and can also help you recognize when it’s time to haul ass and get out of there to fight another day). Maybe most of all, stories can slip you out of your own life and into someone else’s, let you see the world from behind a different set of eyes. If we can’t try to understand each other, there’d be no hope for us at all; but we can and there is.<\/p>\n
However bad your year might’ve been, I hope you had some good reading in 2016 and even more in the year to come. And – all my usually silly bullshit aside – I wish you love, happiness, and joy in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
The Fireman, my fourth novel, will be available everywhere in paperback on January 3rd. So if you get a bookstore gift certificate this\u00a0Christmas? Now you know what to spend it on. Want a signed copy?\u00a0Get in touch with Water Street Books,\u00a0one of America’s great indie booksellers. I’m autographing their pre-orders.\u00a0Don’t get burned! Order today, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":2664,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2685","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2685\/revisions\/2901"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/70045402-8d64-487a-b9e4-010efb53d5ed.jpeg\")
<\/h1>\n![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/ea93d2cc-03bd-43c6-aaf8-8283a246356d.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/8132cbec-9971-460e-b0e3-31c541fb183c.jpg\")
![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/20d9ecd1-afd6-4b93-9e52-219daa9ce741.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/e5946471-4053-4672-a14c-58b2a6196c80.jpg\")
<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/67fc2103-8ce8-4f0b-a309-83700f78de7f.jpg\")
![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/41990c5f-72d2-4010-a133-752a1edc5d5a.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/1039f913-a615-4ee4-bd93-65a4624a80a6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/d07e31cd-cf45-4d47-b116-dbc14016b23c.jpg\")
![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/d2b61281-9e71-4b11-a752-c7b989d04e62.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/cd2e23dd-08b0-4683-b459-f2574a40c12c.jpg\")
![](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/e0bb2bd9-519b-4a38-a88b-95e2f2b184c6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/13c14b601d62069f910275129\/images\/f0769a74-0605-40f4-90ba-3aaaa2409fe2.jpg\")
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n