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The Best Books Of 2016

Carrie Fisher with her dog at a book signing ceremony for The Princess Diarist.

Carrie Fisherpassed away this week and she's obviously going to be remembered for her role as Princess Leia. But she has been in a lot of movies. 

She's written books she's written plays and screenplays. What do you think about most when you think about Carrie Fisher and her life?

Well, because of my age she's always going to be Princess Leia. I was 14 when the first Star Wars movie came out and she was the first princess I ever liked or paid attention to, to be honest with you. But she was also  a good writer and I was a big fan of her novel 'Postcards From The Edge,' which was a very good book. I just wish I'd had the chance to see her perform her play "Wishful Drinking." I've heard many good things about it and how good she was in it.

Here is my conversation with Connie Ogle, book editor of The Miami Herald:

Speaking of books, and she's (Carrie Fisher) written many, she would appreciate this; we move into the books that we've read this year. How would you describe 2016 when it comes to the books that have been out there that you've read?

Well, I'm more of a fiction reader than nonfiction reader. And there were some really, really good novels out this year. You always think you hit a patch where there's not a lot of good books, but when I looked back over what I'd read I couldn't even narrow my list down to 10. I'm still working on it because there are just so many good books out there. Non-fiction, there are some good nonfiction too, but I read more fiction than nonfiction.

Are there two books from this past year that you look back and say I'm glad I read those books so they made my year?

Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad.

Well, the first one is kind of an obvious one because I'm sure this one's on everybody's top list but it deserves to be there, and that's Colson Whitehead's the "Underground Railroad." It won the National Book Award and I think what I liked so much about it aside from the fact he's a good writer is that it tells a good story, it tells a good story in an extremely original way, and he manages to blend history and fiction in a way that I haven't really seen it done quite so skillfully before.

And the other one?

The other one is kind of a forgotten book. I think Louise Erdrich's "LaRose." She's written a series of novels about a Native American reservation and the families that live there. This is a story about a family and it's about a child who dies and the family responsible for his death gives their child to the family that lost a child in a sort of traditional way. And it's just a beautiful story about family.

I don't know if you remember, last year when we were doing this I asked you how many books did you read. Did you reach your goal? Did you read as many books as you wanted to? How many?

I did not. I started strong with the first few months.  I had maybe 10 books a month and then I petered out in November and December, and I'm blaming the book fair for that, because I had a lot of work to do, but I finished my 80th book this morning.

What do you think about books that are turned into movies?

You know sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I just saw a movie by a Korean director called the Handmaiden. It's a wonderful movie, very sexy movie, but it's taken from a book by Sarah Waters called "Fingersmith." And they took  took the story, which was set in Victorian London, and transported it to Japanese-occupied Korea,  and it was such an imaginative take on it. I love to see stuff like that. Sometimes you see "Girl on the Train," which I didn't even finish watching it. I didn't really like the movie that much, but I liked the book. 

'The Dark Tower' film adaptation will include Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba

I remember last year we talked about Stephen King, and I have to admit that I didn't go back and read any of his stuff, but I do want to get back into it. I am excited about the fact that this year two of his former books are becoming movies. The much anticipated "Dark Tower" is going to become a movie and they're coming back with "It." And that was the first novel I ever read of Stephen King.

Is there a King book that you think of that was a successful movie?

Well  "The Shining"... (They changed quite a bit)...And that's sometimes what works when you're doing the adaptation. My favorite movie that was taken from a book and I loved both the book and the movie is "The English Patient." But if you read the book "The English Patient" you would be surprised how little of it is about that central romance because the director just kind of grabbed that and ran with it because he could see that was the most cinematic part of it. But I'm looking forward to "It" too because that's the only Stephen King book I've read twice.

For this upcoming year is there any one book or writer that you're looking forward to in 2017?

Well, the first book of 2017 that I plan to read is George Saunders' new novel "Lincoln in the Bardo." He's primarily a short story writer and he's really just great. And this is his first novel, so I'm curious to see how he makes the transition to the longer form. I hope I'm not disappointed. I'm also looking forward to Chris Bohjalian, "The Sleepwalker.'" He's another writer who I like a lot and his book "The Guestroom" from 2006 was also a really good book. It was about human trafficking.

When it comes to the material that you read, how often do you go looking for new writers or is it just going back to the ones you know?

I try to do both.  For example, in 2016 one of my biggest thrills was getting a new book by Zadie Smith, and she wrote a novel called "Swing Time," which is really wonderful. So I'm always happy to go back and revisit the ones I like, but it's really exciting to read a book by someone new. For instance one of the books I loved this year, it's a second book so it's not really -- he's not really new -- is Amor Towles. So it's discovering someone new is as pleasurable as reading the old favorites, but you've got to balance it out a little bit. 

Luis Hernandez is an award-winning journalist and host whose career spans three decades in cities across the U.S. He’s the host of WLRN’s newest daily talk show, Sundial (Mon-Thu), and the news anchor every afternoon during All Things Considered.
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