Books that captivate with their exquisite prose and unforgettable storytelling. Perfect for readers who appreciate the art of language.
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan, 2010
288 pp.
December 2010
This may be the best book I've read in several years, Egan gives a virtuosic performance, linking together a huge array of characters and bouncing back and forth from present to past to future. It. Is. Stunning.
If you're looking for straightforward narrative, this is not your book. Eagan gives us a series of chapters, each with characters we've met before...or will meet again, some in 2019. It's her ability to link disparate stories—yet maintain exquisite coherence—that makes Goon Squad such a feat. Here's from a New York Times review. It should give you an idea of the dizzying quality of Eagan's conception.
The Imperfectionists
Tom Rachman, 2010
pp. 272
November 2010
"The Imperfectionists" is the perfect title for Tom Rachman's near perfect book. His characters are smart, talented, funny, sometimes kind, but always flawed—in other words, imperfect. They are wonderfully human.
Rachman presents us with an ensemble cast, a group of people working together to publish a Rome-based international newspaper. Each character gets his own chapter but reappears in others—making the book not so much a novel as a series of interlocking short stories.
Coal Run
Tawni O'Dell, 2004
384 pp.
October 2010
Tawni O'Dell's turf is the coal country of southwestern Pennsylvania, and her voice the men who live in the hills and work the mines. She details their gritty, hardscrabble, sometimes violent lives: jobs lost when the mines close down, lives lost when they implode or explode.
In Coal Run, which critics consider a "near masterpiece," O'Dell writes from a masculine viewpoint. Her male voices are smart, funny, perceptive—and their characters good but scarred, like the hollowed out hills left by the mining companies. I love this writer, and I love her characters.
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel, 2009
640pp.
September 2010
Brilliant! How did she do it? Hilary Martel took a figure much maligned in history—and historical fiction—and transformed him into one of literature's most likeable characters. The results won her the Man Booker Prize (see impressive gold seal on cover).
Wolf Hall uses the eyes of Thomas Cromwell to recount the political upheaval —throughout England and all of Europe—wrought by Henry's desire for Anne Boleyn. It is Cromwell who ultimately devises the means for Henry's divorce, remarriage, and transference of title as Queen upon Anne.
Mr. Golightly's Holiday
Salley Vickers, 2003
368 pp.
May 2010
A quiet, strange and intriguing book. Told lightly (pun intended), with a dose of whimsy, the novel explores profound themes—how do we choose between good and evil; what does love entail, and what does it demand of us?
An unassuming, rather unattractive little man, Mr. Golightly wrote a book, years ago, that achieved wide-ranging fame. Based on the book, Golightly built a large, powerful enterprise—which lately seems to be losing ground to the competition.