SUITE FRANCAISE by Irene Nemirovsky (2006)

Published 54 years after the author was killed at Auschwitz, SUITE FRANCAISE offers an insider's perspective of German-occupied France in the early years of WWII. Nemirovsky writes beautifully and compassionately about the French and about the soldiers whose very presence made wartime life all the more complicated.

The story of this novel is as intriguing as the novel itself. For years Nemirovsky's daughters moved what they believed to be their mothers journals from place to place. Only after her younger sister Elizabeth died in 1996, did Denise Epstein read and transcribe this manuscript.

THE DISSIDENT by Nell Freudenberger (2006)

A performance artist and political activist from Beijing accepts a post as an art instructor at an all girls' boarding school in L.A. He is hosted by the Travers family: Cece, Gordon (her psychiatrist husband), Olivia (their anorexic dancing daughter) and Max (their son who has survived an attempted suicide--or so they think). Gordon's siblings breeze in and out as well--Joan, the novelist and Phil, the playwright who has optioned his play about a man who has an affair with his brother's wife to a Hollywood studio.

As the dissident becomes increasingly entangled in the family's life, Freudenberger reveals secret upon secret from his past.

ME AND ORSON WELLES by Robert Kaplow (2003)

Set during one week in November 1937 when Welles mounted a production of JULIUS CAESAR at the Mercury Theatre on West 41st Street, this absolutely charming novel inhabits that time and place through the eyes of Richard Samuels, a seventeen-year-old beginning actor who happens to be in the right place at the right time. We meet John Houseman, Joseph Cotten and the tyrannical twenty-two year old Welles at the beginning of his meteoric rise. During one week, Samuels falls in love, sleeps in Orson Welles' pajamas at the encouragement of his winsome production assistant Sonja (herself making a bid for an introduction to David O. Selznick), acts beside the behemoth in JULIUS CAESAR and loses his job.

LULLABIES FOR LITTLE CRIMINALS by Heather O'Neill (2006)

This is O'Neill's first novel and it will break your heart, phrase by phrase. Baby is a savvy twelve year old being raised by her father Jules, little more than a child himself when Baby was born. They shift from flop house to flop house in Montreal's red light district and Baby is temporarily housed in foster care with other castoffs while Jules is hospitalized.

And, although the circumstances of Baby's life are grim, her attitude towards it is refreshingly ebullient. In LULLABIES FOR LITTLE CRIMINALS, O'Neill has created memorable and sympathetic characters who will encourage you to look at life in an entirely appreciative way.

HELPLESS by Barbara Gowdy (2007)

Celia Fox is a single parent holding down two jobs in order to provide for her and her beautiful young daughter Rachel. On the night of a blackout in Toronto, Rachel is abducted and her mother's life becomes a living hell. Much of the novel is told from the perspective of Ron, a troubled appliance repairman, with an inexplicably close attachment to Rachel.

In HELPLESS, Gowdy, forces you to face your own fears about loss and love. It is a profoundly upsetting and human story.

SECRETS FROM THE VINYL CAFE by Stuart McLean (2006)

This 6th collection of Dave and Morley stories from CBC Vinyl Cafe host Stuart McLean is as engaging and heartwarming as the previous ones; though this time, cartoons by Seth, reminiscent of naive designs for the Flintstones or the Jetsons, imply another layer of storying. So, on the cover you may see yourself in Eavesdropper, Home Haircutter, Nostalgist, Tight-Wad, Sympathy Faker or Fact Fudger to name a few.

The stories range from quietly sentimental as in "Opera" and "The Laundry Chute" to knee-slapping, bladder-bursting funny in "Teeth" or "Kenny Wong's Practical Jokes." In every instance, McLean follows the path of the heart and nudges you, oh gentle reader, to examine your own.

CAUSEWAY: A PASSAGE FROM INNOCENCE by Linden MacIntyre (2006)

MacIntyre's memoir about growing up on Cape Breton in the years bracketed by the construction of the Canso causeway and his strained and complicated rapport with his largely absent father is compelling. He neatly adopts the convincing voice of his 10-12-14-year-old self and recreates the community of Port Hastings in the 1950s and 1960s. The wonder and mystery of the world and the people in it weave through MacIntyre's nostalgic lens.

BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS by Giles Blunt (2006)

Detective John Cardinal has spent years supporting his wife through manic episodes, some during which she had to be hospitalized. Recently, however, Catherine, has been going through a good patch where she has seemed energized by her work as a photographer. When Catherine is found dead, with a suicide note written in her schoolgirl script, her husband is naturally devastated. He's also suspicious. And, when a spate of suicides leads to Catherine's psychiatrist Dr. Bell, Cardinal is obviously concerned and curious.

The subplot involving a cold case of child abuse is equally chilling. Giles Blunt is a master of the crime genre.

THE WILDFIRE SEASON by Andrew Pyper (2005)

Learning that Andrew Pyper is the author assigned to the table where I will be sitting on Wednesday at the Writers' Trust Great Literary Dinner Party, I picked up his most recent novel.

The prose is gorgeous and the dialogue precise and authentic.

An arsonist starts a bush fire in a remotely populated area of the Yukon in order to give the firefighters something to do during the dog days of summer. Miles, the fire chief, not only has the burden of reading the fire and how it will spread, but also the anxiety of saving his five year-old daughter Rachel, whom he has only met recently.

The subplot in which a New York couple, strangers to each other although married for decades, hires a local guide to hunt a bear is no less anxiety-provoking. Especially when they are trapped in the licking flames as well.

The plot had me gasping for breath at times, in panic. And, I had to put the book down because the images were all too real.

Pyper sure knows how to write. I'll be picking up a copy of his earlier novel LOST GIRLS.

DEAD COLD by Louise Penny (2006)

I read Louise Penny's second mystery in one gulp yesterday. (Published as A FATAL GRACE in the US) Set in a sleepy Quebec village, DEAD COLD is a satisfying crime novel wherein several suspects are unlikely-- a bereaved octogenarian, a yoga-studio owning septugenarian and a bullied child who spends her days at an exclusive boarding school for girls in Montreal--the loosely disguised Miss Edgar's and Miss Cramp's.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache takes on the case of a Boxing Day murder that happened in broad daylight among many witnesses at the annual outdoor curling briar.

The twists and turns and occasional laughs out loud will have you flipping the pages of this compelling tale right to the end. Acronyms acquire certain power under Louise Penny's pen.

BLOODLETTING & MIRACULOUS CURES by Vincent Lam (2006)

Lam's collection of linked short stories was recentlly awarded the 2006 Giller Prize--for the best English language book of fiction in Canada. In it you follow Ming, Chen, Fitzgerald and Sri through their human anatomy lab at Medical School and into their residential practices at walk-in clinics and emergency room triage. BLOODLETTING & MIRACULOUS CURES is not for the squeamish or faint of heart, especially in "Take All of Murphy," where the descriptive detail is absolutely visceral.

However, in addition to precise prose, Lam is also an adept storyteller, and it is his craftsmanship that will have me reaching for his first novel due out in Fall 2007 from Doubleday.

ECHO PARK by Michael Connelly (2006)

Detective Harry Bosch has a stale case that he just can't leave alone--the unsolved murder of Marie Gesto that has nagged him for more than a dozen years. When he gets a call from a hot-shot prosecutor who has Raynard Waits ready to admit to the murder in order to avoid the death penalty for a series of crimes, Harry is both relieved and bothered by the offer.

The wild goose chase that follows after Waits leads them to the alleged burial site of Gesto's remains is anxiety ridden.

Former defense attorney Connelly is at the top of his crime-writing form in ECHO PARK.

REQUIEM FOR MY BROTHER by Marian Botsford Fraser (2006)

When I saw this title listed in a summer edition of Quill and Quire as forthcoming, I special ordered a copy--having met Marian through PEN Canada work and having buried my only brother.

I had no idea that there would be such haunting similarities in our stories: the eldest of three children; raised in small-town Ontario; a younger brother named David who loved the north--its landscape, its rhythms; a family code in which "I love you" was understood but never said face to face.

Fraser's spare prose hits the mark. As Nino Ricci notes, it is "uncompromising and deeply affecting...a meditation...on how much of even those we are closest to remains unknown."

We are still, David, Denise and I, just the three of us.

THE FEARSOME PARTICLES by Trevor Cole (2006)

I picked up a copy of this GG short-listed novel after hearing Trevor Cole read excerpts at IFOA at the end of October. I was also intrigued by a reviewer's reference to Cole as a stylist belonging to "the Truman Capote school." However, although the sections dedicated to Victoria (the high-end house stager) were wryly amusing, and the narrative dedicated to her son Kyle was painfully engaging, the portions about Gerald's musings and his work life were yawn-worthy.

I must be missing something.

LAST STOP SUNNYSIDE by Pat Capponi (2006)

Living in a rooming house in Parkdale, Dana Leoni finds herself in the middle of a mystery involving a former housemate whose body has washed up along the Lake Ontario shore where the old Sunnyside Amusement park used to be. When the police decide to close the case, Dana and her remaining housemates--people pushed to the margins of society through mental illness and misfortune--decide to do detective work of their own inspired by their reading of the seedy, but hopeful tales of Janet Evanovich. Their dedication leads them to discover a terrible reality that is all too plausible.

PAINT IT BLACK by Janet Fitch (2006)

Fitch's new novel opens with a tribute to lyrics by the Rolling Stones that include "everything that's red, paint it black," a sentiment that well suits Josie Tyrell, the protagonist. Josie's boyfriend Michael, a Harvard dropout, is an artist unsure of the depth of his talents. In spite of the love that surrounds him, Michael drives to the edge of LA and checks in to a seedy motel as Oscar Wilde and puts a gun in his mouth.

Following Michael's suicide the grief that emerges for Josie and for Michael's Mom, a world-famous concert pianist, makes them fast enemies and even stranger friends.

YOU MUST SET FORTH AT DAWN by Wole Soyinka (2006)

Soyinka's memoir of his involvement throughout the early years of Nigeria's independence reads more like an intellectual tract than reminiscences. This accomplished poet, playwright and university professor--and the first African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature--is frank about his many affairs de coeur and about his treatment while imprisoned for speaking out during the Biafran war that consumed Nigeria.

A LONG WAY DOWN by Nick Hornby

Written as four convincing first-person narratives, in the style of Faulkner's THE SOUND AND THE FURY, Hornby's most recent novel chronicles the lives of four strangers who meet at "Topper's House" in London on New Year's Eve. Each is convinced that s/he will put an end to their miserable existence to ring in the new year.

Jess is a teenaged girl who is lost to herself mostly because of her older sister's disappearance/death. JJ is a wannabe rockstar who broke up with his girlfriend and canned his band. Martin is a middle-aged Dad and former tv host who recently completed a jail term for having been involved with a fifteen-year-old girl. Maureen is a middle-aged woman who is weighed down by the care of her adult son who is confined to a wheelchair and diapers.

A less likely group of folks you won't have met; however, there is something absolutely appealing about each one of these characters as they look mortality in the eye and bite their thumbs at it. A topic that seems dreary and depressing will have you cheering by the time Hornby is finished.

REBUS'S SCOTLAND: A PERSONAL JOURNEY by Ian Rankin

I now understand why I've found Ian Rankin's crime writing to be so literary--he spent a former life as a graduate student of English Literature at Edinburgh University where he wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the novels of Muriel Spark.

In this non-fiction book of ramblings and reminiscences and gorgeous--albeit moody-- photographs, Rankin explains his idea of Scotland and how the country is as much a character as Detective John Rebus in all of his novels.

It is a charming and personal book that offers a guided tour along the streets of Edinburgh as well as through Rankin's mind.

LAST CAR TO ELYSIAN FIELDS by James Lee Burke

Veteran Louisiana Detective Dave Robicheaux finds himself in New Orleans, out of district, investigating the brutal beating of his friend Father Dolan, a controversial RC priest. However, another crime closer to home, the deaths of three teenaged girls in a car crash, leads to a series of revenge killings. Putting his own safety on the line, Robicheaux clearly understands the complicated nature of grief as he seeks to balance the scales of justice.