I have been wanting to read this book for a long time, and I know I am quite late to the game in singing its praises. This book is a modern classic, and one of the best books I have read in a long time.
All in Fiction
THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB
In a previous issue, I reviewed We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. I loved that book so much, that I gave it as a Christmas gift and found myself exploring what else Fowler had written. Happily, I found The Jane Austen Book Club, written nine years before We Are All Completely… Although very different from her other book, The Jane Austen Book Club is similarly innovative both in its story and in the way that Fowler tells it.
DO NOT SAY WE HAVE NOTHING
Right off the bat I want to say that this Giller Prize winner is deserving of the honor, and well worth the lengthy commitment. Thien’s prose is gorgeous and evocative and the story subject was one completely foreign to me.
THE CIRCLE
Full Disclosure: This is the first Dave Eggers book I’ve ever read, so that fact that it is essentially a beach read is probably weird. The book opens with protagonist Mae Holland heading to The Circle for her first day at a new job. She is thrilled because this is the most important and respected company in the country, and probably the world.
TO THE BACK OF BEYOND
To The Back of Beyond was recommended to me by a friend and I whole-heartedly recommend this beautiful book to all of you. As I reflect on what makes it so compelling, I feel it’s not only that it's a poignant story about a young husband who suddenly and unexpectedly walks away from his happy marriage and two small children, but also the manner in which Stamm writes.
THE LIBRARY AT MOUNT CHAR
This was an incredibly weird book that has stuck with me over the last month much more than I expected. Set in a dystopian near-future, The Library at Mount Char imagines a set of gods or demi-gods who have controlled human history, and are in a moment of great upheaval.
DID YOU EVER HAVE A FAMILY, A Novel
I picked this novel up because it was a National Book Award finalist and was on a list of best books to read. From the opening scene, I was hooked and really couldn’t stop reading until I finished it. I keep recommending it to anyone who likes reading fiction.
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
Call me lazy, but I think one of the reasons that I don’t often pick up collections of short stories is because they take a bit more effort to read than a novel. I mean, you’ve just figured out who all the characters are and how they relate to one another and where the story is set and when, and the story is over and you have to start all over again with another story. Who wants to work that hard, right? Wrong! You must read Elizabeth Strout’s newest short story collection, Anything Is Possible.
WHAT WE LOSE
This debut novel was the choice for my October book club, and I honestly couldn’t put it down. At just over 200 pages, it is a quick read, but less because of length and more that the writer's thoughts carry you along as though she has taken over your brain. Her language is at once simple and poetic. It often feels like stream-of-consciousness, and yet she is always concise.
WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES
I loved this novel and am recommending it to everyone I know who reads fiction. I picked it up because it was a Man Booker Prize finalist. What an amazing find!
IN THE COUNTRY
I don’t often read short stories, and have read exactly zero books set in the Philippines, but I am extremely glad to have picked this one up! Each story centers around either a visitor to the Philippines, or a Philippino living abroad in places as far as Bahrain and as near (to us) as Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Alvar has the incredible ability to jump into her stories and make you feel as though you have had a 200-page intro to the characters and circumstances with which she presents you.
SPECIAL TOPICS IN CALAMITY PHYSICS
will admit, this book took me a while to get into, but once I did, it was WORTH IT! The friend who recommendedSpecial Topics described it as Gilmore Girls meets murder mystery, and that’s a good place to start. The protagonist and narrator is a super-smart, teenage girl with a single parent. She doesn’t quite fit in at her new school, but is focused on her dream of getting to Harvard.
BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP, A Novel
Suspenseful. A psychological thriller. Chilling. These are some of the reviewers’ comments on this debut novel by S. J. Watson. I’m not normally drawn to this genre of writing, but the premise intrigued me. The main character, Christine, has a neurological condition whereupon she wakes up each morning not remembering anything or anyone from the previous 25 years of her life.
CLOSE TO HUGH
Endicott is an award winning Canadian author, though this book could easily have been set in small town New Hampshire or Connecticut. I mentioned at my book club that this was perhaps the first Canadian novel I had read that was set in Canada, but not aboutCanada, and how, as an American, that actually took me a moment to wrap my brain around when the first clues about place were laid out.
STATION ELEVEN, A Novel
To be perfectly honest, the idea of reading a dystopian novel didn’t really appeal to me. But Station Eleven was a National Book Award Finalist and it came highly recommended to me by a friend whose taste in reading often matches mine. And it is set in Canada, my book review co-editor’s current country of residence. So, I decided to go for it. It definitely exceeded my expectations.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Another Pulitzer Prize winner, I picked this book up for no other reason than that it won in the year I was born. And as it is my birthday month, it seemed a fun and random way to celebrate 32!
A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW
This may be my favorite book that I’ve read all summer – and I’ve read some really good books! I love everything about the novel: the characters, the storyline, the plot, the writing and the unexpected ending. It is a joy to read from beginning to end.
OUR SOULS AT NIGHT
Truly a gem of a book,Our Souls At Night, is like a cool drink on a hot afternoon or a leisurely walk with a good friend with whom you just don’t get to spend enough time. It’s peaceful and uplifting – and replete with ideas and observations that will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.
THE SYMPATHIZER
Last year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, this debut novel is somehow both brutal and funny, eye-opening yet reassuring. The story is told from the perspective of a young man serving a high-ranking General in the Vietnamese Army as the Americans are pulling out of the war in 1975.
THE WONDER
From the author of Room, you will not want to put this book down. The story follows an English nurse named Lib, who has been hired by a small town in Ireland to watch an 11-year-old girl who has reportedly been living without food for over four months. Most in the town believe this to be a miracle, but Lib is tasked with watching closely for any trickery, before the girl can be declared officially miraculous.