The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

Strout is a great writer and an interesting storyteller. I loved Olive Kitteridge for its slow accumulation of details that ultimately made for an touching, intimate portrait of the title character. But there's something missing in The Burgess Boys. A great novel, even just a very good novel, is somehow more than the sum of its parts. This isn't one of those books.
It follows the Burgess siblings (two boys and a girl, so, why, Book Club, why, is it called The Burgess Boys?) as they work through a scandal involving the sister's son, a pig's head, and the Somali community in the tiny Maine town where the Burgess' grew up. The brothers are New York lawyers, one a bumbler and the other a star. That almost sounds like a comedy, but it's not.
This would make a great book club selection both because it's full of issues (I almost wrote "issues") and because it somehow fails. I won't reveal too much here, but one of the characters has a very, very unrealistic ending to his/her story. Of course, that's the kind of statement that's perfect for book club.

p.s. This books comes out in the end of March.

Railsea by China Mieville

I am comfortable admitting that I haven't read Moby Dick (there are too many great books out there to be embarrassed over missing a few). And I'm glad I didn't know Railsea is something of a re-do of Moby Dick before I started because I probably wouldn't have picked it up. I would have missed a great book.
This story takes place far into the future when the oceans are gone and the seabeds are lined with railroad tracks. Hunters make their livelihoods by riding trains in search of giant moles that live below the surface of the soil. Yes, there is a mammoth white mole that eludes the captain of the train our hero, Sham ap Soorap, rides, but this is Sham's story, not the captain's. Sham embarks on adventure to solve some of the greatest mysteries of the railsea - where do the tracks end? who made them? what are the great machines (called angels) that tend to them? and what does the obsessive pursuit of one white mole do to a person's soul?
I love Mieville's writing and the strange (sometimes very, very strange) worlds that he creates. I highly recommend this book (appropriate for roughly 13 and up due to complicated language and some violence). At the end of reading this I had two requests to make of the media universe: please, China, write a sequel and please, please Miyazaki make this into a movie.

Trapeze by Simon Mawer

I’m a sucker for atmospheric suspense novels set during World War II. I’m also a sucker for girl spies and great writing. Trapeze has all three of these things so, of course, I loved it.
Marian Sutro is just out of school and doing her part for the War Effort. She is offered a new job with the vaguely named Special Operations Executive. She’s a native French speaker and capable student. Sooner than she expects it becomes clear that the distant idea that she might go to occupied France is actually a very near reality. She’ll test her new skills, her relationships, and her mental strength behind enemy lines.
This is more a novel about one woman than a novel about World War II or spies or even the French Resistance. It’s the strength of Marian as a fascinating young woman, combined with that great writing, which makes this one of my favorite books so far this year. If you loved Restless by William Boyd or any of the Alan Furst novels, then you really should consider Trapeze.

The Call by Yannick Murphy

I loved Yannick Murphy’s novel, Signed Mata Hari, so much that I picked up The Call without any idea what it was about. It’s very different, but equally wonderful. The “narrator” is a rural veterinarian going through life’s trials with his wife and three kids. He ponders life, his son is injured, his own health is questionable, his wife is a little frustrated, and there are lights in the sky above his house. But his story is not told in traditional paragraphs, rather as a sort of list of prompts and answers (alternate title could have been An Ode to the Colon). Here’s the opening as an example:
     “Call: A cow with her dead calf half-born.
     Action: Put on boots and pulled dead calf out while standing in a field of mud.”
Call, Action, What the Wife Made for Dinner, and What the Children Say, are repeated often, but there’s also What the Spaceman Said and What the House Says at Night, among many others. Murphy is a strange and different writer in the best possible way. It’s amazing that she manages to tell such a complete and fascinating story in this strange style. I loved this book. It will be on my top ten for the year. Take a risk – it’s in softcover!

Embassytown by China Miéville

Miéville’s book The City and the City was my favorite book of 2010. One of the things that I loved most about it was that even when I was confused, I was still enjoying myself. The same is true for his latest book, Embassytown. This story takes place on a far outpost of the human diaspora (humans who left Earth to colonize other planets so long ago that they don’t even know where Earth is anymore). The indigenous creatures of this planet, the Ariekei, speak a unique language that does not allow them to lie, but they’re trying to learn. Through that (and so much more that I can’t give away) their language becomes something other than what they've known before, something other than what they've based their society on, and the repercussions are bigger than anyone could have guessed.
Miéville describes himself as an author of “weird fiction” and I think that’s perfect. Even though this particular books fits into a classic other-planet, alien-human-relations kind of Science Fiction category, I think it will appeal to readers who don’t usually like that sort of thing. It’s really about language and truth, maybe even love, and it’s about floaking. It’s perfect for someone in the mood for a unique, challenging, gripping story.

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

It’s strange to love a book when part of me feels like it shouldn't be good. How does Atkinson keep pulling off these great novels that hardly have a main character and rely on series of coincidences and wrong-place-at-wrong-time encounters? Especially now that I've read the three others in this series, so I know that the people are all going to be interconnected in some way in the end. I don’t have an answer, but she’s done it again with the return of Jackson Brodie in Started Early, Took My Dog. I couldn't put this book down. The story mainly follows an abandoned boy, a retired female cop who impulsively buys a kid from an unfit mother, an actress in the final moments of her sanity before dementia envelopes her, and (of course) Jackson Brodie, former private investigator. Oh, and a dog named The Ambassador.
Two out of three of the other Jackson Brodie books ended up on my top picks of the year. It’s too early to say if this one will make it, but it’s going to be close.

The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb

This is a fascinating and lovely story of a man making his place in Hanoi both during and after the Vietnam War. Hung comes to the city as a young man to apprentice in his uncle’s Pho shop. As Communism takes hold and the war follows, the shop becomes a gathering place for young subversives targeted by the government. In the present day Hung sells Pho from a ramshackle cart on the streets. Despite his greatly reduced circumstances, he still manages to keep those around him fed and cared for. His life is touching in its simplicity.
I really enjoyed this book. It would make a great book club read (I want to discuss with someone whether or not Hung is really the truest Communist of all). The food writing is also fantastic - I had to go out for Pho as soon as I finished reading.

The City & the City by China Miéville

Good Science Fiction uses an altered reality to reveal something about the real world that couldn’t be revealed without that altered setting. Great Science Fiction does this and entertains as well. China Miéville’s The City and the City is really great Scifi. It begins feeling like a dark, well-written, noir-style mystery – a body has been found in the city of Beszel, detective Borlu has been assigned to investigate – but the story quickly takes a sci-fi turn. Beszel exists, somehow, in the same place as the completely separate, foreign city of Ul Qomo. The book is both about the murder and about how these two cities exist intermingled the way they are. Yes, it is sometimes a little confusing, but I trusted Miéville to make it clear as I went along and I was not disappointed. This is the best book I’ve read this year. If you’re up to it, it would make a fantastic book club selection.

Elegy for April by Benjamin Black

We put all of Benjamin Black’s (the pen name for Booker-prize winning author, John Banville) books in our Mystery section, but it’s more accurate to call them Crime Novels. There is a whodunit element, but their real strength is in atmosphere and character. In the opening pages of Elegy for April there is an unseasonable fog flooding the streets of 1950s Dublin. Black evokes it so well, with such gentle intensity, that I was sorry when the weather began to clear. This story again features the alcoholic, brooding pathologist Quirke from Christine Falls, his complicated family connections, and the power system in Ireland. Even in the moments when the pace began to almost lull me, I couldn’t put it down. I felt like I’d gone back in time, like I was right there at Quirke’s shoulder as he made a hash of his relationships, struggled to resist the Bushmills, and doggedly did not let anyone get away with murder.

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt

Near the beginning of The Children’s Book there is a magical dinner party and the feeling evoked at that party is the feeling of the entire book. The party takes place in the English countryside where there is a sprawling cottage nestled amidst a garden with a wild wood surrounding it. The light seems to hover at the point of dusk, casting an orange glow through ancient orchard trees. There are children playing in and out of the party, always children running around on adventures. The hostess, the main character, writes faerie stories for children and I had the feeling that faeries, and other creatures of her imagination, might appear at any moment. The guests are intellectuals and artists, political activists and refugees. As the evening continues - the lanterns are lit in the trees, the champagne is poured – some of the guests turn out to be fools and philanderers, some have had too much too drink and are making bad decisions, but the story flits from group to group following the conversations and intrigues, never staying too long or leaving too soon. And when I had to close the pages of The Children’s Book, like the characters when the night is over and they had to go home, I was so sad to see it end.
This is one of my favorite books of the year.

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

A brother looking for his missing twin, a teacher and student who decide to take their romance on the road, and a young man coming to terms with secrets about his past – these are the main characters of Dan Chaon’s fascinating new novel. Their stories all take place separately from each other, but they are joined by loneliness, isolation, and a search (a desperate search at times) for their identities. Chaon manages to turn that almost clichéd pursuit (aren't most novels about identity in some way or another?) into something unique and very contemporary. You’ll probably want to check your credit report before you even finish the book.
The world of Await Your Reply, like the one of Chaon’s wonderful first novel, You Remind Me of Me, might have seemed overly dark, if it hadn't seemed so real. Yes, someone has lost a hand on page one. There are Russian mobsters and a dusty, depressing old magic shop, too. But there are also moments when the clarity of Chaon’s writing gave me the chills.
As the threads of the different characters began to come together, I was completely unable to put it down. I can’t say more, just read it, and then tell me what you think.

Signed, Mata Hari by Yannick Murphy

This is not a Christmas book. It may be red and it may be a new release in December, but it’s not for most casual gift giving. It is a fictional account of the life of Mata Hari (born Margaretha Zelle), the infamous World War I spy and exotic dancer. It is beautifully told both by Margaretha and a third person narrator. It follows her from losing her parents to moving to Java with her abusive husband, to raising her children and then returning to Europe to become a dancer and professional mistress. The descriptions are vivid and the characters so believable, it all feels true even though I know it can’t all be true. I looked up information about Mata Hari (I won’t give too much away here), but I still felt complete sympathy for her as she awaits her fate in prison.
Any book about Mata Hari would also have to be sexy and this book does that so well. Sex in novels, I think, is absolutely the most difficult thing to pull off. So often the descriptions become overly mechanical or pornographic, trying for too much accuracy or titillation, but the author here really manages to make the few sex scenes telling and interesting and just plain sexy.
So, I recommend this book if you need a little escape from sweet holiday stories, from cloying diamond commercials, from insincere well-wishes, if you’re in the mood for just great literary story-telling, and I suppose if there is someone on your list who needs a little sexy…