At Last Edward St. Aubyn Picador, London, 2011 At Last is the brilliant culmination of St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose series consisting of Bad News, Never Mind, Some Hope, and Mother’s Milk. Another darkly comic story of privilege and the double-edged sword of family relations, At Last was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Many fans of [...]
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union Michael Chabon Harper Collins, U.S.A. 2007 The cover of this alternative history novel is an eclectic mixture of imagery from pulp detective novels of the 1940′s, Jewish art, and Native art of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Chabon’s fifth novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union won three major science fiction prizes including the [...]
Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens Thomas Nelson, London, 1909 Nicholas Nickleby was Dicken’s third novel and the first of his romance novels. Like many of his novels, this one first came out in serial format. It was serialized over a period of twenty months between 1838 and 1839. Of interest, while writing Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens was [...]
the curious incident of the dog in the night-time Mark Haddon Doubleday, Canada, 2002 This is the Canadian first edition of Haddon’s wildly successful debut novel. The year of publication listed on the copyright page is 2002, a year before it came out in Haddon’s native England. That makes this the true first edition, although [...]
Slow Man J.M. Coetzee Viking, U.S.A. 2005 Slow Man was Coetzee’s first novel after winning the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature. It is a brilliant look at the relationship between the writer and his characters. Although the reviews for this book were mixed, I personally find it to be one of his greatest achievements. The [...]
The Plot Against America Philip Roth Houghton Mifflin, U.S.A. 2004 The Plot Against America is an alternative history novel in which antisemitic Charles Lindberg defeats Roosevelt in the 1940 U.S. presidential election. With a wry smile on his face, Roth denied allegations that this book is metaphoric of the George W. Bush presidency. The Plot [...]
The Piano Man’s Daughter Timothy Findley Harper Collins, Canada, 1995 Openly gay Canadian writer Timothy Findley was nominated for the Giller Prize for this novel, which was adapted into a made-for-TV movie in 2003. Ten years before this book was published, he was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada. He was a founding [...]
The In-Between World of Vikram Lall M. G. Vassanji Random House, Canada, 2003 M. G. Vassanji was born in Kenya, raised in Tunisia, and educated in the U.S. as a nuclear physicist. He moved to Canada in 1978 where he became interested in medieval Indian literature. In the 1980′s, he co-founded and edited a literary [...]
Mother’s Milk Edward St. Aubyn Open City Press, New York, 2005 Mother’s Milk was a finalist for the 2006 Booker Prize. It continues the story of Patrick Melrose, the protagonist from St. Aubyn’s trilogy Some Hope, although only loosely. It is a scathing and witty look at the shifting allegiances within a modern British family struggling [...]
The Moor’s Last Sigh Salman Rushdie Alfred A. Knopf, Canada, 1995 The Moor’s Last Sigh won the 1995 Whitbread Award. It was Time Magazine’s Best Book of the Year. The story covers several generations of a dysfunctional Indian family and is said to be a representation of the history of 20th century India. The protagonist, [...]