The Half-Known Life: In Search of Paradise by Pico Iyer

 

Where truly does paradise lie? What does it even mean? Part travelog, part rumination, Iyer visits the most spiritual places in the world – the high plains of Ladakh, Varanasi, in India, Iran, Jerusalem, Sri Lanka, the holy Japanese mountain, Koyasan – to unearth the meaning of paradise. “Paradise could seem the cruelest notion of all if it meant pretending that the real world didn’t exist,” says Iyer in his deeply affecting book. With his signature searching and soothing voice, Iyer proves to be a trusted companion, brilliantly balancing nuggets of philosophy against descriptions of breathtaking and memorable places the world over.

Flight by Lynn Steger Strong

Flighty birds could be the perfect capture of the environmental moment we’re in. They could also symbolize the very human urges to nest, to fly away from home, and to flock in times of crises. A rash of siblings gathers for Christmas, the first after the passing of their mother. Each has emotional challenges as they tiptoe around weighty questions and the support they need from each other. It takes an external crisis to really cement the family together and reframe perspectives. If the characters’ names get jumbled at times, this is still a moving novel about shifting family dynamics.

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

Based on the life and times of Kate Meyrick, who for many years was the queen of Soho’s clubland, this romp through 1920s London features a riotous ensemble of characters. Central to the story is Nellie Coker, the owner of a popular group of nightclubs, pitted against police officer Frobisher. As the two, through their respective charges, keep an eye on each other, young women are mysteriously killed. Atkinson’s strength in wordplay–an evening with someone needs a drink as a “leavening”--makes up for stop-and-go pacing. A fun adventure into the seedy underbelly of one of the world’s famous cities.

Cyclorama by Adam Langer

 

Cycling through history, this absorbing novel draws connections between a group of high-school theater kids in 80’s greater Chicago as they take on Anne Frank’s Diary as a play. Their teacher is a volatile and dark presence scarring many of the students in direct or tangential ways. Early parts trace the characters’ stories at the school while later portions show these very same characters as adults, living their ordinary lives. Langer draws remarkable connections between worlds and every character is vividly imagined. At times the parallels between Anne Frank and the current-day MAGA “build-a-wall” movement feel forced. Nevertheless, a stunner.

On Java Road by Lawrence Osborne

 

Rebecca is an enigma. Born into wealth, she is ready to set all that to fire, joining the anti-China protesters in Hong Kong. Her volatility attracts the scion of a local powerhouse, Jimmy Tang. Journalist Adrian Gyles is an unwitting bystander to the relationship and finds himself in unsavory territory when things go awry. The novel incisively explores the waning days of old-school journalism. It also defines friendship and what one does in the name of loyalty. Osborne’s picturesque imagery of a roiling Hong Kong, combined with his ear for dialog, makes the novel a standout. Osborne delivers another winner.

The Return of Faraz Ali by Aamina Ahmad

 Faraz Ali is the illegitimate son of a prostitute and a high-placed Pakistani government official. Without giving the son his name, the father has cared for Faraz, finding him a job as a police officer in Lahore. So when Faraz is called to “clean up” a murder in the city’s red-light district, he knows he has no choice. But returning there dredges up troubling childhood memories. Moving between periods of time, much of the book is set when the Indian subcontinent was undergoing its own violent geopolitical upheaval. A spectacular debut full of empathy and humanity–it moved me to tears.

To Kill a Troubadour by Martin Walker

 

The enchanting Périgord countryside in France makes a fun backdrop for yet another Inspector Bruno adventure. This time around, Les Troubadours, a folk music group has created a hit “Song for Catalonia,” an achievement that makes their lead singer a target of assassination. As Bruno uncovers the plot that is rooted in the Spanish nationalist movement–he also gets involved in helping a town friend with a worrying domestic issue. At times the narrative gets too embroiled in the finer details of the Catalan bid for independence but Bruno’s an endearing protagonist. Besides, who doesn’t love somebody who loves to cook!

All This Could be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews

 

An hourly rate of $23 at a consulting firm. A rent-paid apartment in Milwaukee. Sneha knows that this is the best job she’s going to find in the heat of the Great Recession. After her Indian parents had to leave the United States in ignominy, Sneha bears the responsibility of doing right by them and can’t afford to be picky. As she falls in love with a charismatic young woman, struggles with coming out to her conservative parents, and navigates the edge of bankruptcy, Sneha finds comfort in friends who are themselves barely making it in the gig economy. A+

The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela

 

As Andres, the gay son of Hispanic immigrants finds out, cookie-cutter suburbia smothers individuality. But in high school, rigid hierarchies twisted into helixes. When his father’s illness brings Andres back to Babylon, the small New York town where he grew up, he has to confront many unresolved issues. These include a lingering crush on a classmate and possible homophobia that mars another’s character. Describing classism and racism, Varela movingly illuminates the evolving suburbs as well. Their embrace of Trumpism while being forced to make room for assimilation over the years, leaves folks like Andres forever on the outside looking in.

Snow by John Banville

 

Winter is a living breathing presence in this whodunnit set in small-town Ireland and is worth the price of admission for that alone. Detective Strafford must solve the case of the apparent murder of Father Tom. Strafford is convinced that a member of the Osborne family in Ballyglass House has committed the crime but he gets swept up in their internal machinations. The savvy reader can see the sub-plot, which is not for the faint of heart, coming a mile away. Nevertheless, this is a winning portrayal of class and religious divides in Ireland, which even deep snow can’t smother.

When I'm Gone, Look For Me in the East by Quan Barry

 

The wide-open landscape of inner Mongolia, combined with life-affirming Buddhist philosophies, wraps the reader in a warm embrace in this stunning novel. Young monk Chuluun is tasked with finding the next avatar of a learned teacher. He joins forces with his twin, Mun, who renounced the path of monkhood and who instead makes his life as a tour guide in Ulaanbaatar. The saturated breath-taking landscape is a perfect backdrop for soul-searching questions that Chuluun slowly grapples with, including the primary vector for the narrative: What if you want to lead a life different from the one carved out for you?”

The Hundred Waters by Lauren Acampora

 

Still waters run deep. The idyllic boring uppercrust neighborhood of Nearwater, Connecticut has a way of smothering nonconformity. Louisa Rader should know. An artist who dreamed big as a young woman, she has now shelved ambition for motherhood to preteen Sylvie and being the wife of a successful architect. A teen artist in town, Gabriel, exploits this vulnerability and Sylvie’s growing ennui, in favor of his own activist causes. Acampora’s immense gifts lie in taking boring suburbia – at a time when the plight of rich white people elicits little sympathy – and turning it into a seething dark weapon. Propulsive reading.

The Plague Year: America in the Time of COVID by Lawrence Wright

Four hundred lamps, each representing 100 lives lost to COVID-19 framed the Lincoln Memorial Pool, shortly after President Biden’s inauguration. This observance ends Wright’s look at 2020, the year that the pandemic took hold across the world. An award-winning writer, Wright writes grippingly about the medicine and politics that drove America’s disastrous response to the crisis. Despite the engaging prose, the narrative feels rushed, touching on themes with light strokes. The spread of the virus in prisons gets barely three paragraphs. A commendable achievement for being one of the early ones out of the gate but left me wanting more.

How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith

Discard the standard history texts. Smith gives us a peek at the true history of the United States and how its very vaunted success is built on the blood, sweat and tears of enslaved people. I remember Michelle Obama pointing out, in a speech at the Democratic National Convention, that slaves helped build the White House. It was a pivotal moment in my understanding of American history. Mostly history and travelogue, we receive lessons that are engaging and hard-hitting. Smith’s poetic descriptions can get heavy-handed at times but that’s a small price to pay for a gem of a book.

The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang

 

A snowy Christmas eve, when the Family Chao’s dog Alf disappears, is when things finally completely unravel for Leo and Minnie Chao and their three sons, William, Ming and James. Leo’s murder, which drives much of the plot, happens exactly at the halfway point. While the crime is intriguing, the novel’s focus on the forcedly insular Chao family, struggling to make it in an all-white Wisconsin town, is the real highlight. The otherization of the Chaos–Chang refers to the children’s fable, The Five Chinese Brothers, as an analogous situation–combined with classic relationship dysfunction, turns out to be a volatile combination.

Ocean State by Stewart O'Nan

 

A solitary beach house becomes the focal point of this riveting novel set in Rhode Island. As always, O’Nan has his finger on the pulse of working class folks and it’s what makes an already gripping story stand out because of excellent characterization. Provoked by jealously, high-schooler Angel commits murder but the novel does not spend much time on gory details. Instead it brilliantly explores the effects of that crime – and of a sibling’s separate and closed-off life – on Angel’s younger sister, Marie. Throw in high school manipulations and classism, and you have the recipe for a hit beach read.

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

 

Bald, Black and bold Opal Jewel and white English singer Nev were about as unlikely a musical duo as they could get in 1960s America. Yet their brand of panache worked at least for audiences. Years later, a reporter with a personal connection to the duo revisits Opal and Nev’s legacy and finds much tarnish hidden underneath all that sparkle. Racism, women’s rights, and the many subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways in which minorities are routinely made to feel like the other, feature boldly in these pages. Told in a chorus of voices, this is one technicolor riot of a novel.