New Fiction

A Dream in Polar Fog
by Yuri Rytkheu (Archipelago)
translated by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse

Transport yourself to the world of the Chukchi people who live on the Siberian plains south of the Arctic Ocean in this welcome Russian novel. The time is 1910, and devoted Canadian sailor John MacLennan is hurt—maybe mortally—while trying to free his ship from the growing ice field. He is taken away by Chukchi men to find medical aid, his ship sails off without him, and he survives through the care and love of the people he will grow to call his friends. Rytkheu’s overwhelming adventure story is a tribute to forgotten people and forgotten places, and a true joy to read. -A.P. King

The Good Wife
by Stewart O'Nan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Growing up, if I were to be out past my curfew, I was always hesitant to call my mother and wake her. The phone ringing in the dead of night rarely offered good tidings. These she feared the most: the deviant calls, the calls that changed lives. Stewart O’Nan’s heroine receives such a call from her husband, ringing from the local jail to inform her of his involvement in a botched robbery that cost an older woman her life. O’Nan creates a beautifully flawed woman, achingly human, exquisite in all her fumbling, coping with her far-from-perfect husband. -C. Joyner

The Coast of Akron
by Adrienne Miller (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Merit, married to a dispassionate engineer, is on the cusp of what must be the most disgusting interoffice affair in the history of letters. At the invitation of her estranged father, artist Lowell Haven, who is world-famous for his self-involvement, Merit returns to the palatial estate of her childhood, for a party that threatens to rip her family’s delicate web (or is it a safety net?) of lies to shreds. Miller’s characters illustrate that almost-never-discussed truth that keeps society on course: we are all bound together by the sacrifices that we make, silently and unacknowledged, for those we love most. -P. Constant

The History of Love
by Nicole Krauss (Norton)

If you’ve ever seen a spider web after a rainstorm, the filigree assortment of droplets reflecting themselves and their surroundings infinitely, then you have a sense of what this book is like. Through the wily and melancholy septuagenarian Leo Gursky and precocious teenager and expert survivalist Alma Singer, Krauss captures the enormousness and complexity of life, and the universality of feelings regardless of age.

This novel is fragile and robust like spider’s silk, showing how the stories of others become entwined with ours, and how the act of writing can in itself be an act of love and solace, of fearless trust in unknown readers to connect with characters, ideas, and emotions contained in masterful novels such as this. -V. Verano

The Wonder Spot
by Melissa Bank (Viking)

After an absence that seemed too long, Melissa Bank is back with The Wonder Spot. As the main character, Sophie Applebaum, takes us along for the ride—from her teenage years in Pennsylvania to her thirty-something escapades around Manhattan—each pit stop is a little crazier than the next. Finding a job, an apartment, a little love, and herself is no easy task for a girl in the big city. Luckily, she has her two brothers nearby to offer support—well, as much support as two brothers can give! This charming and hilarious novel is at the top of my Summer Must Read list. -T. Nisly

The Hungry Tide
by Amitav ghosh (Houghton Mifflin)

An Indian-American marine biologist travels from her Seattle home to study the river dolphins of the Sundarban archipelago and encounters a boatman whose life is tied to the rivers and a Delhi businessman who has roots in the tide country. Their intertwined stories are filled with mystery and danger, yet fully immersed in the harsh political realities of post-Partition India.

The Hungry Tide is a lush, thoughtful, and lyrical novel. Its characters illustrate many sides of Indian life, yet only through all the stories together can this "tide country" story be understood.–K.M. Allman

Midnight at the Dragon Café
by Judy Fong Bates (Counterpoint)

The heroine in Judy Fong Bates’s first novel comes to small-town Ontario from China with hopes and dreams of a better, educated life. Su-Jen is welcomed to the Dragon Café—the run-down restaurant owned by her father—and thrown into a life different than she imagined. The story is an homage to Su-Jen’s mother, who struggles with memories of home and familial responsibilities. Worn by the drastic change, the harsh climate, and a new society, the family is repeatedly tested by betrayals and challenges to their honor. But they survive with bitterness and strength, compelled by a duty to see Su-Jen succeed. -A.P. King

The Closed Circle
by Jonathan Coe (Knopf)

In his new novel Coe revisits his characters from The Rotters’ Club, thirty years on. Instead of Thatcher’s Britain, we find ourselves in Blair’s “new Labour” Britain, with surprisingly little difference between the two. The adolescents we first met are now disillusioned, middle-aged, and have children of their own. Coe has written a story with wit and compassion, and you end up feeling you know these people like you know yourself. They are my contemporaries, so I feel a particular attachment to the characters Coe has created. He is among the best contemporary novelists. -G. Berry

Zorro
by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins)

An Alta California born mestizo boy learns the true meaning of bravery, fidelity, and brotherhood in Isabel Allende’s novel Zorro, a good old-fashioned adventure story of the best kind. Stories about Zorro, masked defender of the poor and weak, have appeared in books, movies, and on television for nearly a century, but with Allende as storyteller, the mystery man’s adventures in the Spanish colonies, in Barcelona, and with pirates on the high seas are particularly compelling. Infused with rich historical detail, delightful characters, and considerable wit, Zorro is a nostalgic, romantic pleasure. -K.M. Allman

Hitler's Peace
by Philip Kerr (Putnam)

Reading Philip Kerr’s latest thriller, one can almost feel the plush leather upholstery of the German staff cars, smell the cigar and cigarette smoke of the SS officers, and see one’s reflection in the highly polished mahogany of Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler’s desk. Put simply, Hitler’s Peace is a historical thriller of exceptional detail. Kerr has populated his story with all the principal actors of this historical drama: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Himmler, Borman, Goering and even a few cameos by Kim Philby and Evelyn Waugh. He’s fashioned a smart, intelligent thriller in the tradition of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene. -M. Voss

How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets
by Garth Stein (Soho)

Evan is a Seattleite: an epileptic thirty-ish wannabe rock star father-come-lately, and the unlikely hero for Garth Stein’s new book. Someone tells Evan to go to the funeral of an ex-girlfriend. He goes—and discovers the child he thought they’d decided against and a future he thought he wouldn’t want. Despite the seemingly saccharine subject matter, everything Stein writes is honest and smart and kind. We can’t help but chew the insides of our cheeks and root for Evan’s new family, hopefully, while thinking of our own. -J. Schurk

The Devil of Nanking
by Mo Hayder (Grove)

Reading this novel (already a breakaway bestseller overseas), I realized it functions on several different levels. A twisted and cavernous thriller plunges the reader headfirst into the cultural underbelly of Japan, sitting us down uncomfortably to cocktails with early ’90s yakuza. A reflective narrative makes us question what we will give up when we are handed too much to shoulder on our own. As a historical reminder, it shows what men can do when all reason has moved out and blatant cruelty has taken up residence. -C. Joyner

Lighthousekeeping
by Jeannette Winterson (Harcourt)

This is a perfect and stunning return to Jeanette Winterson’s original strengths: a lyrical style, descriptive voice, and intensely captivating story. Winterson is one of the best contemporary novelists, and you will finish Lighthousekeeping in awe of her great talent. The story follows the orphaned girl Silver and her unlikely guardian, Mr. Pew, a blind keeper of the Cape Wrath lighthouse. Here Silver learns how to listen to a story, the importance of love and caring, and how to behave in a world that doesn’t want you. At times fun and fanciful, this book is always poignant. -A.P. King

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer (Houghton Mifflin)

Nine year-old Oskar Schell is curious to find the lock that fits the mysterious key found in his father’s closet after he dies in the September 11th terrorist attacks. Oskar’s quest takes him the length and breadth of New York City, with an astounding assortment of odd characters, teaching him how wonderfully strange and complex the world is.

With sparkling prose, and his use of photographs and typographical pyrotechnics, Foer steals your heart, pulls you through myriad emotions along Oskar’s journey, and at the end leaves you a little more in love with the world than when you opened the first page. -V. Verano

Three Day Road
by Joseph Boyden (Viking)

Three Day Road tells the compelling story of Xavier and Elijah, two Cree Indians who are shipped off to Europe to serve in the First World War. Because of their excellent marksmanship, which they acquired while hunting, they end up as snipers for the Canadian Army. The war takes an incredible toll on the two friends. The novel also tells the story of Niska, Xavier’s aunt, who is a native healer. Following Xavier’s return, Niska must draw him out of the hell he is trapped in. She does this by telling him her life story. -G. Berry

Tokyo Cancelled
by Rana Dasgupta (Black Cat)

Thirteen passengers find themselves stranded in the Tokyo airport after a snowstorm shuts down all flights. In the idleness of the dead airport, they decide to tell stories to each other to pass the time. Soon, the reader (and the listless passengers) are swept up in Dasgupta’s narrative inventiveness, as strange, magical, shocking, poignant stories are woven before our eyes. These tales bear the tint of fables, but with a modern edge, where cell phone–wielding businessmen share space with mythical creatures, and metropolises abut ramshackle villages. Global in scope, this novel is a delightful debut. -V. Verano

Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf)

They are children at a special school in the English countryside. They seem to have longings and wonderings any young people coming of age would. Yet the children of this quietly startling book live within set conditions that the reader only slowly comes to realize. A word such as ‘possibles’ carries unusual portent and fate. Ishiguro does a masterful job in having these young people inhabit their known world (not quite ours, or is it?) as fully as they can, as young people do, and in the part he gives readers, to finally see the heartbreaking limits put upon them. -R. Simonson

Poetry

Company of Moths
by Michael Palmer (New Directions)

Moth-eaten fabric helps us to understand the moth. Likewise, all the little holes, or gaps—that sense of something being "withheld" in Palmer’s poetry—actually provides its disclosure. His lyricism and speculative poetic language subvert narrative logic as well as all of our assumptions—our perceptions, our experiences of reality, memories, and the dysfunctional warp of our political and personal lives. The complexities of Palmer’s work, however, never render it incomprehensible. What we have are musical complexities—of timbre and caesura—that we come to comprehend not through our eyes but through our ears. Just listen. -D. Kunz

First Hand
by Linda Bierds (Putnam)

Linda Bierds’s love affair with science and scientists, evident in her last collection, The Seconds, with poems portraying Pasteur, Lister and Marie Curie, bursts into full blossom in this new volume, comprised entirely of the likes of Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Marie Curie (again), and James Watson, among many others. And throughout is Gregor Mendel, the Benedictine monk who fathered the science of genetics. Just as Mendel saw not conflict but glorious sympathy and confirmation between faith and science, Bierds’s masterful sequence of persona poems merges art and science as sympathetic exploration of the interior and outer cosmos. -P. Aaron

The Owner's Box

by Peter Aaron

A Prayer for Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan is one of the finest novelists at work today in the English language—arguably the premier practitioner of the English branch of the English language. Any book that he writes is worth reading. This holds true for his latest offering, Saturday (Doubleday). As we have come to expect, McEwan writes beautiful sentences, stringing together one after another. He is capable at times of presenting brilliant moments of psychological insight. And he is a deep and dogged researcher—a skill well exercised in this latest creation, sweeping within its curriculum a diverse population that includes a neurosurgeon, corporate lawyer, poet, blues guitarist, and terminally ill petty thug.

The novel is intriguing, thought provoking, well constructed, and eloquent. Only…Only, for a writer of McEwan’s proven, reliable skills, I keep waiting for that skyrocket, that unforgettable, that—dare I say it?—great novel. This isn’t it.

Perhaps this is quite unfair—and, of course, it’s only one reader’s opinion (and one with no credible critical credentials). But reading McEwan, I’m always too aware of those skills, those insights, that research—in short, of McEwan. Thus far, McEwan is the novelist equivalent of one of those actors—Kevin Spacey, for instance—who, no matter how skilled, passionate, and precise his performance, always remains for me that actor playing this particular role, rather than becoming the character.

Not that that’s so bad. I enjoyed reading Saturday; I highly recommend it. And, I’ll continue to hope that, perhaps with his next effort, Ian McEwan might ascend to that rare level of artistic accomplishment that his impressive talent convinces me he is, with grace, capable of attaining.

New Nonfiction

Even After All This Time
by Afschineh Latifi (Regan)

This book is a kind of love letter from the author to her family, expressing her appreciation for their unwavering strength and support. When Latifi was ten, her father was arrested and subsequently executed without trial by Iran’s new Khomeini regime. As the entire community struggled against overwhelming grief, the newly widowed mother decided to get as much of her family as possible out of Iran by sending the author and her sister to school in the West. As the girls struggled with early adulthood, their iron-willed mother fought for years to overcome unimaginable obstacles in order to reunite the family. -K. Marckowitz

Oh the Glory of It All
by Sean Wilsey (Penguin)

Applause. Fanfare. Trumpets from heaven (however you define it). It’s hard to define what in the language immediately throttled me, took me by the neck, and went for the jugular. Wilsey, one of the founding editors of the beloved journal McSweeney’s, has created a memoir that is hilarious and self-deprecating, heartbreaking and awkward (like any childhood, except that his involves Danielle Steele). Through lustful thoughts for a wicked stepmother (making Cinderella look like a whiny brat), peace missions to Russia (and other Reagan-era Cold War countries), and countless schools, Wilsey has a life worth reading. -C. Joyner

Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq
by Riverbend (Feminist Press, CUNY)

Until the American invasion of her country, Riverbend seems to have lived a comfortable, middle-class life. Her rants, meditations, and commentaries, first published in her blog and now collected in this book, provide a response to the invasion and a glimpse into a life under siege. She describes living in the constant anxiety of wartime chaos with immediacy, sorrow, and humor, but her descriptions of daily life are coupled with incisive critiques of Bremer, Bush, Halliburton and Islamic Fundamentalism. She is a woman determined to defy stereotype in every arena of her life. Reading Riverbend’s blog, one is torn between admiration and tears. -M. Helsel

To See Every Bird On Earth: A Father, a Son and a Lifetime Obsession
by Dan Koeppel (Hudson Street)

To read this book is to discover bird-watching on an epic scale, as a way to subjugate the world by cataloging the wild and transitory, checking a bird off, then moving on. Dan Koeppel’s book traces a life in the grip of this obsession; it is a portrait of his father, one of the top ten birders in the world. Koeppel seeks to understand why his father loved to hunt for new birds, above all else, and creates a portrait of a fascinating, difficult man seeking order and beauty in a fascinating, difficult world. -M. Helsel

Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race and Themselves
edited by Kate Moses and Camille Peri (HarperCollins)

Just read Mariane Pearl’s "On Giving Hope," about her father, the death of her husband Daniel at the hands of terrorists, and the birth of her son two months later, and you’ll have a true feel for the caliber of the essays in this collection. Searching for (and receiving) some thought-provoking and substantial fare for mothers when they launched their Web site, "Mothers Who Think," on Salon.com, these editors have published their second collection of essays from that site. This is a genuine parenting book about custody battles, sexuality, gender roles, race, religion, and the challenges and heroics of motherhood. -T. Taylor

Too Late to Die Young
by Harriett McBryde Johnson (Henry Holt)

A South Carolina attorney’s story of living with muscular dystrophy takes place at a Jerry Lewis telethon protest, a Cuban disability-rights convention, and on the floor of the Democratic Convention. She takes on Pete Singer, an ethicist whose view that severely disabled people do not have the right to live seems a purely intellectual exercise. Charming, vulnerable, and tough, Ms. McBryde Johnson doesn’t spare the details of the difficulties of her life or her pleasure in living in this lyrical and unforgettable memoir. -K.M. Allman

Bound for Canaan
by Fergus M. Bordewich (Amistad)

It was only a matter of time, effort, and a cast that included thousands of the most colorful and courageous characters, before sanctuary was given from one of the country’s most atrocious institutions. Bordewich has painstakingly re-created the history of the Underground Railroad, uncovering virtually every fact and legend about it, to create a compulsively readable volume worthy of the memory of those who risked their lives to help those held in slavery. -C. Joyner

Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence
by Tim Parks (Atlas)

In a wonderful narrative style, Tim Parks takes you back into the grandiose time of the Italian Renaissance when painting, writing, and religious thought ruled the day. You will soon discover, however, that it wasn’t the artists, the thinkers, or even the papacy that had control. It was the bankers; and there were no greater bankers than the Medicis. What gave the Medicis control and dominance of an entire nation? Why didn’t the Church’s prohibition against usury stop the Medici’s rise? Gripping and well told, Medici Money answers these questions, offering an enjoyable history lesson and insight into today’s world of banking woes. -A.P. King

Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind
by Loung Ung (HarperCollins)

In Lucky Child, Loung Ung shares the first fifteen years of her life in America as a Cambodian refugee and tells the story of a family forced apart by the circumstances of war. Ung compares her life in America to that of her closest sister in Cambodia. Her sister faces poverty and fear of death, and Ung faces the difficulties of being an outsider and a refugee in a small Vermont town. Lucky Child is as much a lesson about our culture as it is about Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. The strength of this family and its individual parts is astounding and inspiring. -I. Akio

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
by Anne Lamott (Riverhead)

This new collection of essays on faith, family, community, aging, and everybody's least-favorite president introduces some provocative ideas. In "Sincere Meditations," Lamott talks about her friend David Roche, "pastor of the Church of 80% Sincerity." He does not espouse a belief in miracles, but advises staying alert to the good things that happen, and accepting that 80% sincerity, compassion, and celibacy "is about as good as it’s going to get." Sure, it’s an amusing idea—subversive, but also powerfully appealing—and, well, attainable. -H. Myers

Embroideries
by Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon)

As a writer and artist, Marjane Satrapi pushes beyond political, cultural, or religious differences and makes real, personal connections between her audience and material. Her incredible first two books told the story of the author’s girlhood and coming of age in Iran and Europe. In this latest book, the setting—Grandma’s house at teatime—is much more intimate, but the scope is far broader. Embroideries uses a conversation between women of three generations to explore the many realities of life for an Iranian woman. With warmth, biting humor, and above all sisterly love, the women share their stories with each other and the reader. All are better off for it. -T. Lennon

How to Be Idle
by Tom Hodgkinson (HarperCollins)

Our culture is so perversely obsessed with work and productivity that even our leisure time is planned. From the founder of the journal The Idler comes a book of genius, on the lost art of doing nothing. The Puritans have a lot to answer for, starting with idle hands are the devil’s work. What nonsense! Time to put that honeywagon of guilt to rest. Embrace slacking, sleep late, stare off into space and dream—you get the idea. To hell with your damn day planner. In the words of Gotthold Lessing, "Let us be lazy in everything, except loving and drinking, except in being lazy." -G. Berry

Children's & Young Adult Books

Romeow and Drooliet
by Nina Laden (Chronicle)

Romeow, a young cat of the Felini family, falls madly in love with the silken-eared Drooliet, a Barker. The pair are wed in a secret ceremony (presided over by a kindly mouse), but as they try to leave, Romeow gets into a scuffle with Turbo, a spike-collared cousin of Drooliet. Fate intervenes as Officer Prince of Animal Control pulls Romeow from the scene. What will become of these star-crossed lovers? Only the pun-ny talents of Nina Laden (with a nod to the Bard) can answer that question with supreme wit! -H. Myers

The Cry of the Icemark
by Stuart Hill (Chicken House)

Just past her fourteenth birthday, Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield inherits the throne of Icemark after her father’s untimely death. Icemark is under threat by the Polypontian Empire, led by the ruthless and cunning Scipio Bellorum. With the help of her tutor, Maggiore Totus, her friend Oskan Witch’s Son, and her allies the Wolf-folk and Vampire King and Queen, Thirrin will save her beloved Icemark from its enemies. This exciting novel of strength, kingdom, and fealty is a brilliant blend of folklore and fantasy. -H. Myers

Blood Red Horse
by K.M. Grant (Walker)

Twelve-year-old William wants to follow his older brother Gavin who has left England and is in the Holy Lands fighting in the Crusades. But William needs a warhorse, so his father presents him with the beautiful Hosanna. Will and Hosanna bond deeply, but fate intervenes and the two are separated. But all is not lost, as Hosanna seems to be empowered by some celestial force. This is a marvelous adventure story, traversing the world, from the English countryside to the city of Jerusalem in an era of holy war. -H. Myers

The Minister's Daughter
by Julie Hearn (Atheneum)

When the minister’s daughter Grace and her younger sister, Patience, begin to spit pins, speak in tongues, and have fits, the townspeople are certain they are bewitched. The minister points to the cunning woman—the ancient village healer, midwife, and spell weaver—and her granddaughter, Nell, as the witches, and sets the destruction of them in motion. The author brilliantly blends history, fairy tales, superstition, and prejudice in this page-turning, heart-wrenching novel, set during the mid-1600s, a time of civil unrest in England, portraying the clash between the old and the new. -H. Myers

Back Talk

by Janet Brown

I never feel as though I’ve really visited a city until I’ve gone to a few of its bookstores, and every bookseller I know feels the same way. There’s something luxurious about browsing without being asked, "Do you work here?" and it’s sheer pleasure to find books that are surprises. Bangkok, a city that I love to visit, frequently makes me feel as though I need to comb the hayseeds out of my hair, and its English language bookstores showed me surprises that were absolutely stunning. I had expected to find locally published books that I would beggar myself to buy, and paperback books from the U.K. that we have yet to receive in hardcover. What amazed me were the stacks of The DaVinci Code, in paperback.

I felt like a time traveler, as I roamed the aisles in store after store. There was Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink; The Rule of Four, by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason; and He’s Just Not That Into You, Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, all in paperback.

Bangkok is famous for fake Prada handbags, bootleg computer software, and Levis that have labels written in English as it was never spoken. Thailand does, however, adhere to copyright laws for the printed word, and the paperback books that I found in Bangkok were international editions produced by U.S. publishers.

For the first time in my life, I’m planning my Christmas shopping in April. Who knows what newly published, hardcover, American bestseller will be waiting in paperback for my next visit, in November, in a Bangkok bookstore?