The 2018 List reverse chronological order »Amphigorey »The Library Book »My Brilliant Friend »Fox 8 »Reservoir 13 »The Reservoir Tapes »Chronicle of a Death Foretold »Mrs. Osmond »The Robber Bride »The Portrait of a Lady »His Favorites »Invisible »Alias Grace »A Field Guide to Getting Lost »A Long Way From Home »Lost in the Meritocracy »Room to Dream »How to Behave in a Crowd »Tangerine »The Blind Assassin »Social Creature »The Haunting of Hill House »The Mars Room »Mrs. Caliban »The Adventures of Augie March »The Transit of Venus »Macbeth »Word by Word »Educated »Golden Hill »Pops »American Pastoral »A Month of Sundays »The Plot Against America »Frankenstein »Gringos »The Scarlet Letter »Ripley's Game »Mrs. Fletcher »Pick-Up »Ripley Under Ground »Fantasyland »The Talented Mr. Ripley »Six Four »City on Fire »My Absolute Darling Abandoned »The Church of Dead Girls; Boy in the Water The 2017 List The 2016 List The 2015 List The 2014 List The 2013 List The 2012 List The 2011 List The 2010 List The 2009 List The 2008 List All-time favorites Theft,  Peter Carey JR,  William Gaddis Winter's Tale,  Mark Helprin Sometimes a Great Notion,  Ken Kesey Moby-Dick,  Herman Melville Martin Dressler,  Steven Millhauser Housekeeping,  Marilynne Robinson Franny & Zooey,  J.D. Salinger Infinite Jest,  David Foster Wallace Delta Wedding,  Eudora Welty Honorable mentions: Paul Auster, Rick Bass, Michael Chabon, Charles Dickens, Stephen Dobyns, Neil Gaiman, Thomas Hardy, Graham Swift, Tim Winton.

The books of 2018 Halfway through the year, I started noticing I was reading a lot of books by women. This was not intentional; it just turned out that way. In the end, 20 of my 46 books of this year were by women. I went back and counted the previous years. Without realizing it, I read 19 books by women (out of 53) in 2017, but the previous years were much lower — almost always less than 20 percent, one year as low as four out of 37. I don't have a point to make here. There's not a common thread among the writers, and I could easily swing back the other way. But it does make me smile to see these titles on my list, the top three (or four) of them about women. The misogynists are represented, too, with Roth at No. 5 and in the runners-up. (I'm justifying counting "Mrs. Osmond" and "Portrait of a Lady" as one entry among my favorites because I read them one after the other and they're paired in my mind.) Favorites 1. The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard 2. Mrs. Osmond, John Banville and The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James 3. The Mars Room, Rachel Kushner 4. The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith 5. The Plot Against America, Philip Roth Honorable mentions: My Brilliant Friend, The Long Way Home, Gringos, American Pastoral, All 46 books Amphigorey: Fifteen Books (1972, Edward Gorey) Why I picked it: I read a New Yorker article about Gorey, and it reminded me how much I liked his drawings and drolly creepy stories when I was a kid. What it's about: A collection of Gorey's stories and illustrations, in his inimitable unsettling style. What I thought: This is one of those books that compels you to share it forcibly with whomever is nearby. I particularly like "The Doubtful Guest" and "The Willowdale Handcar," and this poem from the ABCs of "The Fatal Lozenge": The Journalist surveys the slaughter, The best in years without a doubt; He pours himself a gin-and-water And wonders how it came about. The Library Book (2018, Susan Orlean) Why I picked it: Orlean can make just about anything interesting, and this one has a lot of Los Angeles history, which is one of my favorite topics. And I like libraries. What it's about: It starts with the catastrophic 1986 fire at the Los Angeles downtown library and spins out to talk about the history and future of libraries, particularly in that city but also in general. What I thought: As I expected, this was a good read, but it didn't have for me the sense of discovery that I got with Orlean's "The Orchid Thief," about a topic I knew nothing about. With this one, a lot of what Orlean discovers, I was already familiar with: • The library fire. As she points out, it happened in the same news cycle as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, so a lot of people — Orlean included — missed the story completely. I was working at a West Coast newspaper, so I knew about it. • Los Angeles history. She spends a lot of time on Charles Fletcher Lummis, who's a fascinating guy, but familiar to me. • Libraries in general. Orlean admits she hadn't gone to a library in quite a while. A lot of what she writes about seems a couple decades old. She's a little too fascinated, for instance, by teen hangout areas with manga and beanbag chairs and programs on sex and drugs, and by the idea that much library lending these days is from digital collections (she focuses on OverDrive) of ebooks, audiobooks, music and video. Still, she's a very thoughtful reporter and writer, especially skilled at finding just the right detail to embody a person or a situation, and she doesn't just take the prevailing narrative as fact. My Brilliant Friend (2011, Elena Ferrante) Why I picked it: This has been on my list for a couple years. When I started seeing the buzz about the HBO version starting in mid-November, I figured I'd better get it from the library before the rush started. What it's about: The first of four novels about two girls from a poor neighborhood in Naples. This one, in the 1950s, follows them from age 10 to 16. What I thought: My favorite thing about this was the sense of the time and place. It's quite different from the U.S.-centric view of the late '50s as a time of great prosperity and carefree living, especially for teenagers. This is a neighborhood where having a car or a television is a rare thing, and most people don't even have bathtubs. The lack of money, as well as a discounting of the value of education for women, shapes the lives of these girls from the very start: Elena's parents (somewhat grudgingly) pay for her to continue schooling beyond age 11, but Lila's do not, and she goes to work in her father's shoe repair shop. There's a lot of struggle and disappointment in this story, and the book ends with a sharply ominous image: A teenage bride stares at the shoes of one of her wedding guests, with a sudden realization of what lies ahead for her. I will definitely continue on to the second book. Fox 8 (2013, George Saunders) Why I picked it: For once I remember where I heard about it. The New York Times Magazine has a standing feature called New Sentences, a short essay on some scrap of language (poetry, fiction, speeches, song lyrics). A few weeks ago it was from this story: "We are very open and honest with Chikens!" I love talking foxes and I love George Saunders. What it's about: A fox that has learned English (but whose spelling sucks) narrates a fable about bad human behavior. What I thought: This is perhaps a half-hour read, but it will stick with you for a while. It starts out funny and charming, and ends a little darker than you expect, but not without hope. Alex and I were musing why it is that foxes are the go-to speaking animal in fiction. I loved the word-scavenger foxes in Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials," and Alex remembered that the title character in "Borne" is at one point a fox. I think it's because they seem clever but whimsical, so it's fun to imagine how they'd talk. Also, their yipping sounds like maybe they'd have the vocal apparatus to talk. I wasn't sure what date to put on this. It was reportedly dropped from Saunders' collection "Tenth of December," and then it showed up in McSweeney's in 2010, as an ebook in 2013 and finally in hard-copy in 2018. Reservoir 13 (2017, Jon McGregor ) and The Reservoir Tapes (2017, Jon McGregor ) Why I picked it: I can't remember where I ran across it. It was "Tapes" I saw first, but luckily I realized I should start with the novel instead. What it's about: A 13-year-old girl goes missing on a hike in England's Peak District. What I thought: "Reservoir 13" (the novel) becomes a narrative I didn't expect at all. I thought this would be about the investigation into the disappearance. Instead, it's about the town where the girl disappeared from, the lives of a couple dozen of the residents in the 10 or so years after the event. There are occasional mentions of the missing girl, but she's not a major character. (I think I'm safe in that spoiler. If you want a standard crime-novel resolution, I just did you a favor.) I started out thinking, "yes, yes, now what about the girl," but pretty soon I fell into the rhythm, the considered layering, and the unfolding of the characters over the course of a decade. "The Reservoir Tapes" is a collection of short stories tangential to the novel, originally done for a radio program. They're not bad, and they add something to the narrative, but I wouldn't have read them if it weren't for the novel. One thing that I'm sure was a deliberate choice, but it made for occasional confusion on my part: The characters' names are the blandest, most common English names — Jackson, Wilson, Hunter, Carter, Fowler, Fletcher, Sally, Sarah, Susanna, Su — and I sometimes had to stop for a sec and figure out what I knew about a returning character. Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981, Gabriel Garcia Marquez) Why I picked it: : I wanted an easy entry into Garcia Marquez. What it's about: A young man is murdered in a Colombian town, and decades later a writer pieces together the events of the day. What I thought: Definitely a good place to start. A very short novel, but I imagine it's a good preview of Garcia Marquez's long works, in its language and imagery and the sense of place, and the slightly fairy-tale feel of it. Mrs. Osmond (2017, John Banville) Why I picked it: This is a modern writer's continuation of Henry James' "The Portrait of a Lady," which I recently read and liked. I also liked the idea of a sequel. What it's about: (Skip to the next paragraph if you're avoiding spoilers about "Portrait of a Lady.") This picks up where "Portrait" left off — with Isabel Archer Osmond somewhat surprisingly returning to Italy and, presumably, to the husband about whom she has recently learned a scandalous secret. What I thought: This is a pretty amazing piece of work, to write a stand-alone novel that is also a credible continuation of a piece of the Western canon. The key to this, I think, is that Banville stays true to the characters. His Isabel, his Osmond, his Mrs. Touchett and Miss Stackpole never do anything that James' would not. Isabel changes as a person over the course of the novel, but not in a way that belies "Portrait." Banville writes here in a style as close to James' as one would want to go without veering into parody. I didn't find him as humorous as James, though, and he uses more words that I had to look up. Banville is adroit in working in the background, so that someone who hadn't read "Portrait" would know what came before. I started out thinking, OK, I'm going to look for the catch-up paragraphs, and pretty quickly I stopped noticing them, so smoothly were they inserted in the narrative. The story itself goes beyond Isabel's agonizing over her marriage and her future. There's one more horrible secret to be revealed, and a what-just-happened subplot involving a satchel of money that isn't wrapped up until the end. This novel has slightly more resolution than "Portrait," and it leaves Isabel in a much happier place, to my thinking. The Robber Bride (1993, Margaret Atwood) Why I picked it: I was on an Atwood mini-roll — "The Blind Assassin," re-reading "Alias Grace" — and this one sounded interesting. What it's about: Three women, former classmates at a Toronto college, are misused by a fourth. They believe her to be dead in the late 1980s, when they are in their 40s, but she reappears. (This is not much of a spoiler: It's revealed early on that she is apparently not dead after all.) What I thought: It took me a while to get into this one. I initially didn't like the main characters much. They seemed cutout types: the brassy businesswoman, the mousy intellectual, the guileless hippie. But then the book cuts away from the modern-day action and follows the lives of these women from their childhoods and I understood them better and liked them better. I thought the last part, when Zenia reemerges, would be longer and more involved, but it all wraps up quickly (though not completely — some ambiguity remains about how the climactic action came about). In the end, I think my reading time would have been better spent on something else, but I always get something out of Atwood. Movie: There is a movie of this name that claims to be based on the novel, but the plot sounds quite removed from the book's. The Portrait of a Lady (1881, Henry James) Why I picked it: I had read a few of James' novels and had been meaning to tackle this one, considered one of his best. What kicked it to the top of my list was my desire to read John Banville's 2017 "Mrs. Osmond," a sequel to "Portrait." I'm generally leery of latter-day sequels, but Banville has a good reputation, and the concept is intriguing. What it's about: A young American woman visiting Europe in the 1870s comes into an unexpected inheritance and makes an unhappy marriage. What I thought: One of the reasons I had waited five years since my last James novel (the much shorter "What Maisie Knew") is that I had struggled a bit with his ornate and layered prose. With this one, I had less trouble. Quite possibly I skimmed past some of the denser paragraphs, but I still feel like I did a pretty attentive reading. I was surprised at how funny this one was, for what is at its heart a very dark book, and part of what made it funny was the convoluted and/or dryly formal constructions, particularly in dialogue. I also came away impressed with James' bold, cusp-of-modernist narrative choices — most obviously, his skipping four years after Isabel accepts a marriage proposal. Something I did not know before I started: In addition to its serialized debut in The Atlantic in 1880-81, there are two distinct novelizations of "Portrait," the one I read and the 1908 "New York version," revised by James himself. Scholars seem to be divided on which is preferable. I think, had I known, I would have sought out the later one. (I discovered the existence of the second when I was without my copy of the book and wanted to look up a character's amusing rant about her wheezing horses — and I found it online, but the horses were panting instead of wheezing.) Another thing I discovered: Though I was, as mentioned, aware of the modern-day sequel, I didn't know until I got to the end how much "Portrait" cries out for a Part 2. There's virtually no denouement, and the last dialogue is this abrupt "shit, really?" moment. What's next: Obviously, "Mrs. Osmond." I confess I abandoned Banville's Booker-winning "The Sea," but maybe this sequel — just as it got me to read "Portrait of a Lady" — will send me back to Banville's other work. Movie? I remembered the existence of, but had not seen, a 1990s "Portrait" starring Nicole Kidman — Merchant-Ivory, I assumed, but I was wrong there. It's Jane Campion, which is a plus in my book. The main roles besides Isabel are filled by John Malkovich and Barbara Hershey, who seem fine for them -- and some of the supporting actors are even more of a draw to me: Christian Bale, Viggo Mortensen and particularly Martin Donovan. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing this one in the Peninsula or San Jose library systems. His Favorites (2018, Kate Walbert) Why I picked it: New book that got some high-profile good reviews. What it's about: After a traumatic event, 15-year-old Jo is sent to a New England boarding school where she draws unwanted sexual attention from a charismatic teacher. What I thought: This is a really short novel, 149 pages. The basic narrative could have been a (long) short story, but Jo's first-person recounting includes a lot of what came before and after — material that might seem tangential but has a common thread of victimization, humiliation, retribution, regret. What's next: This was my introduction to Walbert. Her 2009 novel "A Short History of Women" is generally considered her best so far, and I put that on my list. Invisible (2009, Paul Auster) Why I picked it: Auster is hit-and-miss with me, but the hits ("Leviathan," "The Music of Chance," the New York Trilogy ) are of a magnitude to make his novels worth my while. What it's about: The memoir of Adam, a dying man, implicates a former Columbia instructor in a brutal crime decades earlier, and Adam's erstwhile classmate James investigates the story's veracity. What I thought: As you might guess from the description — and from any knowledge of Auster's other work — this one is formally pretty tricky. It starts out as a straightforward recounting, then kind of backs out to encompass the reaction and response of the classmate, and ends up with a long story told to James by someone who knew both Adam and the accused man. One of the things I like most about Auster is the vaguely dreamlike feel of his stories — walking the line between realistic and surreal — and this one definitely has that. Anyone who requires a buttoned-up ending is not going to like this one. Adam is not one of those immediately suspect unreliable narrators who are so popular these days, but the stories he tells draw vociferous denials from other characters. That said, the reader ends up with a definite view of whether the accused man is capable of the crime. My favorite Auster novels are from more than 25 years ago. After struggling with a couple that he wrote in the early 2000s, I became less eager to take them on. This one I had a much better time with. What's next: After pumping out novels every year or two, Auster disappeared for seven years and then emerged with last year's "4 3 2 1," an 866-page novel that tells four versions of one character's life. I can't imagine that one making it to the top of my reading list any time soon. But given my renewed appreciation of Auster after "Invisible," there are a couple others — "Man in the Dark" and "Sunset Park" — that I'm now willing to try. Alias Grace (1996, Margaret Atwood) Why I picked it: I read it when it came out, and I liked it a lot. After reading Atwood's "The Blind Assassin," I wanted to reread "Grace." What it's about: Based on a true 19th-century Canadian murder case in which Grace Marks, a 16-year-old housekeeper, was convicted of killing her employer and her boss. What I thought: Still a good book, though probably my reading time would have been better spent on something I hadn't read before. I liked the historical/sociological context of Canada in the 1840s. This is heavily fictionalized, but it seemed scrupulously researched. Movie? This is a Netflix series now. I always put it on the short list when Alex and I are picking something to watch, but she never goes for it. I'd probably pick "The Handmaid's Tale" over this one, if only for its cultural relevance these days. A Field Guide to Getting Lost (2005, Rebecca Solnit) Why I picked it: I'm always getting excited by descriptions of Solnit's books. She's into maps, and the American West, and San Francisco history, so I expect to find something that really speaks to me. So far, it has been hit and miss. "Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas" has come the closest. What it's about: Essays by Solnit on the loose theme of wandering and wild, unfamiliar places. What I thought: This book started out really strong for me, with an essay about roaming and being lost / losing oneself as a way of "finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you." The eight other essays didn't grab me as much, though there were enough pieces that engaged me (including a long examination of Hitchcock's "Vertigo") that I finished the book. A Long Way From Home (2017, Peter Carey) Why I picked it: Peter Carey. What's it about: In 1954, the Redex Trial — a brutal 10,000-mile road rally around Australia — is undertaken by a trio from Carey's (real-life) Yoknapatawpha, Bacchus Marsh: an ambitious young car salesman, his tenacious wife and their quiz-show-champ neighbor. What I thought: Of Carey's 14 novels, there are a few I love and a few I couldn't make it through. Of those in the middle, this is closer to the love end. There was a lot of the Australianness that's one of the main things I like about Carey. I also liked Willie and Irene, who alternate telling the story until ... they don't. (Alternating narrators seem to be my literary lot lately: this, "Tangerine," "Room to Dream.") Well into the book, there's a sharp left turn into the bush, and all of a sudden it's a very different (and even more Australian) story. While it was still a road rally story, I was wondering why nobody thought to include a damn map, and then it became a story that would have made a map kind of ridiculous. Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever (2009, Walter Kirn) Why I picked it: I liked Kirn's "Blood Will Out," and this subject interested to me. What it's about: Kirn's memoir of how he excelled in high school through tricks and tactics and good test-taking, and continued such deflection almost to his graduation from Princeton. What I thought: This is an odd book, and all the way through I was kind of wondering why Kirn wrote it. I expected a little journalism — tying his story into a bigger issue — but it's just a straightforward memoir (though with more self-abashment than the usual memoir). Then I read that it had started as an Atlantic article, and it all made sense. It definitely reads like an Atlantic article blown up to book length. (Actually, I think "Blood Will Out" took the same path, but there Kirn — though he was writing about his personal connection as well — did more research into the subject.) I wouldn't give this one a strong recommendation, but it was a quick read and thought-provoking on the topics of schooling and education and ambition. Room to Dream (2018, David Lynch & Kristine McKenna) Why I picked it: I've liked a lot of David Lynch's work, and he's definitely one of the more interesting filmmakers. What it's about: A biography/autobiography, with McKenna's chapters alternating with Lynch's. What I thought: I don't read a whole lot of show business biographies, but this one worked for me just because Lynch is such an unusual person: a multifaceted artist who apparently spends every waking hour working on something, and someone who is acclaimed by just about everyone who works with him as a really great guy — charismatic, funny, enthusiastic. The earlier chapters (his childhood and art school years through "The Elephant Man") were the most interesting to me, because of the seat-of-his-pants nature of his undertakings in those days. The testimonials from his adoring colleagues got to be a little repetitive, but I guess that's a big part of who he is — someone who makes everybody around him feel special. And, it being an autobiography, you can't really expect his detractors to get much ink here. (Isabella Rossellini did say he broke up with her in a cruel way, but she also said some nice things about him. His four wives seem to be quite fond of him.) The format worked pretty well, with each of McKenna's chronological chapters followed by Lynch's stories and remembrances from the same period. It sounds like he dictated rather than wrote his chapters — very colloquial. There was one of his stories that I wished for some fact-checkerish corroboration of: He mentioned an incident from his childhood in which he found a wallet with a lot of money in it, and his father made him advertise it in the newspaper lost-and-found column, but nobody ever claimed it so he got to keep it. He ends that anecdote by saying it was about $100,000 Canadian — and then he just moves on. !!! That's a life-changing amount of money, and he never brings it up when he is later talking about the financial stresses of college and such. Usually when I read about movies, I end up with a list of work that I want to watch or rewatch. That wasn't the case with this. Actually, I had been planning to rewatch the first "Twin Peaks," so that's still on my list, but I'm not really persuaded to rewatch some of the Lynch movies I didn't much like — "Wild at Heart" and "Lost Highway," in particular. I have "Blue Velvet" on DVD, so I watch that occasionally, and I dare say I've seen enough of "Eraserhead." I guess maybe the one that this tipped me toward a second viewing of is "Mulholland Drive." How to Behave in a Crowd (2017, Camille Bordas) Why I picked it: Good review, and I like stories about odd children. What it's about: Isidore, age 12, is the youngest of six siblings and the only one who's not considered intellectually gifted. What I thought: It's not so much about odd children. Four of Izzy's siblings are young adults, and Izzy himself is not odd. But the family overall is odd, and Izzy is the most sympathetic of the bunch — a kind, good-hearted kid (which actually does make him the oddity among his siblings) and also perceptive and brave. In the course of the book he deals with his father's death and a suicidal classmate, plus a raft of lesser woes, but there are many lines and whole scenes that are funny in a very dry way. The writer's previous novels were in French and this one she wrote in English, which is kind of a mind-blowing enterprise. It's set in France, though, and it feels quite French (to an American, at least). Tangerine (2018, Christine Mangan) Why I picked it: Good review somewhere. What it's about: Psychological thriller about two young women, former roommates at Bennington, who reconnect in Morocco on the eve of its independence in 1956. What I thought: Maybe it's a little too much to call this a thriller. The surprises are not "whoa!" It's more of a neat unfolding of the layers of deception, so you end up kind of admiring how meticulously the deceiver planned things. It's told in alternating voices — a chapter by Alice, a chapter by Lucy. I thought at the start I knew how they were going to be: Lucy is the bold, unconventional one who shows the cowed, unhappily married Alice how to enjoy life in Tangier. Pretty quickly it becomes very different and a lot darker. At this point I could go a long time without wanting to read another unreliably narrated mystery, but this one is done a little more subtly than a couple of the recent blockbusters. Because I'm apparently finding Ripley in everything these days, there's plenty of it here: appropriated identities, altered passports, American expats, sunny Mediterranean cafes, a buried working-class upbringing, a brutal murder, suspicious local police. It lacks Patricia Highsmith's cleanness, though — too much navel-gazing by the narrators, in voices too scholarly for the characters. I wonder, too, if it would have been better to dial back the homosexual angle a little, a la Ripley — it bugged me some that the shady, violent character was not only lesbian but verging on a butch caricature. Still, I really wanted to see if the perpetrator would get caught, and the reading rolled right along the whole way. The Blind Assassin (2000, Margaret Atwood) Why I picked it: I was thinking about rereading Atwood's "Alias Grace," which I read 20 years ago, and then I thought it might be better to try some of her newer work. This one won the Booker Prize for 2000. What it's about: Two daughters of an Ontario industrialist grow to adulthood, from the first world war until just after the second. What I thought: This book has four layers of narrative. The protagonist, Iris, tells of her life as an old woman in the late 1990s even as she recalls her childhood and young adulthood with her sister, Laura. Interspersed with those accounts are chapters of a novel inspired by her youthful love affair, and within that is a science fiction story written by the lovers. I realize that (even with that science fiction part) I've made this sound boring, and it's not. The sisters, particularly Laura, are strong characters, and they go through much tribulation before they're even out of their teens. In a way, they're kind of unhinged versions of the sisters in "The Transit of Venus" (below), except here it's the younger one who's willful and unconventional. (Unlikely plate-of-shrimp connection to "The Haunting of Hill House," below: This one has more than one reference to Shakespeare's line "journeys end in lovers meeting," which is a refrain of the main character in "Hill House.") What's next: If it's not "Alias Grace," then "The Robber Bride." Social Creature (2018, Tara Isabella Burton) Why I picked it: Complimentary blurb in the below-mentioned NYT thriller edition. What it's about: An aspiring New York City writer barely getting by on gigs falls in with a self-centered party girl, and murder ensues. What I thought: A beachy read in my non-beachy summer. And, I realized once I had started, it fits with my Ripley year. In recent months I've read three of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley books and watched three of the movie adaptations, and this book is an obvious riff on Ripley. Like the first Ripley, the murder comes around the halfway point of this one; unlike it, there's no police investigation, though the possibility of getting caught becomes stronger as the story goes on. It's not as good as Ripley — the characters are more caricatures, and it could have been quite a bit tighter — but it's an entertaining read of the darker variety of fluff. I've been thinking I should start a list of movies whose plots could not work in the days of mobile phones; this is a book that could not work without mobile phones. In fact, I kept expecting a phone to give away the culprit. The Haunting of Hill House (1959, Shirley Jackson) Why I picked it: The NYT Book Review's thriller edition last month asked 13 writers to name the most frightening book ever, and this one got three mentions (including by Neil Gaiman). What it's about: A researcher of the paranormal and three other people go to stay in a house that has sent previous occupants fleeing after a night or two. What I thought: Yes, scary. When I looked up the movie version online, IMDb served me an ad for "Picnic at Hanging Rock," and that's the kind of scary it is — creepy and prickly and atmospheric. I did think the tension was broken a little by talkiness in the first part and a lot by the arrival toward the end of two cartoony characters. What's next: "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," Jackson's last novel. Movie? Two, both called "The Haunting." The earlier, directed by Robert Wise with Julie Harris, is supposed to be pretty good. The 1999 version (Liam Neeson, Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones) not so much. Update: And now, during our household Netflix hiatus, there's a Netflix version that's apparently very good and very scary. It's on my list for when the hiatus ends. The Mars Room (2018, Rachel Kushner) Why I picked it: When it came out a few months ago it got some high-profile press, and I realized I had read and liked an excerpt that ran as a New Yorker short story (the one that sent me on to read "Pick-Up"). I had also read a fair amount of Kushner's 2013 novel "The Flamethrowers," parts of which had stuck with me though I had abandoned it for largely logistical reasons. What it's about: A woman, single mother of a young son, is incarcerated at the prison in Chowchilla for killing a man who had stalked her. What I thought: Riveting, largely because of the factual underpinnings — Kushner did some serious research into prison life, and she also knows San Francisco (including the seamier side of the Outer Sunset), where the earlier parts of the story are set. In addition to the main focus on the inmate Romy — a great character — the book steps outside Chowchilla to follow the prison tutor who takes an interest in her, and a crooked cop serving time for a contract killing. There are sections of the Unabomber's diaries, too. Mrs. Caliban (1982, Rachel Ingalls) Why I picked it: Similar to the way I heard of "The Transit of Venus" (below), I ran across mentions of it as an obscure novel that has won praise from other novelists. I was surprised when I saw it on the library's new fiction shelf, but it had been reissued in December after being out of print since the late 1980s. What it's about: A housewife in Los Angeles circa 1980 forms a bond with an odd creature — green and amphibious, but shaped like a very tall human — who has escaped from a research facility. What I thought: I'm surprised I didn't run across a mention of this one in anything I read about "The Shape of Water." Anyone who had read it would immediately see the similarities, and I suspect its reissue had something to do with attention revived by the movie. Like "The Transit of Venus," it's a wonderfully written book. It has beautiful images, hilarious lines — though its heart is dark dark dark, about loss and the prison of a loveless suburban life. John Updike was its big early fan, and one of the cover blurbs describes it as "a Richard Yates novel but with lizardman sex." The Adventures of Augie March (1953, Saul Bellow) Why I picked it: When I started this, I had just been reading Updike and Roth, and it seemed like a good place for Bellow. What it's about: The journey of a lower-class kid from Chicago during the Depression to Paris after World War II, with a considerable chunk in Mexico. What I thought: I liked the start for its sense of the place and time. Somewhere around the Mexico interlude, I became a little less enamored, but at that point I was more than 300 pages in, so I stuck with it. And Bellow is a really excellent writer, even when the story is not so engaging. The Transit of Venus (1980, Shirley Hazzard) Why I picked it:I had never heard of it, and then since the end of last year I ran across several mentions of it, in the context of books that other novelists wished they had written or excellent novels that don't get enough attention. What it's about: Two orphaned Australian sisters who come to England as young women shortly after World War II, and their lives over the course of three decades. What I thought: I really liked this book. It doesn't have a lot of action: The one "story" is told very late in the book, one of the characters recounting an episode that took place right before the novel begins. Instead, it goes deep into the characters of the sisters and their husbands and lovers. Its main theme is big life decisions -- What makes a person good? What does one sacrifice in choosing to live a principled life? What responsibility should people take for others? I had to really slow down to read this one so as not to miss anything. Not only is it a very thoughtful book, but the sentences are beautifully put together, without being showy. If you don't read every word, in fact, you wouldn't make a connection (about a dentist who shows up on the protagonist's flight in the last pages) that implies what's going to happen after the book ends. Macbeth (2018, Jo Nesbo) Why I picked it: I wanted to read one of the Shakespeare retellings of the Hogarth Press project, and I thought Nesbo — best-selling author of dark Scandinavian thrillers — would be the most fun. What it's about: A Macbeth-inspired story of cops and drug kingpins in a beaten-down Scottish city during the 1970s. What I thought: When I started this, I didn't know if I'd be able to make the connections, as I didn't think I knew much of "Macbeth." The one with witches and the prophecy — that was my one-sentence synopsis. Fairly quickly I realized I knew more than I had thought. It helped that most of Nesbo's characters have their Shakespearean cognates' names. Still, I think that to truly appreciate Nesbo's writing, I'd need to know more of the source material, so I could tease that apart from the retelling. I liked the setting and the updated character roles — Macbeth is head of a police SWAT unit, and "Lady" runs a high-end casino. For the first half of the book, I was pretty engaged by the story. But it's a long book — 500 pages — and by the end I was getting tired of all the machinations and treachery. Macbeth is turned by ambition too soon; I would have liked a more gradual and nuanced descent into brutality. What's next: Maybe I should have gone for Edward St. Aubyn's King Lear retelling. I've had him on my list for a while, but given my aversion to bad-childhood memoirs (see "Educated," below) his Patrick Melrose series may not be for me. Update: I picked up Tracy Chevalier's Othello retelling ("The New Boy") at the library. Alex was with me, and she appropriated it. If she likes it, maybe I'll read it. Movie? A couple of modern retellings that sound interesting: "Scotland, Pa." (2001), with Christopher Walken, and "Macbeth" (2006), set in gangland Melbourne. Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries (2017, Kory Stamper) Why I picked it: I like words and dictionaries. What it's about: A Merriam-Webster lexicographer explains various aspects of writing a dictionary. What I thought: I really liked this book. It's funny and informative and also really thoughtful on issues of how language affects society and vice versa. I had a basic understanding of some of the issues of dictionary making thanks to some essays by David Foster Wallace, who was a usage fanatic, but I learned a lot more from Stamper. Each of her chapters is titled with a word whose dictionary entry illustrates a key facet of lexicography — defining, pronunciation, dating, example phrases, etc. Educated (2018, Tara Westover) Why I picked it: It's this year's hot memoir — like the "Tiger Mom" of 2018 — so I figured when I saw it in the library I'd give it a shot. What it's about: A fundamentalist Mormon's daughter, raised without any schooling, escapes to the outside world by managing to get into college. What I thought: I like the idea of someone educating herself and thus making a transition to a radically different life. That's a story I'd like to read. But I suspected going into this, because of interviews I had heard with the author, that it tended toward what I think of as horrible-childhood porn — the ain't-it-awful self-exploiting memoir type of "The Glass Castle" and "A Child Called 'It.'" And that's pretty much how it is. I don't doubt the veracity of Westover's story, but it's a trope that I feel voyeuristically dirty to be reading. Golden Hill (2016, Francis Spufford) Why I picked it: Good NYT review, and it's set in pre-Revolution New York. What it's about: The misadventures of a young Londoner who shows up in New York City in 1746 with a bank order for the equivalent of $250,000 in today's money. What I thought: I figured even if the story wasn't great, I would like this one if there was a decent amount of historic detail, and it did have that. Of course, all that could be made up and I would have no way of knowing, but it has the ring of truth, and a lot of it is pretty fascinating — daily life in New York when it was a city of 7,000 people. I would have liked a full map (the one on the cover is partly obscured) but it's not too hard to find a 1750 New York City map online, and the narrative lined up with it. But beyond that, the story was good. The protagonist, Richard Smith, is a compelling character: The reader knows he has a secret but doesn't know what it is until the end. He's not written as a cypher -- we know a lot of his internal life, including his awareness of how others perceive him -- but there's this one blank spot, the mystery of what he's doing in New York and how he got all that money. He has an engaging arc, or more accurately a pendulum, going from happy-go-lucky to bitter about the way people have turned on him, and ending up in a middle ground of hopefulness tempered by experience. Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces (2018, Michael Chabon) Why I picked it: I like Chabon, and I liked what I thought was the subject matter (which turned out to be not as I thought). What it's about: A short collection of Chabon's writing — all of them magazine pieces, I think — on the topic of fatherhood. What I thought: I glanced at the jacket copy and I thought this was going to be completely about Chabon's trip to Paris fashion week with his fashion-obsessed 13-year-old son. That is actually just the first of half a dozen stories. (I guess I should have realized that from the title.) That first part was my favorite (it's this story). The others were fine, but there was a certain sameness of theme to them. Maybe Chabon figured he ought to write something about his other children, too, so we get extra servings of "my quirky Berkeley family and the crazy things my kids would be ridiculed for anywhere else in America." A very quick read, just a few hours. American Pastoral (1997, Philip Roth) Why I picked it: "The Plot Against America" went well, so I thought I'd try some more Roth. This is the most acclaimed work of his later career. What it's about: A former star athlete, now a successful manufacturer, sees his comfortable New Jersey life rocked when his teenage daughter becomes a violent anti-Vietnam War protester. What I thought: I didn't like it quite as well as "The Plot," but I'd still recommend it. It has a lot of interesting examination on the themes of assimilation, outsiderness, "passing," tied into the overarching Roth theme of being Jewish in America. It's not a real tidy book in its formatting. There's a long lead-in written in Roth's Nathan Zuckerman voice, and then Zuckerman goes away and doesn't return. The end is abrupt, leaving, in particular, one of the main threads unresolved. I don't require an unambiguous ending, but I did feel a little disappointment in not knowing what happened to one of the main characters. This one I consumed on audiobook, and I highly recommend Ron Silver's narration. I can't imagine there are many people who could do that well with Roth's headlong dialogue. I particularly liked Silver's reading of protagonist Seymour's anguished phone call with his brother, Jerry ("You wanted Miss America? Well, you got her!"). Actually, I wished there was more Jerry. I would read a whole novel about Jerry, which there will not be, because Roth died when I was halfway through this one. What's next: I haven't ruled out more Roth. Top of the list is "The Human Stain." Movie? This one was not on my radar, but in 2016 Ewan McGregor directed and starred in a movie version. Jennifer Connelly is his wife, Dakota Fanning his daughter. A Month of Sundays (1975, John Updike) Why I picked it: I only recently ran across a mention of Updike's "Scarlet Letter" series — three novels from different viewpoints about faith and infidelity. I really liked Updike's Rabbit novels, and I'm always interested in modern retellings of old stories. What it's about: Sent to a spiritual retreat with other disgraced clergymen, a minister muses about his affairs with the church organist and a parishioner. What I thought: I finally read "The Scarlet Letter" just so I could read this, so I guess that's worth something. This is the Arthur Dimmesdale view, but it doesn't hew really close to Hawthorne's story, and the two other parts look even more distant. It's very different from Rabbit in its loose, irreverent tone, with a lot of wordplay. It also feels very much like a document of its time (and only partly because of the Korinna Bold on the cover). What's next: I don't feel compelled to finish this trilogy (the other two are "Roger's Version" and "S"). Before I did that, I would read Updike's Bech books. The Plot Against America (2004, Philip Roth) Why I picked it: This got good reviews when it came out, but the thing that put it in front of me now is the renewed interest since Trump's election. What it's about: An alternative history in which the isolationist, anti-semitic Charles Lindbergh is elected U.S. president in 1940 and makes an alliance with Hitler. The story is told from the view of the grade-school son of a middle-class Jewish family in Newark. What I thought: I didn't leap for this one when it came out, largely because (even though I like reading about U.S. history) it didn't sound like a really interesting human story. When it comes to storytelling, though, don't put anything past Roth. The narrative from the kid's point of view is really engaging. Besides the story itself, there are three particular threads I found interesting: • 1940s U.S. history. Though it's a fictional history, it makes use of a lot of real people, putting them on a path from what really happened to what role they might have played under this scenario. I learned some interesting stuff about historic figures, particularly Fiorello LaGuardia, Walter Winchell and Longy Zwilman. • Understanding human behavior in 1930s Europe. This novel gives good insight into some of the personal issues: When did people decide to leave Nazi Germany? Why did some Jews stay? What did non-Jewish Germans think was going on? The ways in which pressures big and small fracture the family in this book are heartbreaking. •Trump. The part that seems very familiar is the presidential campaign, in which the "ha, that could never happen" suddenly becomes "shit, this really happened." Apart from his seizing on the "America First" rhetoric, Trump has a much different style from the real and the fictional Lindbergh. The novelistic machinations against American Jews are much more subtle and devious than anything the bombastic current president could come up with. Still, it's thought-provoking in the presentation of the rise of isolationism and the nascent demonization of a particular segment of the population. My one quibble with it was the revelation near the end about Lindbergh's motivation for his political action and his dealings with the Nazis. It seemed just a couple notches too fantastic, especially given that the rest of the novel seemed like something that could really happen. All in all, though, I thought Roth wrapped this one up very masterfully, a tricky piece of work pulled off elegantly. For anyone who likes this one, I'd recommend Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union," a detective story set in an Alaska which was populated by Jewish refugees in a scenario under which Israel collapsed in 1948. It's not nearly as historically involved as Roth's, but it's a great story. What's next: This is, I think, the fifth Roth novel I've read, and I'm sure there will be more. American Pastoral and The Human Stain are top of that list. Movie: David Simon is reportedly making a six-episode miniseries, network not yet disclosed. Frankenstein (1818, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) Why I picked it: I read an interesting New Yorker essay by Adam Gopnik tied to the Frankenstein bicentennial. Also, Alex is reading it. What it's about: A student animates a collection of corpse parts he has assembled, and thereby sets his life on a ruinous course. What I thought: This book has some puzzling facets — the epistolary prelude, for instance — as well as some 18th-century quirks, but it's an interesting read and, if all you know about Frankenstein is from pop culture, a surprising one. The monster is not only sympathetic but intelligent and articulate, and the narrative has very little in common with the 1931 movie. Movie? I never saw Kenneth Branagh's 1994 version, which sounds like it sticks much closer to the novel — I think I'll look for that one. Gringos (1991, Charles Portis) Why I picked it: Charles Portis. This is the fourth I've read of his five novels. What it's about: An expatriate American in southern Mexico takes a meandering trip into the jungle looking for some missing people. What I thought: I didn't like it as well as "The Dog of the South," his other American-meandering-in-Mexico novel, but it's still really good. Without seeming fussy, Portis' sentences are crafted, and crafty. On every page you can find at least one little gem, and there are some laugh-out-loud phrases. The protagonist of this — as of "Dog," and "Norwood" — is a shambling but good-hearted dude, and the depiction of Mexican village life has a nuance and richness that kind of sneaks up on you. The Scarlet Letter (1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne) Why I picked it: I tried this one 10 years ago and gave it up, finding it tedious. Two things put it back on my list: 1) Hawthorne was a favorite of Melville, and "Moby Dick" is a favorite of mine. And 2) I want to read Updike's "Scarlet Letter" trilogy. What it's about: A woman in 17th-century Massachusetts is shamed for having a child out of wedlock. What I thought: The reading went better this time. I plowed headlong through that customs-house preface that annoyed me before. In fact, I pretty much plowed through the whole thing, and I don't think my comprehension suffered much from not lingering over the nuance. I wouldn't say I'm a convert, but I do appreciate the characterization. Ripley's Game (1974, Patricia Highsmith) Why I picked it: I read the previous two Ripley novels, and I wanted to continue to this one before seeing Wim Wenders' movie adaptation of it. What it's about: Asked if he can recommend someone to pull off a murder for hire, Tom Ripley comes up with a scheme to snare a neighbor who insulted him. What I thought: It's interesting how dissimilar these three Ripley books are. I expected them to have the same format and the same tone, and they definitely don't. For long stretches of this one, Ripley is absent as the action follows his unwitting sort-of victim. It's not as good as the first one, but I liked it better than "Ripley Under Ground." It's also the most cinematic of the three, to my mind, and I'm looking forward to seeing "The American Friend" and maybe the eponymous 2002 version. Mrs. Fletcher (2017, Tom Perrotta) Why I picked it:I've liked the other Perrotta novels I've read — Little Children, The Abstinence Teacher, The Leftovers. What it's about: A 46-year-old divorced mother and some of the friends, relatives and co-workers in her sphere grapple with issues of sexual desire and gender roles. What I thought: I had heard just enough about this book that I went in with the mistaken impression that the main character starts performing for an online amateur porn site, so I figured it would be at the satirical end of Perrotta's spectrum. But, as I said, that was incorrect — this is actually one of his less out-there stories. It's still sort of comic, though, not as weighty as my description probably makes it sound. It wasn't until near the end that I got enough of a grip on the main character, Eve. There was an episode involving a haircut in which I suddenly realized, oh, I know who this woman is, and I like her. I wish that had come sooner — though then my problem was I didn't understand how she could have raised such an unlikable son, but at least he gets his comeuppance. Pick-Up (1955, Charles Willeford) Why I picked it: I was about to turn in the noir anthology that included Ripley and Jim Thompson, and then I read a New Yorker short story that mentioned this novel, which I'd never heard of, and said it had vivid San Francisco settings. What it's about: A hard-drinking nihilistic man in 1950s San Francisco meets a like-minded young woman, and it of course ends badly. What I thought: It was interesting as a relic of its time, but it didn't seem like much more than the pulp novel it was originally sold as. The setting could have been in any city — except for a couple mentions of cable cars, there was nothing specifically San Francisco in it. Ripley Under Ground (1970, Patricia Highsmith) Why I picked it: Second in the Ripley series, see below. What it's about: Six years after the events of "Talented," Tom Ripley is married and living comfortably near Paris. His attempt to protect his investment in an art scam turns lethal. What I thought: This one was less desperate, I'd even say blander, than "The Talented Mr. Ripley." The main character is less obviously unhinged, though that could be seen as a function of his maturing and his well-funded living situation. There's a lot of playing around with the theme of fakes — forgery, disguise, effigy, specters. The plot kind of drifts, a lot of traveling around Europe, people dropping in on other people, Ripley trying to control what is known by whom. A surprisingly large part of the narrative is Ripley looking for a particular acquaintance in Greece and then in Salzburg. (The Salzburg part in particular was pretty unbelievable to me. Without any clues, Ripley goes to a city that I'm guessing must have been at least 100,000 people in the 1960s, then wanders the streets to find this guy. Which he does, and not just once.) In the end, the book seemed to me like a transitional episode, a narrative to set Ripley on the run again, as by the end he has roused the suspicion of the police and of his wife. I'll have to read the next one, "Ripley's Game," to see if I'm right about that. Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History (2017, Kurt Andersen) Why I picked it: I like Kurt Andersen and might have eventually picked this up, but it went up my list because of an exchange on Andersen's radio show in which Taylor Mac complimented him on the book and then said, "Of course, I was raised a Christian Scientist," and they both laughed. What it's about: Andersen's thesis is that America since its founding has been fertile for irrationality and fantastical thinking and that the tendency has become even more pronounced in the past few decades. What I thought: A thoughtful and extensively researched book, connecting the dots between elements as disparate as Scientology, Oprah Winfrey, Disneyfication, anti-vaxers, the gun lobby and the McMartin Pre-School prosecution. The spectre hanging over it is Donald Trump, who gets his own chapter at the end — the book was already in progress when Andersen and his publishers realized, holy shit, this is actually going to happen. I did this one on audiobook, and it was for a while a little disconsonant to hear in Andersen's cheerful Omaha voice some harsh criticisms of what might seem like harmless components of American culture, particularly religion. He might have categorized me as "a squishy," someone who is disinclined to criticize others' beliefs, no matter how irrational. That, he says, is perhaps defensible as long as those beliefs don't "pick my pocket or break my leg" (Thomas Jefferson) -- but he contends that people are being harmed physically and financially by America's descent toward a status quo in which everyone feels "entitled to their own facts." The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955, Patricia Highsmith) Why I picked it: I've always intended to read it, but my urgency was diminished by the fact that I had seen two movie versions of it. Then it was in the anthology with Jim Thompson's "The Killer Inside Me" (see the 2017 list), so I went ahead. What it's about: A young man wangles a trip to Europe, ostensibly to persuade a rich couple's son to return to America. When his relationship with the son falls apart, he makes a rash move that he must then hide with a desperate spiral of deception. What I thought: I liked this one a lot. Ripley is pretty obviously a sociopath, or at least deeply screwed up, from the start, but his disturbing inner monologue doesn't make the story any less gripping — is he going to slip up, get caught? He's also a more nuanced, fleshed-out character than, say, Lou Ford in "The Killer Inside Me." Having seen the movies did not diminish this book for me. In fact, I suppose most people who start reading it these days already know (or can guess) what Ripley's first crime is. I was surprised that the indelible final scene from "Purple Noon" is not in the book. Thinking about it, though, it makes sense — the movie is much more moralistic and is looking for a way to bring Ripley to justice. Movie? I have seen Rene Clement's "Purple Noon" (1960) three times, the first on TV when I was in junior high, the last in its 1996 re-release, at the cinema that is now Alex's climbing gym. I also saw "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), the Anthony Minghella adaptation with Matt Damon. I'd like to see both of them again, to compare them to each other and to the book. I'm waiting until I read further into the series to see Wim Wenders' "The American Friend," based on the third Ripley novel. Much farther down my list are the eponymous adaptations of "Ripley Under Ground" (No. 2) and "Ripley's Game" (another version of No. 3). What's next: There are four more Ripley novels. I'm aiming to read at least the next two. Six Four (2016, Hideo Yokoyama) Why I picked it: Good review in New York Times. What it's about: Police administrator gets drawn into intradepartmental intrigue involving a kidnapping/murder case he had worked on as a detective 14 years earlier. What I thought: The description that drew me in sounded like straight crime thriller: Shortly after hero Mikami's teenage daughter goes missing, he finds out something that his higher-ups have kept secret about the murder of a child in their city. But the disappearance of the daughter, though pivotal in the opening scene, becomes background hum for the rest of the book, and the whodunnit of the other child's murder is addressed only at the very end. The rest of the 577 (!) pages is about Mikami, the police department's director of media relations, trying to figure out why some other administrators are acting strange about the visit of a high-ranking official from Tokyo. It's very internal and very Japanese. Or at least I suspect that some of its oddness is because of its Japaneseness, from the major role played by protocol, to the reverence for people who work themselves to exhaustion, to the frequent references to other characters' ages in relation to that of Mikami. Even the title is something only Japanese would pick up on: It refers to the year in which the child's murder occurred — a year that lasted only one week. 1989 started out as Showa 64, the 64th year of the reign of Hirohito, but the emperor died on January 7, and the remainder of the year was Heisei 1. I don't think I would have started this if I knew it was going to be about office politics, but once I was in it, its was this oddity, the Japaneseness, that kept me there. City on Fire (2015, Garth Risk Hallberg) Why I picked it: I was aware of the buzz this one got for its $2 million advance to a first-time novelist, but I hadn't run across it in the library until now. What it's about: The shooting of a punk-scene kid in New York's Central Park on the last night of 1976 ties together a web of characters, including a downtown artist and the rich family he has shunned. What I thought: At more than 900 pages, it was too long. It got comparisons to Dickens when it came out, and I guess "Bleak House" would come close to its length, but toward the end this one seemed to be running out of steam. Also, for a novel so strongly rooted in a specific period, I found it oddly lacking in historical detail. There was an attempt at the atmosphere of the club scene, but the only real events that figured in the plot were the series of fires in the Bronx and the blackout of July 1977. Gerald "Drop Dead" Ford and Abe Beame are ignored, and you'd think that a random shooting in 1976 would immediately evoke talk of that summer's Son of Sam panic, but he gets only a mention in passing. I started to think the only reason it was set in that period was because Hallberg needed the blackout for the plotting of the climax. In terms of highly touted debut novels, I'd be much more likely to recommend the 2011 entry, "The Art of Fielding." My Absolute Darling (2017, Gabriel Tallent) Why I picked it: I think it was the little New Yorker blurb that caught my attention. What it's about: A 14-year-old girl lives on the Mendocino coast with her father, a charismatic survivalist who abuses her. What I thought: This one is unyieldingly dark, bordering on voyeuristic, maybe even pornographic. I don't go into fiction with a default feminist bent, but I can understand why some people are uncomfortable with the idea it was written by a man. I pretty quickly reached the point of "OK, he's really going in this direction — do you want to stick with it?" And it was gripping enough that I went ahead. The main character — Julia officially, Turtle to herself, "kibble" to her father — is hard to identify with, even as you're hoping she gets out of her situation. For one thing, she's understandably damaged; for another, the first-person narration is not very introspective — which I suppose is actually kind of the same thing as the first factor, being the logical function of the damage she's enduring. That realistic take on this bizarre situation is part of what I liked about this story: It embraces its darkness, doesn't take any easy paths in the narrative. And the imagery and description of the setting is good. The climactic confrontation between Turtle and her father is particularly vividly drawn — I almost feel like I had seen a movie of it. Now I've got a Mendocino coast trilogy, dark and strange and gothic: this, T.C. Boyle's "The Harder They Come" and (definitely the best) Denis Johnson's "Already Dead." Could throw in Pynchon's "Vineland" for the setting, but it's a very different animal stylistically. What's next: Tallent lives in Utah and is apparently an avid climber — he did a bookstore reading recently with Tommy Caldwell — and his second novel is reportedly going to be about dirtbag climbers. Abandoned The Church of Dead Girls (1997, Stephen Dobyns) and Boy in the Water (1999, Stephen Dobyns) Why I picked them: "Dead Girls" was one of several Dobyns novels I read many years ago that put him on my favorite-authors list. After I read "Is Fat Bob Dead?" I wanted to reread a couple of them and also read for the first time "Boy in the Water," which I had missed. What they're about: Murder mysteries, the first about three girls killed in a small New York town, the second about a student found dead in the swimming pool of a New Hampshire prep school. Why I gave them up: These are straightforward murder mysteries. They have similar structures: They start with a revelation of the crime, and then go back in time to introduce the story threads of many parties to the events. With both of them, it just took too long to get back to the actual crime and (one assumes) investigation. I understand that the focus is broader than a whodunnit, that these books are examining the interactions of people before and during the crimes. Still, the story turned out to be too conventional for my taste, and (oddly, because Dobyns can be a really good writer) they border on the plodding, especially in the long pieces of explicative dialogue. Probably I should have known this, because I got almost 300 pages into Dobyns' more recent "The Burn Palace" before I gave it up for the same reason. What's next: The two Dobynses I liked best were his most idiosyncratic and unconventional, "The Wrestler's Cruel Study" and "Cold Dog Soup." I still have "Cruel Study" on my reread list.