《紐約時報》年度十大好書大綱

The year’s best books, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.

本年度最佳書籍，由《紐約時報》書評版編輯評選。

Fiction

虛構

Autumn

《秋天》(Autumn)

By Ali Smith

阿里·史密斯(Ali Smith)著

The extraordinary friendship of an elderly songwriter and the precocious child of his single-parent neighbor is at the heart of this novel that darts back and forth through the decades, from the 1960s to the era of Brexit. The first in a projected four-volume series, it’s a moving exploration of the intricacies of the imagination, a sly teasing-out of a host of big ideas and small revelations, all hovering around a timeless quandary: how to observe, how to be.

從60年代到英國脫歐，這本小說在數十年間來回跳躍，核心圍繞着一位年長的詞曲作者和一個單親家庭鄰居的早熟孩子之間的不尋常友誼。本書是計劃中的四卷本系列的第一部，是對想像力複雜性的動人探索，狡黠地揭示出許多宏大的觀念和細微的啓示，它們都圍繞着一個永恆的困境：如何觀察，如何存在。

Fiction

虛構

Exit West

《退出西方》(Exit West)

By Mohsin Hamid

穆辛·哈米德(Mohsin Hamid)著

A deceptively simple conceit turns a timely novel about a couple fleeing a civil war into a profound meditation on the psychology of exile. Magic doors separate the known calamities of the old world from the unknown perils of the new, as the migrants learn how to adjust to an improvisatory existence. Hamid has written a novel that fuses the real with the surreal — perhaps the most faithful way to convey the tremulous political fault lines of our interconnected planet.

這是一部反映當下的小說，以看似簡單的藝術手法，把一對逃離內戰的夫婦的故事變成對流亡心理的深刻思考。一道道魔法之門將舊世界的已知災難與新世界的未知風險分隔開來，而移民要調整自己，隨機應變。哈米德的這本小說把真實與荒誕融爲一體，要描寫這個人們彼此密切相連的星球上震顫的政治裂痕，這或許是最忠實的一種方式。

Fiction

虛構

Pachinko

《彈球盤》(Pachinko)

By Min Jin Lee

李敏金（Min Jin Lee，音）著

Lee’s stunning novel, her second, chronicles four generations of an ethnic Korean family, first in Japanese-occupied Korea in the early 20th century, then in Japan itself from the years before World War II to the late 1980s. Exploring central concerns of identity, homeland and belonging, the book announces its ambitions right from the opening sentence: “History has failed us, but no matter.” Lee suggests that behind the facades of wildly different people lie countless private desires, hopes and miseries, if we have the patience and compassion to look and listen.

這部精彩的小說是作者的第二部，講述了一個韓國家族四代人的大事記，從20世紀初日本佔領下的韓國開始，而後是二戰前一直到1980年代末的日本。這本書探索了身份、故鄉和歸屬感等核心問題，從開頭的一句話就宣告了自己的抱負：“歷史辜負了我們，但是沒有關係。”李敏金認爲，各式各樣的人物表面之下都潛藏着無數私慾、希望與苦難，只要我們有耐心和同情心去觀看和傾聽。

Fiction

虛構

The Power

《力量》(The Power)

By Naomi Alderman

娜奧米·奧爾德曼(Naomi Alderman)著

Alderman imagines our present moment — our history, our wars, our politics — complicated by the sudden manifestation of a lethal “electrostatic power” in women that upends gender dynamics across the globe. It’s a riveting story, told in fittingly electric language, that explores how power corrupts everyone: those new to it and those resisting its loss. Provocatively, Alderman suggests that history’s horrors are inescapable — that there will always be abuses of power, that the arc of the universe doesn’t bend toward justice so much as inscribe a circle away from it. “Transfers of power, of course, are rarely smooth,” one character observes.

奧爾德曼想像，女人突然能產生一種致命的“靜電力”，從而顛覆了全球範圍內的性別力量對比，令我們當下的時刻——我們的歷史、我們的戰爭、我們的政治——變得更加複雜。本書語言精彩刺激，故事引人入勝，探討權力如何腐蝕每個人：包括那些新獲得權力的人和拼命維持權力的人。奧爾德曼認爲，歷史的恐怖是不可避免的——權力的濫用總會出現，宇宙的發展弧線不會向正義偏移，也無法繞過正義。書中一個角色指出：“當然，權力的轉移很少是平穩的。”

Fiction

虛構

Sing, Unburied, Sing

《唱歌，屍魔，唱歌》(Sing Unburied Sing)

By Jesmyn Ward

傑絲明·沃德(Jesmyn Ward)著

In her follow-up to “Salvage the Bones,” Ward returns to the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Miss., and the stories of ordinary people who would be easy to classify dismissively into categories like “rural poor,” “drug-dependent,” “products of the criminal justice system.” Instead Ward gives us Jojo, a 13-year-old, and a road trip that he and his little sister take with his drug-addicted black mother to pick up their white father from prison. And there is nothing small about their existences. Their story feels mythic, both encompassing the ghosts of the past and touching on all the racial and social dynamics of the South as they course through this one fractured family. Ward’s greatest feat here is achieving a level of empathy that is all too often impossible to muster in real life, but that is genuine and inevitable in the hands of a writer of such lyric imagination.

繼上一部小說《拯救遺骨》(Salvage the Bones)之後，沃德再度回到虛構的小鎮——密西西比州的布瓦蘇韋奇。講述那些容易被歸類爲“農村窮人”、“藥物依賴者”、“刑事司法系統的產物”的普通人的故事。她爲我們帶來的主人公是13歲的卓卓，吸毒的黑人母親帶着他和他的妹妹做了一場公路旅行，去接他們入獄的白人父親。他們的生存非常艱難。他們的故事感覺很神祕，既有來自過去的幽靈，也涉及南方所有的種族與社會狀態，它們全都在這個破碎的家庭中奔涌而過。沃德在小說中營造這種程度的共情，是現實生活中往往無法達到的，然而在這樣一位充滿詩意想象的作家筆下又顯得那樣真誠而自然，這是本書最大的成就。

Nonfiction

非虛構

The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — and Us

《美的進化——達爾文被遺忘的擇偶理論如何塑造動物世界乃至我們》(The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — and Us)

By Richard O. Prum

理查德·O·普魯姆(Richard O. Prum)著

If a science book can be subversive and feminist and change the way we look at our own bodies — but also be mostly about birds — this is it. Prum, an ornithologist, mounts a defense of Darwin’s second, largely overlooked theory of sexual selection. Darwin believed that, in addition to evolving to adapt to the environment, some other force must be at work shaping the species: the aesthetic mating choices made largely by the females. Prum wants subjectivity and the desire for beauty to be part of our understanding of how evolution works. It’s a passionate plea that begins with birds and ends with humans and will help you finally understand, among other things, how in the world we have an animal like the peacock.

如果一本科學書籍能做到有顛覆性，倡導女權主義，還能改變我們看待自己身體的方式，但同時主要還是關於鳥類的，那就是這本書了。普魯姆是一位鳥類學家，他爲達爾文的另一個基本上被忽略了的雌雄淘汰理論進行了辯護。達爾文認爲，除了爲適應環境而發生的進化外，肯定還有其他某種力量在發揮作用，塑造物種：主要由雌性做出的受審美影響的配偶選擇。普魯姆希望將主觀性和對美的渴望納入到我們對進化作用的理解中去。這是一個充滿熱情的請求，從鳥類開始，以人類結束。本書會幫助你最終理解許多問題，比如世界上爲什麼會有孔雀這樣的動物。

Nonfiction

非虛構

Grant

《格蘭特》(Grant)

By Ron Chernow

羅恩·切爾瑙(Ron Chernow)著

Even those who think they are familiar with Ulysses S. Grant’s career will learn something from Chernow’s fascinating and comprehensive biography, especially about Grant’s often overlooked achievements as president. What is more, at a time of economic inequality reflecting the 19th century’s Gilded Age and a renewed threat from white-supremacy groups, Chernow reminds us that Grant’s courageous example is more valuable than ever, and in this sense, “Grant” is as much a mirror on our own time as a history lesson.

即便是那些自認爲通曉尤利西斯·S·格蘭特(Ulysses S. Grant)生涯的人，也會從切爾瑙這本精彩且全面的傳記中有所收穫，尤其是關於格蘭特擔任總統期間的成就。它們經常被忽略。更重要的是，在令人想起19世紀的鍍金時代(Gilded Age)的經濟不平等和白人至上團體的威脅死灰復燃的背景下，切爾瑙提醒我們，格蘭特勇敢的榜樣比以往任何時候都更寶貴，並且從這個角度來說，《格蘭特》既是我們這個時代的一面鏡子，也是我們的歷史經驗。

Nonfiction

非虛構

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

《把自己人關起來——美國黑人的罪與罰》(Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America)

By James Forman Jr.

小詹姆斯·福爾曼(James Forman Jr.)著

A former public defender in Washington, Forman has written a masterly account of how a generation of black officials, beginning in the 1970s, wrestled with recurring crises of violence and drug use in the nation’s capital. What started out as an effort to assert the value of black lives turned into an embrace of tough-on-crime policies — with devastating consequences for the very communities those officials had promised to represent. Forman argues that dismantling the American system of mass incarceration will require a new understanding of justice, one that emphasizes accountability instead of vengeance.

作爲一名前華盛頓公設辯護人，福爾曼以嫺熟的手法記述了從70年代開始，一代黑人官員如何奮力解決美國首都反覆出現的暴力和毒品危機。一開始是一場意在彰顯黑人生命價值的行動，後來演變成了嚴厲打擊犯罪的政策，給這些官員本來承諾代表的社區造成了毀滅性的後果。福爾曼認爲，廢除美國大規模監禁制度需要重新理解正義。後者強調的是責任而不是復仇。

Nonfiction

非虛構

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

《草原之火——勞拉·英戈爾斯·懷爾德的美國夢》(Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder)

By Caroline Fraser

卡羅琳·弗雷澤(Caroline Fraser)著

Fraser’s biography of the author of “Little House on the Prairie” and other beloved books about her childhood during the era of westward migration captures the details of a life — and an improbable, iconic literary career — that has been expertly veiled by fiction. Exhaustively researched and passionately written, this book refreshes and revitalizes our understanding of Western American history, giving space to the stories of Native Americans displaced from the tribal lands by white settlers like the Ingalls family as well as to the travails of homesteaders, farmers and everyone else who rushed to the West to extract its often elusive riches. Ending with a savvy analysis of the 20th-century turn toward right-wing politics taken by Wilder and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, Fraser offers a remarkably wide-angle view of how national myths are shaped.

這本傳記的主人公的作品包括《草原小屋》(Little House on the Prairie)和其他一些回憶作者在西遷時期的童年生活的作品。弗雷澤捕捉到了這位作家被虛構作品巧妙掩蓋的生活，和一段不可思議的標誌性文學生涯的細節。本書做了全面的研究，字裏行間洋溢着熱情，刷新了我們對美國西部歷史的理解，也爲講述其他人的故事提供了空間，這其中有英戈爾斯家這樣將美國原住民從部落領地趕走的白人定居者，也有公地開墾者、農場主和其他所有衝着這裏難以捉摸的財富而來的人。結尾處，弗雷澤對懷爾德和女兒羅絲·懷爾德·萊恩(Rose Wilder Lane)在20世紀轉向右翼政治進行了頗有見地的分析，爲思考國家神話是如何形成的提供了一個非常廣闊的角度。

Nonfiction

非虛構

Priestdaddy

《神父老爸》(Priestdaddy)

By Patricia Lockwood

帕特麗夏·洛克伍德(Patricia Lockwood)著

In this affectionate and very funny memoir, Lockwood weaves the story of her family — including her Roman Catholic priest father, who received a special dispensation from the Vatican — with her own coming-of-age, and the crisis that later led her and her husband to live temporarily under her parents’ rectory roof. She also brings to bear her gifts as a poet, mixing the sacred and profane in a voice that’s wonderfully grounded and authentic. This book proves Lockwood to be a formidably gifted writer who can do pretty much anything she pleases.

在這本深情而又十分有趣的回憶錄裏，洛克伍德將她家族的故事——包括她的父親，一位獲得梵蒂岡特批豁免的羅馬天主教神父——和她自己的成長，以及一場導致她和丈夫被迫暫時進入神父居所與父母同住的危機——穿織成了一個故事。她還運用詩人的天賦，將神聖和粗俗融入到一個讓人信服而又純正的美妙聲音之中。通過這本書，洛克伍德證明了她是一位極具天賦、能夠隨心所欲的作家。