I read Me and Mr. Booker by Cory Taylor for Jennifer Byrne’s First Tuesday Book Club in Australia, and I loved it. A kind of Lolita from Lolita’s point of view. And thinking of Australian authors, I have to say I think Gail Jones is absolutely brilliant, in her writing and also in person. Her most recent novel is Five Bells.
I read Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses finally this year (I realize I was slow on this one), and I think it deserves all its acclaim. This book has it all: a compelling, surprising, important story, well-drawn characters, beautiful landscape description, reflection that has you wondering about your own life, etc.
I reviewed Ross Raisin’s new novel, Waterline, for the Financial Times, and I think this second novel confirms him as an exciting talent.
In the U.S., I blurbed Keith Scribner’s new novel, The Oregon Experiment, because I just absolutely loved it. In the midst of anarchists and chaos, he offers uncommon sympathy and grace in a marriage lost then found, and redemption from what we fear most, that we can’t run from who we are, that the past is waiting to ambush us.
More from A Year in Reading 2011
Don’t miss: A Year in Reading 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
The good stuff: The Millions’ Notable articles
The motherlode: The Millions’ Books and Reviews
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