Favorite books read in 2016

Here's the top ten:

1. Omega Men
This is a graphic novel from Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda that's an allegorical look at how the Iraq War happened.  It's the smartest comic book storytelling I've ever seen and to my mind an instant classic.

2. Go Set a Watchman
This "controversial" resurrected precursor to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is to my mind unmistakably the greater literary achievement.  No matter how it ended up finally being published, I'm absolutely glad it was.

3. The Third Reich
A chilling examination on the lingering effects of an actual Nazi's grip on a nation's pysche, by the masterful Roberto Bolaño.

4. At Twilight They Return
Greek literature from Zyranna Zateli that offers a glimpse of what life was like for an extended family a century ago.

5. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Between this and the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them script, this was an extremely good year to begin seeing what the future of J.K. Rowling's great creation might turn out to look like.

6. The Girl in the Spider's Web
David Lagercrantz's follow-up to the superb Millennium Trilogy is worth it.

7. The Tin Woodman of Oz
Having read all of L. Frank Baum's Oz novels this year, this late look back at one of the most iconic characters in the series is probably my favorite.

8. Primary Colors
Joe Klein's satire of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign was a true revelation to finally read twenty years later.

9. The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair
This Joёl Dicker mystery is probably the most conventional thing I read this year, at least that I really liked.

10. The Blood of Olympus
The last in the "Heroes of Olympus" series of Percy Jackson novels from Rick Riordan to my mind is probably the most satisfying of them.

Achievement Unlocked: The Compete Baum Oz

Recently I accomplished something I've long wanted to do, which is to obtain ownership of the complete L. Frank Baum series of Oz books.  For most people, this is something to do with the Judy Garland movie, but only faintly related to a book, much less a series of them.  Marvel (along with the terrific duo of Eric Shanower and Skottie Young) created adaptations for a good number of them, which were my first experiences with any of the material outside of the first book.  I was immediately struck, and eventually remembered reading that first one, with how humorous and witty Baum's vision really was.  So I vowed that I would eventually read all of it.

Barnes & Noble had three hardcover collections that looked like the best possible way to achieve it.  So, finally, I got them.  And in the coming year I will get to read all of Baum's Oz novels (plus the collection of short stories also included). 

It's amazing to me that stuff this good became almost completely forgotten, and that our one collective memory doesn't really do Oz justice.  The later film Return to Oz approaches the material much more directly.  I'm not usually one to demand strict adherence to the source material, but what's happened to Oz since "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is something of a literary crime.  As far as I can tell, Baum's Oz belongs in the same category as Alice in Wonderland.  It's even a potent allegory, because as far as I can tell, Baum was writing about the shrinking world, and the decreased possibilities of finding the fantastic, let alone innocence, as everyone became more familiar with foreign cultures.  Which actually puts it in the same category as Gulliver's Travels, come to think of it.  Baum wasn't just writing for kids after all.

A hundred years later, and maybe Oz will someday earn its rightful place in literary history...