New Fiction

A Death in Vienna
by Frank Tallis (Grove)

A beautiful woman is found dead in a locked room, seemingly shot by a gun and bullet of which there are no traces. This fiendish enigma will require the ingenuity of the world’s preeminent detective-and-doctor team. Unfortunately, the residents of Baker Street must now play second fiddle to Max Liebermann (a psychoanalyst with a Holmesian prescience for character analysis) and Oskar Rheinhardt (a police detective with a keen eye for the truth). With a serpentine plot that twists and writhes around sinister prospective villains and culminates in a wonderfully unique ending, this is the beginning of a truly beautiful literary friendship. -J. Zaidi

Suite Française
by Irène Némirovsky (Knopf)

This is a lucid novel, beautiful and condemning—cut short, like the author's life. Still, its two finished sections have a feeling of sprawling bigness, a drama too rarely found in modern novels. In Suite Française, the German Occupation only carves the class struggles more deeply, and we see petty hypocrisies of prewar France clearly, etched into peoples' selves. This is a harsh, affecting, important book. Némirovsky, dead in Auschwitz before the liberation of her country, seems to condemn as foolish the hope for safety, even as she sings hymns to the beauty of the world. -M. Helsel

The Dead Fish Museum
by Charles D'Ambrosio (Knopf)

Charles D'Ambrosio is, in my opinion, the best author at work in the Pacific Northwest today. He gave a great display of his talent with his first short-story collection, The Point (Little, Brown), but with last year's book of essays, Orphans (Clear Cut), he earned every accolade that critics have been heaping upon him. This new collection of brilliant, beautiful stories only serves to prove what many have suspected: D'Ambrosio is now the best short-story author alive, period.

Saving the World
by Julia Alvarez (Algonquin)

When we try to save the world, are we being altruistic or are we simply trying to save ourselves? To address this question (and many others), Julia Alvarez tells us the stories of Alma, a current-day novelist living in the United States, and Isabel, the nineteenth-century Spanish rectoress of an orphanage. Both women are drawn into quests to rid the world of epidemics (smallpox in Isabel's case, AIDS in Alma's; it's a humbling comparison that shows how far we haven't come), and Alvarez beautifully weaves the stories until they are rooted in each other and the women's fates are inextricably linked. -R. Crawford

Seeing
by José Saramago (Harcourt)

What if they held an election and no one showed up? The Portuguese Nobel laureate poses an even stranger proposition in his latest novel: what if almost everyone showed up—without knowing that's what they intended, without talking to anyone about it—and cast blank ballots? A record turnout yields an almost unanimous victory—for no one. The ruling government is convinced there's a conspiracy afoot—but who could be behind it?

This sequel to Blindness will hold you in its suspenseful grip through, and beyond, the shocking conclusion that provides the denouement that Blindness hinted at, but left us hanging on. -P. Aaron

Black Swan Green
by David Mitchell (Random House)

Mitchell's inventive and postmodern novels have stretched the boundaries of literature. This time, his imagination is pushed to the limits as he tells the story of...a thirteen-year-old boy.

Life in a small English village may sound dull, but to Jason Taylor it's a struggle; the Hangman keeps tripping up his tongue; his sister calls him 'Thing'; he can't navigate the Byzantine social structure at school; he frets at his classmates discovering he's secretly a poet; the Falkland Islands War doesn't compare to the war between his parents; plus, how does one deal with girls? This is a brilliant portrayal of knobby-kneed, awkwardly graceful, despairingly epic, adolescence. –V. Verano

Apex Hides the Hurt
by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)

Whitehead's protagonist was recently the top dog in the nomenclature-consulting business. We enter the story ignorant of why he left his position (There are hints of a bizarre foot injury). He agrees to step out of seclusion to take on a seemingly straightforward job: to find a new name for the town of Winthrop. Buried in the town's history, though, is a tale of racial tension, defeat, and compromise. With this discovery, a simple decision turns difficult.

Whitehead has an unusually insightful view of race in America. This, combined with an imaginative plot and inventive use of language, makes for a stunning novel. -I. Akio

This Book Will Save Your Life
by A.M. Homes (Viking)

A. M. Homes is a master at putting her characters through the proverbial wringer, and her latest character, Richard Novak, is no exception. Waking him from the functionally dead, via a near-death experience, Homes inflicts Novak with a son who is a virtual stranger, weeping supermarket women, silence retreats, "gonzo-type" authors...the list goes on. Redemption may never happen in Los Angeles, but Homes gives it a fighting chance. -C. Joyner

Memoirs of a Muse
by Lara Vapnyar (Pantheon)

The idea of a muse—a woman who dedicates her life to a genius's art—has been considered by such capable authors as Francine Prose and Mary Gordon. Lara Vapnyar's first novel continues the discourse fearlessly—Dostoevsky's muse breaks up with him in the first chapter of the book—and with great results. Tanya comes to the U.S. with plans to become a muse to a great man. What she finds instead is a modern-day novelist who seems more interested in reading biographies of great authors than actually writing his next great book. Inspiration ain't what it used to be. -P. Constant

Halfway House
by Katharine Noel (Atlantic Monthly Press)

A promising young swimmer's high energy escalates into a psychotic episode, a crisis that upends family relationships and friendships in Katharine Noel's beautifully told debut novel. At first Angie, newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder, tries to step back into her previous life, but she and those around her are in unfamiliar territory, where hope, trust, and love can no longer be taken for granted. The skillfully drawn characters in this dark, intimate novel haunt the reader long after the last page is turned. -K.M. Allman

Torch
by Cheryl Strayed (Houghton Mifflin)

Cheryl Strayed lends her uniquely realistic voice to this tragic yet profoundly compassionate story. Teresa Wood, wife and mother of two young adults, receives the unimaginable news that she has terminal cancer. Too quickly for her family to bear, her life is taken. Now they must live without the woman who was a foundation to all three, and their grief alienates them even from each other. Making reckless choices in the darkness of their pain, they blindly grapple to reclaim their lives and to reconnect to one another, while remembering the love and counsel of their mother and wife. -J. Wells

Richard Temple
by Patrick O'Brian (Norton)

The opening pages of this novel can be easily attributed to the same mind that created the renowned Aubrey/Maturin series. The intrigue and adventure seem merely to have moved a hundred-plus years into the future and found a viable home in World War II–era Europe. As O'Brian unfurls his narrative, however, it becomes clear that the eponymous hero will face his most difficult fights off the field of battle. Richard Temple emerges from a quagmire of thievery, forgery, promiscuity, and vice as an antihero who nonetheless embodies the realization of potential and the discovery of courage within oneself. -J. Zaidi

A Dirty Job
by Christopher Moore (William Morrow)

With the death of his wife, Charlie Asher is unwittingly made an agent of Death, or as he prefers, a “Death Merchant.” As soon as he gets the hang of his new occupation, even stranger things start happening: enormous hell hounds appear and won’t leave his young daughter’s side; voices from the storm drain become evil creatures from the storm drain; and suddenly the city is overrun with small, fashionably-dressed, shoplifting animals. This could only be the newest Christopher Moore novel, and it delivers the fabulous mixture of wit and insanity that his fans know and love. -K. Markowitz

The Suitors
by Ben Ehrenreich (Counterpoint)

Attention! For those who tried Homer and failed miserably (myself included!) Ben Ehrenreich has created a masterful retelling of The Odyssey, populated with seedy motel rooms, vending machines, and pseudo-mystical migrant workers all in love with one woman. Liken it to being lost in a Gregory Crewdson (or Todd Hido) photograph, and then add Salvador Dali, a landscape that is irresistible, an environment that beckons like a siren's call—quizzical and dangerous, fantastical and surreal. Puzzling, mystifying, heartbreaking, and at certain points, excruciatingly graphic, this book touches on all the reasons that books are written. -C. Joyner

Sweetness in the Belly
by Camilla Gibb (Penguin Press)

The title of this novel only hints at the richness of its voice and its narrative. It evokes joy and fertility, but also hiddenness and the sadness that comes with secrecy. It cannot illustrate the bone-piercing immediacy of this book, the way it travels with ease. The glue for the story is Lilly, a foreigner wherever she goes, a Muslim, brought up in Morocco, matured in Ethiopia, a refugee in England, land of her parents. Lilly grows up and grows through joy and horror in these pages, cautiously teaching us about compassion and the courage to take risks for love. -M. Helsel

The Rug Merchant
by Meg Mullins (Viking)

Readers beware! This is a page-turner with depth—a beautifully balanced and powerful book. The rug merchant is Ushman, a new Iranian immigrant to America, who finds himself bombarded by intense culture shock and despair over his recent divorce. His life now feels bleak and lonesome until he finds both a love that seems impossible to him and a delicate friendship with one of his most challenging clients. With these relationships, he allows himself to find acceptance and happiness in the darkest time. Mullins has given us a gem that readers will certainly fall in love with. -J. Wells

The Stolen Child
by Keith Donohue (Doubleday)

In 1950s New England, a small boy named Henry Day is kidnapped. Neither Henry's parents, nor anyone else, realizes that he has been spirited away to live in the woods with a group of changeling hobgoblins. One of these magical changelings assumes Henry's appearance and takes over the rest of his life.

Donohue's novel creatively combines folk myth with a more modern tale. In parallel stories, the two Henry Days, both changeling and stolen child, adapt to the new worlds they inhabit in a time when human expansion and disbelief threatens the existence of the ancient hobgoblin tribe. -T. Hayes

Blue Nude
by Elizabeth Rosner (Ballantine)

Danzig, a fifty-eight-year-old German artist, teaches life-drawing classes at the San Francisco Art Institute. Once a promising painter, he has abandoned his easel after years of failed attempts. Enter Merav, a young Israeli collage artist and life-drawing model who has relocated to San Francisco to escape a troubled past. In exile from their home countries, both are struggling with their identities as artists, the burden of history, and memories of loss. Rosner, a writer with a painter's sensibility and a poet's soul, explores the possibilities inherent in the smallest gesture and the potential implicit in a blank canvas. -L. Paus

Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife
by Sam Savage (Viking)

On the surface, this novel—about a literate rat who lives in a bookstore and befriends a Kilgore Trout–like sci-fi author—is a dash of humanist magical realism. However, the juxtapositions (it turns out that Ginger Rogers can be crossed with hardcore pornography and emerge more sweetly human) layer into something more complex. Firmin is set in Scollay Square, a lawless Boston neighborhood that was, in the 1960s, paved into the monolithically hideous Government Center. The idea that we dispose of that which we most need to survive is illustrated by the well-read rat who dances through this debut novel. -P. Constant

Poetry

Sinners Welcome: Poems
by Mary Karr (HarperCollins)

Jesus's incarnation is one of many strange points in Christian Doctrine—are we really to believe that God stuffed himself into a man and then died? Mary Karr, in an essay at the end of Sinners Welcome, talks about coming to believe in Christianity and the Incarnation. These poems are, in a way, inspired by her discovery of Jesus as a "sack of meat."

Karr's words are about capturing her subjects' essence. Whether it is God, her son, the nameless sweatshop worker or undiscovered porn star, Karr's poems display the weird alchemy of incarnation, bringing life to the page. -M Helsel

The Owner's Corner

by Peter Aaron

Occidental Park—adjacent to the bookstore—is being razed. Seattle's municipal government is letting Pioneer Square—its unique, historic neighborhood—languish. America has become the world's murderous master bully. The planet is choking and curdling in the expiration of our (the good news and the bad news) imminently exhaustible fossil-fuel addiction.

Elliott Bay provides comprehensive medical coverage, with very low deductibles, to its employees, at no cost to them. I’m happy to do it—they deserve it. Happy despite—perhaps in view of—the refusal of socially bankrupt, phenomenally profitable publicly traded megacorporations (Wal-Mart being the most recently visible exemplar) to provide adequate coverage for their employees. In our current healthcare culture (even with insurance providers, if not healthcare providers, raking in enormous profits), I believe all employers should be required to provide adequate medical benefits. However...

The "current culture" is insanity. An employment-based healthcare system by definition excludes, or puts at greatest risk, precisely those most in need of protection: the unemployed, the noncontinuously employed, and the marginally and unofficially employed.

It is true beyond a shadow of a doubt that this—the richest nation in the history of civilization—has the financial wherewithal to provide—without engendering public debt—every one of its residents with medical care. It is true beyond a doubt that this nation has the resources to eradicate poverty, to eliminate hunger within its borders, if not around the entire globe. But we don't. Having the means—we lack the will. We just don't want to do it.

But wait—could it be that the vast majority of Americans don't want a national healthcare program? Of course not! It’s their—our—representatives who are opposed or who lack the moral courage to direct our resources to healing, feeding, educating—instead of killing.

And we—we allow ourselves to be misrepresented. We just don't care. Can't be bothered.

Can you imagine?

New Non-Fiction

The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences
by Louis Uchitelle (Knopf)

Since the 1970s layoffs have increasingly become a means by which corporations cut their losses and increase their profits. The prevailing impersonal, inhumane corporate mentality is "Rocks are hard. Rain is wet. Business is Business." This works fine for stockholders and CEOs, but does nothing for those who actually supply the labor. Uchitelle closely examines the human toll of layoffs, questions the practice, and proposes alternatives for the business world and our public policy. It is important to stop treating people as throwaway products and recognize their intrinsic value. -G. Berry

On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain
by Edward W. Said (Random House)

One might assume that artists reaching the end of their lives would endeavor to create one last magnum opus that epitomizes their established style. Through a litany of examples from all realms of the art world, Said illustrates how, conversely, artists often in the end strive to create something artistically pure even if it seems to contradict the conventions of their earlier work or of their genre. "Late style is what happens when art does not abdicate its rights in favor of reality," he writes. A truly great teacher, Said makes his own final work requisite reading for students of life. -J. Zaidi

My Life in France
by Julia Child
with Alex Prud'homme (Knopf)

Julia Child was one fun lady, or at least that's what this memoir leads one to believe. Her words are the sort that inspire people to take on ambitious projects in and out of the kitchen, with reassurances that when plans go awry, the evening can still be salvaged. This lively memoir concentrates on the years Child spent in France learning to cook, writing Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and falling in love with all things French. Let Julia Child inspire you to try something new, or to at least read the recipe twice and use another stick of butter. -M. Hickner

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasure of Obituaries
by Marilyn Johnson (HarperCollins)

When I was a child, I remember waking up and going downstairs to find my mother and father at the kitchen table reading the obituaries to each other over morning coffee. Apparently there is nothing better than coffee and death to start your morning—the true breakfast of champions. However, at that young age, I was unaware there was a true art form at work. Marilyn Johnson has written a morbidly hysterical love note to today’s "Dickens of Death" and those rabid readers that wake to read this era’s version of the human-interest story. -C. Joyner

The Jasons: The Secret History of Science’s Elite
by Ann Finkbeiner (Viking)

Summer science camp used to mean a week spent drawing rockets and making ice cream. For a Jason, summer means leaving a famed scientific career for six weeks to investigate highly classified Defense Department problems. Working together in "isolated splendor," they have invented detectors of unexploded land mines and devices that pick out drug smugglers entering this country.

The Jasons dictate which problems to study and are the ones to decide who can join their group. It’s been their way since they began in 1960.

Science writer Ann Finkbeiner has coaxed some of the Jasons out from behind the smokescreen to tell this intriguing story. -R. Mita

China Syndrome: The Killer Virus that Crashed the Middle Kingdom
by Karl Taro Greenfeld (HarperCollins)

The first inkling was a run on vinegar, a supposed elixir when boiled and inhaled, in Guandong. The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that ensued generated a justifiable global hysteria, complete with official Chinese denials and frantic scientific research for a cure. Fortunately, the virus was short-lived. By illuminating all areas of the epidemic spectrum, Greenfeld shows the staggering dangers of a true global virus when coupled with favorable transmission conditions. With "too many people living too close together with too many wild animals," he concludes that continuing societal evolution guarantees increasing future vulnerability. -J. Reiner

Three Cups of Tea
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Viking)

Three Cups of Tea is about happenstance, grit, patience, and endurance, told with a sort of straightforward exuberance that fits the mountain-climbing milieu from which the hero of this true story hails. Greg Mortenson's dream begins with building one school for one small Pakistani village, but continues further, drawing the reader into a rich tapestry of characters, Pakistani and American, trying to help the world, small step by small step. This book combines the best aspects of travel writing and biography with that most precious of things: hope. -M. Helsel

A Death in Belmont
by Sebastian Junger (Norton)

At the beginning of Junger's book, we learn of a disturbing coincidence linking his family to the murderer known as the "Boston Strangler." While most writers would spin this into true crime, Junger confines himself to reexamining the case of the Strangler and one specific murder for which Roy Smith was falsely imprisoned. His obsession with the truth takes us—in clear, hypnotic prose and profound and rigorously reasoned insights—through the minutiae of criminal law, racism, psychology, and sociology. Junger puts on trial not just the Strangler, but also the justice system, our society, and our morality. -V. Verano

The Omnivore's Dilemma
by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press)

Do you know where your food comes from? Do you care? You should.

In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan tracks the food we eat from the farm or forest to the table. He discusses industrial agriculture, organic farming, hunting and gathering, and investigates some of the hidden impacts these practices have on society. Much more than just a call for responsible buying and eating, this informative and addictive book examines the often bizarre relationship Americans have with their food and its origins. -M. Hickner

Dragonslippers: This Is What an Abusive Relationship Looks Like
by Rosalind B. Penfold (Black Cat)

Dragonslippers, a pseudonymous account of a woman's survival of abuse by her husband, is told in the style of a graphic novel and is based on diaries and drawings kept by the author as she tried to survive this relationship. What seemed painful, yet ordinary and even unremarkable to the author at the time, gradually unfolds into a horrifying story involving deceit, physical abuse, and also abuse of their children. Readers wondering about abusive relationships or just looking for a compelling, well-told story will appreciate this book. -K.M. Allman

What We Believe But Cannot Prove
ed. by John Brockman (HarperPerennial)

Untethered from science's requirement that hypotheses be falsifiable so that their truth can be tested, scientists from around the world respond to the question from which this anthology takes its title. Participants exuberantly discuss fringe theories in their chosen field, or dive into risqué topics like intelligent design versus evolution; cosmology; post-humanism; and the nature of consciousness. This is a surprising and at times shocking collection, with ideas and counter-ideas—like quick bursts of science fiction—for the mind to contemplate. You will urge friends and family to read this because you'll want to discuss this book. -V. Verano

Pilgrim On the Great Bird Continent
by Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Little, Brown)

Imagine that every single bit of writing by Charles Darwin is a small plastic Lego piece. Now spill them all out onto the floor.

Haupt seeks out Darwin's lesser-known writings, which lays a curious foundation. From here, she builds a fresh structure, focusing on Darwin's growth from newbie naturalist to a man keenly aware of his place in the natural world. How does a young, seasick Darwin come to such an understanding?

By looking closer, Haupt says. She never stops building, nudging the reader to look deeper into our own world. Every piece is already in place. -R. Mita

Sweet and Low
by Rich Cohen (Farrar, Strauss amd Giroux)

Meet Grandpa Ben Eisenstadt, the Brooklyn short-order cook who invented the sugar packet, and later, cashing in on the dieting craze, Sweet N'Low. "Uncle Marvelous," who took over the company with near-disastrous consequences. Aunt Gladys, bedridden in a house kept cold as a meat locker, the telephone her weapon of choice. Cousin Jeffrey, a burned-out surfer, earmarked to inherit the empire. Throw in the saccharin ban that almost destroyed the company, crooked employees, organized crime, an entire side of the family written out of the will (author included), and the result is a hilarious and merciless memoir. -L. Paus

Children's & Young Adult Books

Becoming Chloe
by Catherine Ryan Hyde (Knopf)

When two troubled kids, each escaping a traumatic adolescence, find themselves desperately sharing a vacant cellar in New York City, they stumble into an unlikely and immediate friendship—one that feels like family. Together, they escape the pressures and condemnations of the city and leave their hopelessness behind, bound for a new coast and an answer to a question that all young adults have asked: is the world a beautiful place?

Catherine Ryan Hyde portrays the agony of a hard lived-life carefully and honestly, while showing us the good things, too. -J. Schurk

The Boy Who Loved Words
by Roni Schotter
illus. by Giselle Potter (Schwartz & Wade)

Selig always knew he was a little bit different; he is passionate about words. He collects them, puts his favorites in his pockets and down his socks, and carries them everywhere he goes. The other kids mock him, call him "Wordsworth." He goes along until the weight of those words becomes too much and he discovers what they're really good for. The words (and pictures) in this fairy-tale-like book pop off the page and make readers want some of our own to put in our pockets and take away with us—instant inspiration for the muse in anyone. -J. Schurk

Star Climbing
by Lou Fancher
illus. by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher (Laura Geringer)

Lou Fancher’s story feels like happiness: a completely free imagination, joyfully pursued by a small child with an open heart. The child imagines riding on the great constellations of the sky (Pegasus, Little Bear, Swan) before falling asleep. The book features a brief story of the Greek myth behind each constellation, but toddlers will adore it as a comforting bedtime story. Johnson and Fancher's illustrations are as sense pleasing as a Klimt painting, but their cool blues and toned whites invite peaceful slumber and fruitful dreams. -T. Radebaugh

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
by Kate DiCamillo
illus. by Bagram Ibatoulline (Candlewick)

Edward Tulane, a fashionable porcelain rabbit, takes no interest in people. Then he is lost, taken in turn for fish food, garbage, and scarecrow. He is also, at different times, loved by three toothsome characters. He becomes a dress-wearer, vagabond, dancer, and the joy of a dying girl. He is aged by hearing thousands of stories he can't help but listen to. Edward learns that to love, be loved, to lose and love again is the miraculous life of a china rabbit. This book begs to be read aloud and adored as a children's classic. -T. Radebaugh

Back Talk

by Shannon Bigler

When we think of great works of literature, we rarely think of science fiction and fantasy (or SF&F) novels. After all, great literature is Great Fiction, generally by long-dead masters or bright young things, and never has anything to do with magic or speculative futures unless the author is foreign, like Italo Calvino, Haruki Murakami, Franz Kafka or Herman Hesse. Sadly for so many readers (and writers), the view expressed in that last sentence is simply false.

In 1981, a little-known SF&F writer named John Crowley published a book titled Little, Big (Perennial)—which promptly went out of print, then came back into print, went out again, and so on for the last twenty-five years. This brilliant American fantasy, set in contemporary times and exploring themes of family, love, and the subjective nature of experience, deserves to be read and admired for its virtuosity and beauty. A year earlier, another book was published that has suffered the same sad fate: Shadow of the Torturer (Orb), by Gene Wolfe. His story of a future so far away as to be nearly magical dwells on issues of identity, loss, and the profound revelations of history.

There are a host of other great SF&F authors whose works challenge and entertain us like few others. John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar (Gollancz), brilliantly explores the intersection of mass media and politics. Frank Herbert's Dune (Ace) probes the power of religion and politics in an ecological framework. Mervyn Peake's The Gormenghast Novels (Overlook) attack a rigid, codified society—and demonstrate the power and perils of freedom. Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light (Eos), probably my favorite book, bends the future back onto the past via mythology to talk about cycles of ignorance and enlightenment.

When we think of great literature we should not limit ourselves to the fiction section of the bookstore—stroll over to the science fiction and fantasy section for a change and see what great books you may have been missing (and don’t be afraid to ask for help).