Book Clubs

Have you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose (or, if you haven’t been, what do you think is the best way to choose) the next book and who would lead discussion?

Do you feel more or less likely to appreciate books if you are obliged to read them for book groups rather than choosing them of your own free will? Does knowing they are going to be read as part of a group affect the reading experience?

Great question. While I didn’t have the chance to read all the posted responses to this (77 when I checked) a random sampling really surprised me with how few belong to face to face book clubs and how many said that they don’t like the constraints of having to read a particular book for a club.

I started a book group in 2001 and it is still going strong with about 15 members at the moment. We take turns meeting at each other’s houses. The host provides a main course and four other members are given food assignments (appetizer, dessert etc.). We always stress that this is book club not food club so the food is low key and may be something ready made from the super market but as we meet on a week night and all come directly from work it assures that we have something to eat that night without cutting the meeting short. People also usually bring wine or beer. We take turns selecting the books. The person selecting the book presents three titles to choose from, explains why they were selected and explains their preference and then we vote on the three. The person that selected the book leads the discussion of that work.

I also briefly joined a book group that was to read the “great works”. I was excited to read Dante and Shakespeare with other people but all the books were selected by the leader and he had other things in mind. The leader believed that only very short works would be actually read by the members and he really loved the Greeks so he ended up selecting short political discourses that I was not interested in. In this group the leader led the discussion.

I particularly like my book club because it exposes me to books that I would never have read but for the group. We have read some truly amazing books that were not on my radar such as Troll, the Book of Salt, Perfume, and Don’t Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight. Moreover, often after hearing the book discussion and other people’s opinions I have a much greater appreciation of the book then before the discussion. Reading them for book club does effect the reading experience somewhat. While reading a book club book I make a point of marking particular passages that might be interesting for discussion. If it is the book that I have selected and I am leading the discussion I make a point of reading reviews, online discussions and author interviews before hand.

I was really surprised that so many people responded to this question that they didn’t like the constraints of reading a particular book for a meeting but that they were people that participated in challenges, often more than one. I am trying out my first challenge and that is exactly what I am feeling about it. I feel under pressure to read these five books under the deadline and am reading books that I would not have normally read, at least at this point in time. I am feeling a little resentful that I need to move onto the next book that needs to be read in stead of going with my whimsey and selecting what I am in the mood for. Others have said that they were not interested in joining our book club because they didn’t like the constraint and I never really understood that but I now have a better appreciation of their concern. I personally have never felt that about book club simply because it is just one book (usually less then 500 pages) every 4-6 weeks which still gives me time to read other books that I select. The five book commitment of the challenge however has left no room for outside reading.

I really enjoy my face to face book club and I hope that others give it a try.

Harsh Cry of the Heron

by Liam Hearn

This is the fourth book in the Tales of the Otori and while I greatly enjoyed the previous books in the series I really think that it should have ended with the trilogy (Across the Nightingale Floor, Grass for his Pillow and Brilliance of the Moon). The Tales of Otori are set in an imaginary feudal Japan with some very interesting twists. A secret sect called the Hidden that are ruthlessly persecuted, the Tribe which has inherited supernatural powers and act as spies and assassins, the kingdom of the Maruyama traditionally ruled by women, the monks of Teruyama and are dedicated to peace to name just a few. The three books in the trilogy tell the tale of Takeo and Kaede who have overcome great odds and brought peace and prosperity to the Three Countries. The Harsh Cry of the Hearn is about the wonderful world that they have built falling apart as the traditional feudal elements seek to regain control.

While part of my dislike may be due to the fact that I would have liked the story to end on a positive note, I still think that a book about the unraveling could have been well done. Indeed, there are aspects of Harsh Cry that I really enjoyed. For the first time in the series the Three Countries are placed in a larger context. Foreigners (clearly Portuguese missionaries and merchants) are introduced for the first time and with them the opportunity to discuss the similarities and differences between Christianity and the Hidden. Moreover, the emperor of the Eight Islands is introduced for the first time and his interaction with the Three Countries is crucial to the tale. The supernatural elements are also interesting. The twins play a vital role and their involvement with the Dead and the Ghostmaster was fascinating.

What I most disliked about the book was that one of the main characters fundamentally changed in this book and took actions that did not feel true to me. I can appreciate that characters develop over time, just like people, and that someone that was good can turn evil or that appeared good also has an evil side but in this instance it was not skillfully done and I just couldn’t believe it. One minute the character is who I have known for three books and the next the character is someone I don’t recognize.

I highly recommend that anyone read the first three books in the series (the first is certainly the best). I probably would have read this book anyway just because I like to complete things but on the other hand the last book in the trilogy didn’t leave you looking for a sequel and that was a far better ending for the series. Indeed, it was originally intended to be a trilogy i.e. three books. I also note that there is now a Prequel: Heaven’s Net is Wide which I will probably read as it has gotten good reviews.

Fantasy

So I was writing an email to a friend recommending that he read Titus Groan and Gormanghast by Mervyn Peake and googling for a review or two to include when I came upon this post by writer David Louis Edelman. I immediately liked this Edelman guy because he describes Titus Groan in terms of Kafka - I loved it! As surfing will often do his review led me to some interesting websites and added to the list of books that I would like to read.

Infoquake by David Louis Edelman mentioned above.

I found a fascinating Essential Fantasy Reading List by author Jeff VanderMeer. I loved the list because it included books and authors that I really love that I had never thought of as fantasy such as Kafka, Saramago, Peake, Borges, Calvino, Marquez which of course leads me to believe that I will like the others on his list as well.

The list also made me curious to read VanderMeer's books - City of Saints and Madmen sounds like the place to start.

Six months ago if anyone would have asked me I would have said I absolutely do not read fantasy but I guess what I was thinking of was what I have seen described as fluffy unicorn fantasy with dragons or knights or dwarves. But if what you mean by fantasy is that it is not reality, well then that is about all that I read. Steinbeck is very talented but I far prefer books that are not too grounded in reality. I live in reality and when I read I want something different. Plus I find that by not being tied to reality the author can often more easily and effectively illuminate an aspect of reality. If Kafka, Murakami, Saramago and Peake are fantasy then I am a devoted fantasy reader - I just didn't know it.

Storm Front

by Jim Butcher

I read this book for Once Upon A Time II Challenge. I don’t remember if I read another participant’s review of another book by this author or whether I just stumbled across it at Amazon.com but the Dresden File series sounded interesting and a quick read. A couple weeks ago I saw an entire window display of Jim Butcher’s newest book Small Favor (Book 10 of the Dresden Files) in an airport book store, so apparently he is popular. Storm Front is the first book in the series and is about Harry Dresden a professional wizard in Chicago. He is down on his luck and in trouble with the White Council when he is called in by the police to assist with a double murder investigation that involves black magic. Dresden deals with fairies, demons, vampires, and black wizards with aplomb and even manages to go on a date. In the course of the book things go from bad to worse but (as this is the first in a series as we might suspect) our hero eventually prevails.

It was a fun light read that I read in one sitting while flying cross country. It was certainly entertaining, I enjoyed the characters, the humor and the plot twists. I found Dresden an interesting character and it made me want to read more books to find out more about his story. (Exactly what did he do to get sentenced to the Doom of Damocles and what is that? It doesn’t sound good.) As I find with all these type of mystery serials I found it very formulaic and I certainly won’t be recommending it to my book club but when I am looking for something fun and light I will definitely read more in the series.

Book Review:The Stolen Child

by Keith Donohue

I loved this debut novel about two changeling boys. The title is taken from the Yeats poem which I had never read before but which adds an interesting dimension to the book. The chapters alternate between the story of the changeling that kidnaps Henry Day and takes his place in the human world and Henry Day who becomes one of the hobgoblins (now called Aniday) that live in the woods. I especially liked how the chapters alternated between the two boys’ stories. For example you get Henry Day’s perspective on being kidnaped and then the hobgoblin’s perspective of changing into Henry Day and fitting into his human family. It would have been easy to dislike the changeling who took Henry away from his family but the author did a marvelous job of developing his story as well and indeed by the end, I found him an equally sympathetic character. While I enjoyed learning about the life of the hobgoblins in the woods I thought the author did a wonderful job in showing how similar the two boys were. Both boys were struggling with their past, who they had been and who they were now.

I also enjoyed the author’s writing style. Aniday speaking of his assimilation into the hobgoblin family:

“They showed me the hidden things silence revealed: a pheasant craning its neck to spy on us from a thicket, a crow hopping from branch to branch, a raccoon snoring in its den. Before the daylight completely faded, we tramped through the wet grounds to the mucky bank of the river. Along the water’s edge ice crystals grew, and listening closely, we heard the crack of freezing. A single duck paddled further down the river, and each snowflake hissed as it hit the water’s surface. The sunlight faded like a whisper and vanished.” p 32 Trade Paper edition.

And I was happily surprised by the many scenes with Aniday and Speck sneaking into a secret basement chamber of the library to spend hours reading. Although many of the hobgoblins had forgotten their ability to read and write Aniday not only held onto and reveled in these human traits but also attempted to keep a diary of his own history. I found this an interesting aspect of the story.

All in all it was one of the best books I have read in a while and I would heartily recommend it to anyone. Indeed, I am thinking of suggesting it for my book club to read.

Poem: The Stolen Child

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scare could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than he can understand.

--W. B. Yeats

So it goes

I apparently have lost the ability to shop for books at a physical bookstore. I notice this on a recent trip to Seattle and confirmed it on my trip to Baton Rouge. I still enjoy poking around bookstores and make a point of doing so when I get the chance, having no bookstores at home, but I have lost the ability to find new novels to read at a store. Moving from working at a Barnes & Noble and being surrounded by books and book people on a daily basis to a location with no bookstores, I was forced to change the way I selected books. Now I am so used to reading magazines such as the former Book and now Bookmarks, the online version of the New York Times Book section and its like, BookBrowse (back when it was free) and blogs, not to mention the hundreds of comments left by readers at Amazon, before I select a book, that I cannot chose one now without that input.

I find this disturbing as I spent many a happy afternoon poking around bookstores (long before I worked in one) and coming home with piles of treasure. Indeed, I started working at B&N simply to get the employee discount and help fund my book habit. This trip to Baton Rouge I set myself a task - to find a book to purchase at B&N. How hard could that be for a bookaholic. The first thing that I noticed was that every book that I picked up I had either already read a review of it or it was by an author that I had already read and liked. Obviously these could not count as being found in a bookstore. Remembering numerous discussion in the blogosphere about the enticement of covers, I endeavored to find a cover that I found appealing. Every singe one of the books that I was drawn to had a cover with some sort of book theme and worse, were all books that I had already read about. After several attempts at this exercise (my hotel was conveniently located next door) I gave up.

I guess I have to accept the fact that my selection process has fundamentally changed. I don’t know that my new selection process is better for all the additional input or whether I am missing out on spontaneously finding unexpected pleasures, but change is inevitable. So it goes.

American Gods

by Neil Gaiman

I read this book as part of the Once Upon Time II challenge. It had been sitting on my shelves since it first came out in hardcover and I had purchased it based upon the great reviews and the fact that I had immensely enjoyed Neil Gaiman's book Good Omens that he wrote with Terry Pratchet. American Gods is the story of Shadow who is released from prison where he was serving time for bank robbery only to learn that his wife has died in a car accident. At lose ends he meets up with a grifter named Wednesday who offers him a job and Shadow becomes embroiled in the world of the American Gods. Unbeknownst to most people, America is full of gods that where brought here whenever someone from their homeland believed in them and therefore brought them to America. There is conflict between the old gods that we may be familiar with from mythology and fairytale and the new American gods of the media, internet and dot coms who think that they are superior.

I enjoyed the book but not as much as I had hoped. Of course with any book that gets so much hype it raises your expectations so that it is bound to be somewhat of a disappointment. I enjoyed the portrayal of the gods as everyday Americans, the old gods usually down on their luck and the new ones enjoying their time in the lime light. I loved the idea of tacky road side attractions being important power centers. I found the story a little slow to begin but then I got sucked in and just had to know what happened to Shadow next. I did not find any of the characters particularly compelling however, even Shadow. While I wanted to find out what happened next I didn't really care about any of the characters. I also found the sheer number of gods way to much. I would have preferred to have fewer gods but developed more then to have a very interesting three pages on a particular god never to see them again except once for one page. And I saw the punch line a mile away.

I also found a couple things confusing. While I liked the gods portrayed as regular people and I appreciate that some of the older gods were not very powerful because they were forgotten and not worshiped anymore, I found it odd how easy it was to kill any of the gods. I also kept wondering what about the same god in other locations. For example, say Odin comes to America from Scandinavia in the belief of Scandinavian immigrants, is there is another version of himself still in Scandinavia and another version of himself in each location that his people travel too? If so is the American version aware of the other versions? I know I am nit picking but I kept thinking about it through out the book.

All in all I enjoyed American Gods but I don't know if I will read its sequel, Anasazi Boys. I would highly recommend that everyone read Good Omens.

Discover New Blogs

The Hidden Side of the a Leaf has started a Weekly Geek blog challenge. This week's challenge was to visit some of the blogs of the participants, find five that are new to you, leave them a comment and then post on your blog what you have discovered. Since there are currently 115 participants listed there are lots of blogs that are new to me but as I am more of a lurker I don't normally leave comments so it will be a good exercise. This is what I found.

Laura at Reading Reflections is also a new book blogger and I really enjoyed her review of the Book Thief. I have read alot of reviews of that book and Laura's was the first that actually made me want to read the book. I look forward to reading her future reviews.

J at Thinking About ... has a very funny blog that made me laugh out loud and I totally identified with her comments about Yaz!

Misa at This Redhead Reads has a lovely blog and I really enjoyed the post Memories About A Sixth Grade Readathon which stirred up my own reading memories from my childhood.

Naida at the bookworm has a very pretty blog and I enjoyed her review of Coraline by Neil Gaiman.

I enjoyed the attitude of Bibiloatry who states that"reading is essential to living a good life" and contains interesting book reviews.

Spring

Do your reading habits change in the Spring? Do you read gardening books? Even if you don’t have a garden? More light fiction than during the Winter? Less? Travel books? Light paperbacks you can stick in a knapsack?

Or do you pretty much read the same kinds of things in the Spring as you do the rest of the year?

While I live in the tropics there still is a distinctive change to the season. Spring means an end to the dry season and its brush fires, the mahogany trees lose all their leaves and then promptly releaf, the peacocks become noisy with their mating calls and the days become warmer - you can just feel that summer is coming. While I don't read different types of books as the weather becomes warmer and "keeping cool" becomes an actual activity I do tend to read more. In the winter there are always projects to get done but the hot weather brings with it a sense of justified indolence. No need to clean out that closet, its best to keep cool and read by the pool.

Memes

Being new to bloging I am also new to memes. According to the dictionary a meme is “A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.” The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Dictionary.com. In the blogging world this apparently is usually a question or series of questions that other bloggers can then answer on their own blog. See here for more information. Some of them are posed by bloggers randomly, some are posted upon a regular basis and some seem to circulate through something akin to a blogger’s chain letter. Not being fond of chain letters I am going to try a weekly one by Booking Through Thursday which is book related.

March/April Bookmarks

Here are the books that looked interesting from the March/April edition of Bookmarks Magazine.

Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski - audio
Signed, Mata Hari by Yannick Murphy - ebook
Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips - ebook, audio
Stephen King, Duma Key - ebook, audio
Halting State by Charles Stross - ebook
Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee - S
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan -S
Postsingular by Rudy Rucker
Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra

Once Upon a Time II Challenge

I have been debating whether or not to join Carl V.'s Once Upon a Time II challenge. I have never done a challenge before and my first reaction to this one was that I don't read fantasy. After much reflection however I realized that I do read books that would fit into this challenge which includes some of my favorite reads, books on my to be read pile or my wish list - I just don't happen to think of them as fantasy! I have also never attempted to write a review that someone else might read but I am willing to give it a shot.

So in the spirit of trying something new I am going to do Quest the Third (Quest One with Midsummer Nights Dream which I just adore!).

While I reserve the right to change my selections at any time I believe I will be choosing among these books:

Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Harsh Cry of the Heron by Lian Hearn
The Bestiary by Nicholas Christopher
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye by A.S. Byatt
Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips
Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

What's the appeal of reading challenges?

In the last six months my lunch time surfing has revealed the world of literary blogs. I find them astonishing on two counts: 1) the sheer volume of books these people read each year and 2) the popularity of reading challenges. In my world I am considered a voracious reader but last year I only read 20 books and the year before only 20 books. The people I know think I am odd because I actually keep a reading diary and know exactly what I read. But compared with the bookish blogosphere I barely read at all. On the one hand it is comforting to know that there are far more book obsessed people out in the world than me. On the other hand it makes me feel like I better step up my performance before I can even begin to consider myself a real reader.

This brings me to challenges - I simply do not understand the appeal. On my bookshelves at home are hundreds of unread books that I really want to read. Moreover I acquire books at a far more rapid pace then I can read them and accumulate lists of books that I want far more rapidly then I could ever obtain them. So why would I want to conform my limited reading time to comply with a reading challenge? I understand wanting to share your thoughts on books through blogging and I can see that exploring a new genre through a challenge might broaden your perspective but why put aside books that I know I want to read to read ones that begin with the letter A or have an animal in the title? And these bibliophile bloggers don't seem to join but one challenge at a time but numerous ones!! How in the world do that they do that and still have real lives - which they seem to have from their posts? Maybe I am just jealous of these bloggers' apparent ability to fit so much reading into their already full lives.

How can I condemn something that I have never tried? I admit that makes me uncomfortable and so I need to do something about it. I have been wrestling with this thought ever since Carl V. started his Once Upon a Time II Challenge. I should try it - no way I don't have time - but it could be fun - but that means I won't read these books here on my bedside table! Uncle - I give up. In the spirit of research I am going to try the challenge to see what it is like.

Libraries and Borges

I found this book while browsing at B&N in Seattle.
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel. I just love reading about Libraries!

I have a copy of this author's A History of Reading - which I haven't gotten to yet.

Another book of his that I would like to read is With Borges.
Apparently Alberto read to Borges as a teenager.

Lullaby

by Chuck Palahniuk

I read this for book club. I had heard of this author because of his book (and movie) Fight Club which I never really had a desire to read (or see) and I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It is about a “culling song” which kills people. Originally the culling song was supposedly used in times of war or famine to humanly end the suffering of the young, the old, the wounded or dying. The novel however is set in today’s world in which it has been printed in a children’s book of nursery rhymes and consequently led to many accidental deaths. A man who accidently killed his wife and daughter teams up with woman who accidently killed her son and attempt to rid the world of all copies of the nursery rhyme book. I don’t want to give too much plot away but the novel is filled with outrageous characters, darkly funny scenes and witty social commentary.

The characters include a bereaved journalist, a real estate agent who sells and resells haunted houses, a witch, an extortionist/ environmentalist, and a paramedic who likes to have sex with beautiful dead women. There are some wonderful scenes regarding the bombardment of the senses by the noise pollution of the media. His descriptive narrative is unique and vivid, his dialog witty. My only complaint was that I found the end unsatisfying but I still enjoyed the book. If your not scared off by necrophilia and sudden infant death syndrom this dark satire will have you laughing out loud.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

by Robert Pirsig

I had first read this book the summer after I graduated from college while riding trains backpacking through Europe (1985). My husband (boyfriend at the time) read it that same summer while backpacking the Appalachian trail. We both loved it. And now, many many years later I just re-read it for book club and absolutely hated it although it did make for an interesting discussion. The story, to the extent that there is one, is the classic road trip. A boy and his father set out on a motorcycle for a holiday. It is gradually revealed that the relationship between the boy and his father is strained perhaps partly because the father had a mental breakdown and had been hospitalized for quite a while. The main thrust of the book however is to provide “Chautauquas” on the author’s philosophy regarding quality. It is remarkable how little I actually remembered of the book and I was expecting the philosophy, given the title, to be much more Eastern - which it was not. I had to force my self to read it by putting a book I was actually looking forward to reading on the coffee table which I would not allow myself to start until this one was finished. I did finish Zen but my husband didn’t get very far into it even though it was his book selection for book club.

While I don’t often reread books, I have never had such different reactions to the same book. Is it a book that only spoke to its specific era or generation (it was written in 1974) or does it particularly resonate with people at a certain stage of their life? A friend that is about the same age as I am commented that when we graduated from college Zen was a book that anyone who wanted themselves to be considered an intellectual had to read. I don’t remember being that pretentious but perhaps that was part of it. I suspected that it was a book of its time but while nobody at book club liked the book one person did say that a friend of his last year read it just after graduating college while hiking the Appalachian trail and loved it. All I know is that this go around I had no patience for its discussions of romantic versus classical approaches to motorcycle repair or the Greek philosophers. For those interested, a short recap of Pirsig’s philosophy be found at Wikipedia.

If the book put more focus on Eastern philosophy I may have found it more interesting. I enjoyed the story line of the father’s descent into madness and would have liked that story line to have been developed, but the entire plot seemed to be a mere afterthought. Perhaps I am just to the point in my life that I don’t want to waste time on something that I don’t find enjoyable just because others think it is important.

More Books

Darkmans, Nicola Barker
Three Days to Never, Tim Powers
Flower Confidential, Amy Stewart - NF
Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
The Bestiary, Nicholas Christopher
Intruders, Michael Marshall
An Ocean of Air, Gabrielle Walker NF
The River’s Tale: A Year on the Mekong, Edward A. Gargan - NF
The Children’s War, J.N. Stroyar - SF
Probability Broach, L.Neil Smith - SF
Light, M. John Harrison - SF

Some Sci Fi

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams
Recommended by Stainless Steel Droppings


Halting States by Charles Stross
Recommended by Stainless Steel Droppings

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

Brasyl by Ian McDonald

Wish List

Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
Tiger Force - Michael Sallah - S
Heartless Stone - Tom Zoellner
Baby Merchant - Kit Reed
Stolen Child - Keith Donohue
Pale Blue Eye - Louis Bayard
King of Lies - John Hart - S
Hard Way - Lee Child - S
Lambs of London - Peter Ackroyd
In Persuasion Nation - George Saunders - S
Jpod - Douglas Coupland
Cellophane - Marie Arana
Eagles Throne - Carlos Fuentes
Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser - S
Sex Lives of Cannibals - J. Maarten Troost
Caliph’s House - Tahir Shah
Field Notes from a Catastrophe - Elizabeth Kolbert
End of Story - Peter Abrahams
Digging to America - Anne Tyler
Challenger Park - Stephen Harrigan
Sea of Fertility - Yukio Mishima (Spring Snow 1 of 4)
Borges and the Eternal Orangutans - Luis Fernando Verissimo
Lempriere’s Dictionary - Lawrence Norfolk
Quincunx - Charles Palliser
Bangkok 8 - John Burdett
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson
Accidental - Ali Smith
Rainbows End - Victor Vinge
Quantum Zoo - Marcus Chown
Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
House of Paper - Carlos Maria Dominguez
Ex-Libris - Ross King
Sixpence House - Paul Collins
A Reading Diary - Alberto Manguel
Ex-Libris - Anne Fadiman
The Master - Colm Toibin
Next- Michael Crichton
Blindsight - Peter Watts
Mysteries -
Thailand - John Burdett - Bangkok 8 series
Laos - Colin Cotterill - The Coroner’s Lunch
China - Qiu Xiaolong - Death of a Red Heroine
Israel - Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist
Japan - Akimitsu Tagaki
Natsuo Kirino - Out
Italy - Michael Dibdin - Ratking
Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr. Ripley
After Dark - Haruki Murakami
The Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano
Angelica - Arthur Philips
My Holocaust- Tova Reich
The Raw Shark Texts- Steven Hall
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union - Michael Chabon
What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman
Brasyl - Ian McDonald - SF
Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
Baby Merchant - Kit Reed
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - Haruki Murakami
Fragile Things - Neil Gaimon
Right Livelihoods - Rick Moody
Ghostwalk - Rebecca Stott
Garden Iden - Kage Baker - SF Company Series - first one
The Meaning of Night - Michael Cox
End of Mr. Y- Scarlett Thomas
Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson - S
Fieldwork - Mischa Berlinski
God is Not Great-Christopher Hitchens -S
Yellow-Lighted Bookshop - Lewis Buzbee
Foreign Babes in Beijing - Rachel DeWoskin
Probability Broach - L. Neil Smith
Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo-S
Cheating at Canasta - William Trevor - S
Theory of Clouds- Stephane Audeguy
Elephanta Suite - Paul Theroux
Caspian Rain - Gina B. Nahai
Gentlemen of the Road - Michael Chabon - S
Uncommon Reader - Allen Bennett
Pirates Daughter - Margaret Cezair-Thompson
Quiet Girl - Peter Hoeg
Mister Pip- Lloyd Jones
Three Days to Never - Tim Powers
Against the Day - Thomas Pinchon-S