Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

I loved this novel about a months-long South American hostage crisis and opera singing (one of the hostages is a world-famous soprano), even though I have no particular interest in either topic and I was not at all sure I would be drawn in. But drawn in I was. The story, which is based on a real incident, is full of surprises, the writing is masterful, and the observations about human nature, art and love are profound. Winner of several awards, including the PEN-Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. -EB

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is one of those novels that utterly transports you to another time and place, so much so that when you put down the book you are astonished to find normal life going on around you. The relationships and struggles of the narrator, Lily, a woman of nineteenth century rural China, ring familiar and true, no matter how strange the details may be to us now. Footbinding, arranged marriages, and nu shu, a secret written language used solely by women, are among the historical details that come very much alive. This is a moving, thought-provoking, poignant novel. -EB

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

Sepha, the main character of this beautifully written novel, owns a run-down grocery story in a Washington, D.C., neighborhood. Sepha fled his native Nigeria as a teenager seventeen years ago after seeing his father beaten and dragged from his home. His two long-time friends, "Ken the Kenyan" and "Joe from the Congo" are also African expatriates, though they attended Georgetown and have better paying jobs. The friends still meet to drink and talk and play a trivia game based on past African tyrannies. These get-togethers and an occasional visit to an older Nigerian friend comprise Sepha's social life. As the neighborhood begins to becomed gentrified, a white professor and her biracial daughter, Naomi, move into Sepha's neighborhood, and he tentatively approaches them in friendship. - JP

Complications:a Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, brings the challenges, glories, and fears of the world of medicine down to earth, chronicling his own experiences as a young surgeon. Complications uses case studies to describe the intricate science of diagnostics and surgery. Better addresses the crucial but sometimes mundane topic of consistency in performance, showing how common sense is often more useful than whiz-bang technology. His prose is lucid and thought-provoking, and his willingness to admit his own mistakes is refreshing. In a culture where doctors are both revered and reviled, Gawande humanizes those we would set on a pedestal, and reminds us of our common mortality. -EM

Guido Brunetti series by Donna Leon and Rei Shimura series by Sujata Massey

Spend part of the summer in Venice or Tokyo via these two well-written, engaging mystery series. Traverse the many calles and canals of Venice with Commasario Guido Brunetti, capable and compassionate police detective and devoted family man. Be immersed in the culture and customs of Japan while Japanese-American Rei Shimura, antique dealer/sleuth, solves yet another crime. Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times Book Review describes Donna Leon as "the ideal author for people who vaguely long for "a good mystery", meaning a strong story with discreet violence, a wise detective who doesn't drink or brood too much, and a setting that's worth the visit". The same could be said for Massey. -JP

Guido Brunetti series, in order: Death at La Fenice, Death in a Strange Country, Dressed for Death, Death and Judgment, Acqua Alta, The Death of Faith, A Noble Radiance, Fatal Remedies, Friends in High Places, A Sea of Troubles, Wilful Behavior, Uniform Justice, Doctored Evidence, Blood from a Stone, Through a Glass Darkly, and Suffer the Little Children.

Rei Shimura series, in order: The Salaryman's Wife, Zen Attitude, The Flower Master, The Floating Girl, The Bride's Kimono, The Samurai's Daughter, The Pearl Diver, The Typhoon Lover, and Girl in a Box.

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life as We Knew It paints a terrifying picture of a world out of joint, showing how quickly one's definition of "normal" can change. Like everyone else, sixteen-year-old Miranda was excited to watch the much-hyped near-miss of an asteroid with the moon. Only problem: the asteroid didn't miss. Instead, it knocked a chunk out of the moon and shifted it closer to the earth, throwing the tides out of alignment and causing cataclysmic climate change around the world. Living in the heartland of the U.S., Miranda and her family are spared the worst of the immediate disaster (tsunamis, floods, hurricanes), but it quickly becomes clear that life will never be the same again. Food shortages, financial collapse, lawlessness, and crises in public health -- Miranda and her family struggle to keep going, day by day, with no guarantees of any future, let alone a bright one. Especially timely given current concerns about climate change, Life as We Knew It will keep you up late reading -- and then up late worrying. You'll never look at your woodstove the same way again. -EM

Graphic novels

f you've never read a graphic novel and are scared to try, these three recent books may be for you. Marjane Satrapi was a young girl during the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, and her two memoirs, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return tell her story in black-and-white. The graphic format allows Satrapi to show emotion in ways plain text can't capture, bringing depth and poignancy to the story in unexpected ways. Timely and taut, Persepolis is a great introduction to the form.
Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocello Marchetto. In turns funny, crude, heart-breaking, and hopeful, Marchetto chronicles with unflinching detail her experiences as a cancer patient: the long, painful chemo treatments, her evolving relationship with her fiance (later husband), and her struggle to keep working through her illness. Not for the faint of heart, but an invaluable resource for any woman whose life has been touched by illness. -EM

Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray

It's Shakespeare with a sexagenarian twist: two florists, both alike in dignity, uphold a long-standing feud between their families -- the source of which, no one remembers. Sixty-year-old divorcee Julie Roseman struggles to keep her family's Somerville flower shop in business; across town, widower Romeo Cacciamani's shop is on equally shaky ground. The two meet cute at a business seminar and, against the wishes of Julie's kids and Romeo's fearsome mother, fall in love and try to end their family feud once and for all.

Julie and Romeo is a good, old-fashioned love story, told with heart and humor. Ray, the mother of author Ann Patchett, is that rare breed of storyteller who can elicit belly laughs as easily as tears. The sequel, Julie and Romeo Get Lucky, is also recommended, as are Ray's other books, Step-Ball-Change and Eat Cake. -EM

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, follows the lives of Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, three students in a plush boarding school in England during the early 1990's. We tag along with them from childhood through young adulthood, gradually learning, along with the characters themselves, the disquieting secret they share about their origins and purpose in society. Although it takes place more than ten years ago, this is really a science fiction morality tale about a future that we're already on the verge of, with our current debates about scientific "advancements" such as stem cell research.
This book generated the most excitement and discussion of any story that my book group has read in the past few years. -JEP

This quiet, beautifully written novel is one of my recent favorites, also. -JP

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Colin Singleton has been dumped 19 times, all by girls named Katherine. His best friend, Hassan, who schools Colin in the finer points of casual conversation ("Not interesting," he proclaims most of Colin's commentary), prescribes a road trip to get over the latest lost Katherine. Along the way Colin tries to escape the curse of the child prodigy (a prodigy does not a genius make) developing a universal theorem of Dumpers and Dumpees. Printz Award-winner Green (LOOKING FOR ALASKA, 2005) deftly captures the agony and ecstasy of love, loss, and anagrams. -EM
2007 Michael L. Printz Honor Book; starred reviews from Kirkus, Horn Book, Booklist

Grief by Andrew Holleran and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

These two recent titles, one nonfiction and one fiction, deal with themes of grief and loss, but in very different ways.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Didion, whose husband died almost instantly of a heart attack as they sat down for dinner after visiting their very ill adult daughter in the hospital, works through her shock and loss by writing about her experiences, bolstered by quotes from research and her literary flourishes. Some readers find The Year of Magical Thinking raw and touching, others distant and cold. Either way there is no denying that Didion presents an honest accounting of this shocking event and her feelings in response to it. - JP

Grief by Andrew Holleran
Grief is an exquisite, haunting novel about how different people deal with grief, from the protagonist, a middle-aged man who goes to Washington, D. C., to teach at a college for a semester after the death of his mother whom he has visited every Saturday for the past twelve years, to his gay landlord and friends who have all lost many friends to AIDS, to Mary Todd Lincoln as expressed in her letters, which the protagonist reads while in Washington. Holleran’s work is spare, but beautifully written. - JP

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

This is a fictionalized account of a true event: the assassination of three sisters during the revolution against the Trujillo dictatorship in in the Dominican Republic in 1961. It's wonderful to hear each sister's voice (including a fourth sister who survived) describe events from their childhood up until the assassinations. One sister's personality and circumstances is as absorbing as the next. - JEP

Fame Junkies: the Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction by Jake Halpern

Since I'm dumbfounded by the staying power of things like reality television, this book gave me some insight into our culture's fascination with celebrity. Some of the stories are funny, some outrageous and some sad. You learn more that you might want to know about why so many Americans crave fame. - JEP

Happiness: the Science Behind Your Smile by Danie Nettle.

Some of the things Nettle discovered through psychological research really surprised me. For example, we're driven to want things (status, big houses, beautiful spouses) not because they'll actually make us happy, (they won't) but because evolution drives us to do so. I was also interested in the fact that, no matter what happens to us, (death of a spouse, winning the lottery) we each eventually return to our own set point for happiness. - JEP

Patrimony: A True Story by Philip Roth

Patrimony: a true story describes the decline and ultimately the death from a brain tumor of writer Philip Roth's octogenarian father. This book pulls no punches and is not always an easy read. Nevertheless, Patrimony: a true story will resonate with those who have watched a family member succumb to terminal illness. It is also a loving tribute to Herman Roth, a first generation American with an eighth grade education. Roth calls his father a man who "rooted all his life in everydayness," but the story of his struggles and relationships, and the son's meditation on what this father has left behind - his patrimony - make for compelling reading in the hands of this always brilliant writer.
Patrimony: a true story won the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. - EB