100 Notable Books of the Year
Holiday Books
The Book Review has selected this list from books reviewed since the Holiday Books issue of Dec. 3, 2006.
Fiction & Poetry
Holiday Books
The Book Review has selected this list from books reviewed since the Holiday Books issue of Dec. 3, 2006.
Fiction & Poetry
- THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER. By Tom Perrotta. (St. Martins, $24.95.) In this new novel by the author of Little Children, a sex-ed teacher faces off against a church bent on ridding her town of moral decay.
- AFTER DARK. By Haruki Murakami. Translated by Jay Rubin. (Knopf, $22.95.) A tale of two sisters, one awake all night, one asleep for months.
- THE BAD GIRL. By Mario Vargas Llosa. Translated by Edith Grossman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) This suspenseful novel transforms Madame Bovary into a vibrant exploration of the urban mores of the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
- BEARING THE BODY. By Ehud Havazelet. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24.) In this daring first novel, a man travels to California after his brother is killed in what may have been a drug transaction.
- THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT HEAVEN BEARS. By Dinaw Mengestu. (Riverhead, $22.95.) A first novel about an Ethiopian exile in Washington, D.C., evokes loss, hope, memory and the solace of friendship.
- BRIDGE OF SIGHS. By Richard Russo. (Knopf, $26.95.) In his first novel since Empire Falls, Russo writes of a small town in New York riven by class differences and racial hatred.
- THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO. By Junot Díaz. (Riverhead, $24.95.) A nerdy Dominican-American yearns to write and fall in love.
- CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. By André Aciman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23.) Acimans novel of love, desire, time and memory describes a passionate affair between two young men in Italy.
- CHEATING AT CANASTA. By William Trevor. (Viking, $24.95.) Trevors dark, worldly short stories linger in the mind long after theyre finished.
- THE COLLECTED POEMS, 1956-1998. By Zbigniew Herbert. Translated by Alissa Valles. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $34.95.) Herberts poetry echoes the quiet insubordination of his public life.
- DANCING TO ALMENDRA. By Mayra Montero. Translated by Edith Grossman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) Fact and fiction rub together in this rhythmic story of a reporter on the trail of the Mafia, set mainly in 1950s Cuba.
- EXIT GHOST. By Philip Roth. (Houghton Mifflin, $26.) In his latest novel Roth brings back Nathan Zuckerman, a protagonist whom we have known since his potent youth and who now must face his inevitable decline.
- FALLING MAN. By Don DeLillo. (Scribner, $26.) Through the story of a lawyer and his estranged wife, DeLillo resurrects the world as it was on 9/11, in all its mortal dread, high anxiety and mass confusion.
- FELLOW TRAVELERS. By Thomas Mallon. (Pantheon, $25.) In Mallons seventh novel, a State Department official navigates the anti-gay purges of the McCarthy era.
- A FREE LIFE. By Ha Jin. (Pantheon, $26.) The Chinese-born author spins a tale of bravery and nobility in an American system built on risk and mutual exploitation.
- THE GATHERING. By Anne Enright. (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $14.) An Irishwoman searches for clues to what set her brother on the path to suicide.
- HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. By J. K. Rowling. (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, $34.99.) Rowling ties up all the loose ends in this conclusion to her grand wizarding saga.
- HOUSE LIGHTS. By Leah Hager Cohen. (Norton, $24.95.) The heroine of Cohens third novel abandons her tarnished parents for the seductions of her grand-mothers life in theater.
- HOUSE OF MEETINGS. By Martin Amis. (Knopf, $23.) A Russian World War II veteran posthumously acquaints his stepdaughter with his grim past of rape and violence.
- IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN. By Hisham Matar. (Dial, $22.) The boy narrator of this novel, set in Libya in 1979, learns about the convoluted roots of betrayal in a totalitarian society.
- THE INDIAN CLERK. By David Leavitt. (Bloomsbury, $24.95.) Leavitt explores the intricate relationship between the Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy and a poor, self-taught genius from Madras, stranded in England during World War I.
- KNOTS. By Nuruddin Farah. (Riverhead, $25.95.) After 20 years, a Somali woman returns home to Mogadishu from Canada, intent on reclaiming a family house from a warlord.
- LATER, AT THE BAR: A Novel in Stories. By Rebecca Barry. (Simon & Schuster, $22.) The small-town regulars at Lucys Tavern carry their loneliness in rough and beautiful ways.
- LET THE NORTHERN LIGHTS ERASE YOUR NAME. By Vendela Veda. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $23.95.) A young woman searches for the truth about her parentage amid the snow and ice of Lapland in this bleakly comic yet sad tale of a childs futile struggle to be loved.
- LIKE YOUD UNDERSTAND, ANYWAY: Stories. By Jim Shepard. (Knopf, $23.) Shepards surprising tales feature such diverse characters as a Parisian executioner, a woman in space and two Nazi scientists searching for the yeti.