65. White Teeth by Zadie Smith My last book of 2009, a Hannukah gift from my father, was an interesting end note. While the tooth theme was a bit too understated to be part of the title, in my opinion, Zadie Smith does an admirable job of weaving together an interconnected story of three families in London in the 1980s and 1990s. Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal are old buddies who served together in World War II. Both marry (in Archie's case, re-marry) young wives who provide them with children growing up in the strange new age. Samad, a Bangladeshi Muslim, agonizes as he sees his twin sons, Magid and Millat, moving away from the tradition that he so idealizes and fails to adhere to in his own life. His wife Alsana is a character, though she is young, she is defiant and opinionated, prejudiced against both Samad's idealization of tradition and her sons' rejection and permutations of it. Archie's wife Clara is from Jamaica, raised a Jehovah's Witness, from which she reb...
Life, Books, and SFF