If you're looking for great crime novels to absorb you during reading time, here's a gold mine of suggestions. It's a list compiled and maintained by the owners of Partners & Crime Mystery Booksellers, a store in New York City that's sadly closing September 20, 2012. I've printed the list for future reference, and here describe my first three picks.
A Vietnam War novel from 1984
This is the kind of novel I would've stumbled on in an independent bookstore, if only those wonderful, passionate indie booksellers still dominated the brick-and-mortar landscape. Instead, I discovered "Fragments" by Jack Fuller online, while looking into a 1962 Vietnam pocket guide reissued by Oxford's Bodleian Libraries. Here's how the discovery happened.
Blunders of the lonely in 1950’s England
I purchased Peter Cameron's new novel "Coral Glynn" at Crawford Doyle Booksellers on Madison Avenue during a trip to New York. The clerk asked if I'd read Cameron before, and I said I had not. "You're in for a treat," she said. She was right. Also, heads up to those who love the book arts. Read the last paragraph to learn about the author's endeavors in this field.
Out of sync with the world’s ambitions
Mention the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s and those of that generation will instantly remember their peace signs, tie-dyed clothing, LSD trips and anti-government protests. Reading "Arcadia," a novel set in a hippie commune in upstate New York, those memories came back, only I experienced what felt like a more intimate view of this countercultural group. A moving fictional story written by the talented Lauren Groff.
Notes from a secret Paris
Here's an atmospheric, seductive journey into what the author says is "a secret city" of Paris. Written during the mid-20th century, these short essays are far from travelogue and more visual nostalgia. The book runs less than 200 pages, even less reading pages because it's a bilingual edition, with French on one page and the English translation on the other. My trip to Paris many years ago took me off the beaten tourist path. But it was nothing like this.
How a life blooms: the signposts of destiny
Molly Peacock's "The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life's Work at 72" is more than a great biography about an 18th century woman. It's a meditation on late-bloomers and the significance of choices made throughout one's life. Molly Peacock is an award-winning poet, and her "leaps of the poet's mind" transport us into wonderful places, real and profound.
18th century greed and utopia
In 1992, Michael Ondaatje won Britain's top literary prize, the Booker, for "The English Patient." But he didn't win it alone -- he shared the prize with Barry Unsworth's "Sacred Hunger," an involving novel about the British slave trade in the 1700s. The author's death last week brought the epic to my attention for the first time, a masterpiece likely unknown to many of us. Here's what we've been missing.
The nature of extremity
In Jennifer Miller's debut novel, a biology teacher instructs his students how to think for themselves, using information about extreme-loving microbes called extremophiles. These microorganisms become a sort of metaphor for what happens in this literary mystery that takes place in a fictional preparatory school in NW Massachusetts. "The Year of the Gadfly" keeps you wondering and page-turning to the very end.
J. D. Salinger’s noble opposition
The paperback edition of Kenneth Slawenski's biography of America's iconic literary recluse was released the beginning of this year. I read it, curious about the many things I probably didn't know about the man who wrote "The Catcher in the Rye." One of my biggest surprises was learning Salinger fought in some of World War II's most difficult battles. I also came to know Salinger as less of a bizarre eccentric and more of a person whose experiences influenced his behavior.
Grief wants to know
Here's a debut novel published by one of my fav publishing houses, Biblioasis. They send me unusually good books, and this time's no exception. "Malarky" by Anakana Schofield offers a unique perspective on an Irish woman's reaction to her husband's affair and her son's homosexuality. It's powerfully addictive.
Cracking open “The Lock Artist”
The 2012 Edgar® Awards, sponsored by Mystery Writers of America, are to be announced Thursday night (4/26), but I'm still thinking about last year's Best Novel winner. Here's what it's about, and why it's on my mind.
Radical book adventures in NYC
I've never read nor intend to read "Steal This Book" by the Sixties anti-establishment icon Abbie Hoffman, but that didn't get in the way of my wanting the book. Not any edition, rather a first edition paperback, signed by the activist, for sale at last weekend's New York Antiquarian Book Fair. Here's the tale of that brief love affair between me and the book, plus a look at Terry Bisson's new novel that takes place during Hoffman's busiest protesting years, "Any Day Now."
Ah, Grendel! You’ve come back
John Gardner published "Grendel" in 1971, eleven years before his tragic death at age 49 in a motorcycle accident. The story is a spin-off taken from the medieval epic poem "Beowulf," giving us the viewpoint of the monster Grendel, whom the Scandinavian hero Beowulf slays. A rare acquisition of the book's ARC brought Gardner's novel to my attention again.
Stories about holy absolutes, and more
"What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank" is Nathan Englander's new collection of short stories. Each of the eight stories engages us with challenging topics regarding human nature and the lives of orthodox and non-practicing Jews. Enter the elephants. Here's what I'm talking about (when I talk about Nathan Englander).
The Longest Chapter 