Best Sellers

Thursday, November 29, 2012

New York Times Notable Books of 2012

The New York Tiems has published their list of the top 100 books in fiction and in nonfiction. I always look forward to the list to see how many I have read. I'm just going to list some of the fiction works that we have that I think might interest you along with short phrase descriptions. Many, I have spoken of before but no room for pictures for this post - too many books.

An American Spy by Olen Steinhauer - one word description - espionage
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter - straight literary novel of a long lost love.
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain - coming of age; Iraq War; Dallas Cowboys - combined in one book.
Blasphemy by Sherman Alexie - short stories by a superb short story author about the current day plight of Native Americans.
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - second in the series of Thomas Cromwell's England
Canada by Richard Ford - coming of age and innocence lost.
Carry the One by Carol Anshaw - how a devastating drunken accident affects the lives of a group of friends.
Dear Life by Alice Munro - short stories about an ordinary life.
Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison - Rasputin's daughter and Prince Alyosha dream up a world that will never be.
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver - Applachia environment - climate change is the focus in novel format.
Fobbit by David Abrams - More on the Iraqi War with satire as the format - think M*A*S*H* and Catch 22.
Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden - Money, Mississippi and Emmett Till. Historical realism with some magic thrown in.
HHhH by Laurent Binet - Prague - 1942 - the Gestapo and two men assigned to kill it's head, Reinhard Heydrich.
A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers - a struggling salesman trying to pay his duaghter's college tuition in a Saudi Arabian city.
Home by Toni Morrison - a Korean War veteran is forced to return to his hometown, a small town in Georgia.
In One Person by John Irving - a story of unfulfilled love and trying to make yourself whole featuring a bisexual.
A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash - the love between two brothers, one of whom is mute.
NW by Zadie Smith - a look at London through the eyes of 4 neighbors.
Pure by Julianna Baggott -a wide range of opinions on this dystopian novel that is not for YAs.
The Round House by Louise Erdrich - a tale of injustice  in a community where Ojibwe and white live uneasily together
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward - a story of rural poverty and motherless children that help each other survive.
Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer - A woman born without hair; her astronaut husband with Ausberger Sydrome and an autistic child and THEN the trouble starts.
The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont - a coming of age story that is filled with melancholy. A young rebellious prep school student with a desire to sail.
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan - a young, beautiful, female Cambridge graduate is recruited into the British Intelligence Service.
Swimming Home by Deborah Levy - short listed for the Booker prize but beaten by Bring Up the Bodies, a book of 4 dysfunctional tourists on the French Riviera and another depressed acquaintence.
Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon - a used record store in Oakland, CA run by two friends; a major new music store threatening to move in down the block; a midwivery service run byt he friends wifves which is threaten with legal proceeding on an at home birth gone bad - sounds depressing but Chabon writes with humor.
The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin - gives Mary a voice but she present a very different picture.
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz - stories of love, longing and the weakness of the human heart.
Watergate by Thomas Mallon - a retelling of the Watergae scandal in novel format.
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers - Once again the Iraqi War and a story of what war does to young men.

How many of these have you read? I've only read about 10 of the 30 I have listed. All are available from the library. Take a look at a few.

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