Book Choice #20:

Michael Chabon: Kavalier & Clay

Very cleverly constructed story of a Jewish escapee from late thirties Prague teaming up with a relative in New York to embark on a career of superhero comic creation.

Seemingly rather tame until two-thirds the way through when the pace quickens, the plot becomes overwhelmingly absorbing and at the same time - it brings all the previous 400 pages to life.

Book Choice #19:

Cormac McCarthy: Suttree

As sedately-paced and murky as the Tennessee River upon which Cornelius Suttree has made his home. An often humorous account of life on the margins in the town of Knoxville - and part auto-biographical, this is perhaps McCarthy's earliest masterpiece.

Book Choice #18:

Thomas Pynchon: Inherent Vice

I've spent the last few days with a permanent - Pynchon would say 'stoners' - grin on my face. A new Pynchon novel is - for me - the literary event of this, or any other year and once again - as with 'Mason & Dixon' and 'Against The Day', this lives up to the billing. 'Inherent Vice' is hilarious. It's Columbo-meets-The Big Lebowski-meets Film Noir-meets-The Simpsons at the tale end of 1969 - post-Manson murders, exactly forty years ago in fact.

The plot is intriguing and navigable - by Pynchon's standards anyway. Drug references galore, a proto-Internet, Nixon-era - Manson fueled paranoia, surf, sex, L.A., L.V., plenty of stoner short-term memory lapses (which is catching as the reader is often victim of the classic Pynchon character overload... 'who? what? where? oh, now I remember...'), flashbacks, zombie surfer-bands, the ancient lost land of Lemuria, etc, etc. All packed into less than 400 pages - which for Pynchon is a novella.

It's Pynchon's most accessible book by far - there are even rumours of film industry interest. It forms a loose trilogy of the California novels with 'The Crying Of Lot 49' and 'Vineland', but there is none of the dark, deeply unsettling undercurrent present in those earlier works. It's full of classic 'stoner' humour with proper laugh-out-loud scenes - often involving Denis (pronounced to rhyme with 'penis' of course). It hints at the future of a paranoid surveillance society - linked to the ARPAnet, an early version of the Internet but really that's as close to a 'bummer' as it gets.

Book Choice #15:

Roberto Bolano: The Savage Detectives

A vast, sprawling, engaging novel revolving around the members of an obscure Mexican-based poetry movement known as the 'visceral realists'.

Essentially, a story involving a night-time escape from Mexico City by a group of poets protecting a girl from her violent pimp. This escape also becomes a search for an elusive poet in the deserts of Northern Mexico.

But sandwiched between this story are a series of wonderful short stories - told 'talking heads / documentary style' describing various adventures of the poets - taking us from Mexico to Nicaragua, to Paris, Barcelona, Israel, Angola, Liberia, etc.

Such is the scope of this novel that I will probably need to read it again to fully appreciate everything within. A monumental work.

Book Choice #13:

Harry Mulisch: The Discovery Of Heaven

This vast novel, by Dutch author Harry Mulisch, comes with a hefty reputation and deservedly so. Although intimidatingly learned at times, the writing style is effortless and the pace increases exponentially as the story draws to its shocking ending.

The tale is of an angel's efforts to control events on Earth for a purpose revealed at the finale. One of the novels many strengths is that the main characters are so likeable; Onno and Max - the linguist and the astronomer who strike up a unique friendship - Ada, Sophia, and of course Quinten - the mysterious savant-like child with the striking looks.

The locations switch from the Netherlands to Cuba to Italy and ultimately to Israel. Against a backdrop of politics, revolution, the Nazi's legacy, religion, dreams and the nature of reality - Mulisch's masterpiece remains gripping over the course of its 700 plus pages.

Fascinating.

Book Choice #12:

Nicole Krauss: The History Of Love

An intricate plot, beautifully written - and one of the best novels involving Jewish culture since Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything Is Illuminated". Wonderful characters - especially the two children Alma and Bird.

Book Choice #10:

Stefan Merrill Block: The Story Of Forgetting

Simply breathtaking. A heart-breaking tale with a cruel disease at it's centre. Two narrators tell the tale - slowly converging as the novel reaches it's stunning climax. Isidora....

Book Choice #9:

Scarlett Thomas: PopCo

There was enough in The End of Mr. Y, for me to want to read this earlier novel by Scarlett Thomas - and I'm glad I did. 

I much preferred this story - filled with fascinating ideas ranging from complex mathematics, virtual worlds, the nature of reality, cryptanalysis, corporate marketing, homeopathy, vegan diets and comprehensive school memories. 

Gripping to the last page - one of those books you can't put down.

Book Choice #8:

Ross Raisin: God's Own Country

An uncomfortable read - and not just because of the deeply disturbing turn towards the end of the book. I found the book problematic because of the way the author pitches his main character Sam Marsdyke. 

It's obvious from the beginning that Marsdyke is a disturbed individual, but he comes across as being unaware or unconcerned about the consequences of his actions rather than having any insight or understanding. In this sense he seems to have a medical condition rather than being maliciously evil. But this is at odds with the thoroughly repulsive character he becomes by the books end.

Without a doubt the books strength lies in its language. At times Marsdyke's narration comes across as "Clockwork Orange-transported-to-North Yorkshire" and despite his twisted, delusional state of mind some of Marsdyke's observations are laugh-out-loud funny.

An interesting debut.

Book Choice #7:

Junot Diaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

A superb, highly original read. Set against the backdrop of a country with a brutal recent history, this tale of an overweight, Dominican sci-fi/fantasy "nerd" and his cursed family often reads like Wax Poetics magazine doing Tolkien.

Book Choice #6:

Marcus Zusak: The Book Thief

A tale set in the most harrowing and darkest of times. Written with a tender beauty and deceptive simplicity. With characters you genuinely care about, the last chapters make for difficult reading. 

Book Choice #5:

Scarlett Thomas: The End Of Mr. Y

An enjoyable enough mixture of Jostein Gaarder-type philosophical discussion and Michio Kaku-like popular quantum mechanics. Ultimately too far-fetched and implausible for my tastes but some interesting points on the mysteries of creation and consciousness.