BEST OF 2010
5 EZ
Fiction&Poetry
SELECTED STORIES, by William Trev- or (Viking, $35).Wry, wistful, slice-of- life stories that have been likened to those of Anton Chekhov because of their acute observations, limpid prose, and subtlety of presentation. —Ron Hansen
SHADOWTAG, by Louise Erdrich (Harper, $25.99) A tense little master- piece of marital strife that recalls the novelist’s tragic relationship with the late writerMichael Dorris. —R.C.
SKIPPY DIES, by PaulMurray (Faber & Faber, $28). A hilarious, moving and wise epic crafted around a pack of 14- year-old boys at a Dublin high school whose social dynamics make “Lord of the Flies” seem like “Gilligan’s Island.” —Jess Walter
THE SLAP, by Christos Tsiolkas (Pen- guin; paperback, $15). At a neighbor- hood barbecue inMelbourne, Austra- lia, a 4-year-old throws a tantrum, kicks a bad-temperedman in the shins and is slapped. A feud among friends ensues, leaving us exhausted but gasping with admiration.—Bri- gitteWeeks
SNAKEWOMAN OF LITTLE EGYPT, by RobertHellenga (Bloomsbury, $25). A darling anthropologist meets a lady convict who shot her snake-handling husband.—C.S.
SO MUCH FOR THAT, by Lionel Shriver (Harper, $25.99). In this brutal novel about the cruelty of the American healthcare system, a businessman would like to retire early, but his wife needs his insurance. Finalist for the National Book Award. —R.C.
TAKE ONE CANDLE LIGHT A ROOM, by Susan Straight (Pantheon, $25.95). Layering the rich particulars of African American life into a classic tale of indi- vidual desires straining against collec- tive constraints, Straight adds another compassionate achievement to her dis- tinguished body of work. —Wendy Smith
THE THIEVES OF MANHATTAN, by Adam Langer (Spiegel & Grau; paper- back, $15). An aspiring writer reworks amysterious man’s novel as a memoir to get revenge on the successful writer who stole his girlfriend and on the whole corrupt publishing world. —Frances Stead Sellers
36 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, by RebeccaNewberger Gold- stein (Pantheon, $27.95). A divinely witty novel about the world’s best-sell- ing atheist, who argues that the sense of spirituality persists even if God doesn’t. —R.C.
THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET, by DavidMitchell (Random
ALAMY ‘Trespass’
House, $26). Set in feudal Japan, a rich historical romance about sacrificial love, clashing civilizations and ene- mies who won’t rest until whole family lines have been snuffed out. —R.C.
TRESPASS, by Rose Tremain (Norton, $24.95). A Gothic novel, dark and ee- rie, set in the South of France. Tre- main’s happy ending is a realistic one for older characters—a correcting of accounts, a modicumof mercy. —Jane Smiley
UNDER HEAVEN, by Guy Gavriel Kay (Roc, $26.95).Not quite historical fic- tion, not quite fantasy, this novel de- picts the unimaginable consequences of a single generous gift during a slightly reimagined Tang dynasty. —Michael Dirda
UNFINISHED DESIRES, by Gail God- win (RandomHouse, $26). Godwin renders a fictional order of Catholic nuns in a Southern girls’ school with authority and ease,making their spiritual and corporeal concerns con- vincing, funny,moving. —Valerie Sayers
UNION ATLANTIC, by AdamHaslett (Doubleday, $26). This strange, elegant story about a successful investment banker illuminates the financial and moral calamity of the young 21st cen- tury. —R.C.
THEYEAR’SBESTAUDIOBOOKSREVIEWBYKATHERINEA.POWERS
THE IMPERFECTIONISTS By Tom Rachman Recorded Books, 9¾hours, 7 CDs,
www.recordedbooks.com, buy: $44.95; rent, $17.50;
audible.com download, $27.99
It would be hard to come up with a bet-
ter narrator than Christopher Evan Welch for Tom Rachman’s saga of the birth, life and death of a newspaper. By turns bitter, sweet, icily callous and very funny, the novel covers half a century and a large number of characters.Welch dis- tinguishes between the characters mostly by mood and register, but so adeptly that he conveys personality and predicament as well as any thespian.
THE KILLING OF CRAZY HORSE By Thomas Powers Tantor, 21 hours, 17 CDs, $54.99, 2 MP3 CDs, $39.99;
audible.com download, $38.49
This latest account of the murder of
CrazyHorse of the Lakota Sioux in 1877 is a complex, detailed and multilevel tale of greed, bad faith, racism and miscompre-
hension on both sides. John Pruden reads Thomas Powers’s long book in a calm, un- hurried voice.His pronunciation of the formidable Indian expressions and names is deft and unstrenuous. Though the voices of many are heard from letters, journals and interviews, Pruden does not embellish them; he maintains the narrat- ing voice, avoiding complications in an already complicated but revelatory ac- count.
LORNA DOONE By R. D. Blackmore Unabridged, Naxos, 26 hours, 20 CDs, $115.98; Naxos download,
www.naxosau-
diobooks.com, $80
First published in 1869, this great tale
of well-born brigandage, yeoman valor and maiden peril set in Restoration Eng- land’sWest Country, Devon and Somer- set, gives full expression to mid-Victorian longing for a vanished agricultural past. Its audio form releases the language from the page thanks to Jonathan Keeble, an extraordinarily skilled voice actor who takes on the archaic Devon accent as though born to it—which, as a native of
the region, he was. The novel’s quietly droll passages and paeans to nature are greatly enhanced by his country aplomb. Moreover, the dialect that snags the read- er in print (“Whoy, dudn’t ee knaw. . . as Jan Vry wur gane avore braxvass”) emerg- es here as fluid speech, its cadence a joy to hear.
THE SIEGE OF KRISHNAPUR By J. G. Farrell BBC Cover to Cover, 12½hours, audi-
ble.com download, $25.46
Sam Dastor’s inspired delivery of the
1973 Booker Prize-winning novel, a bril- liant black comedy set during the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, is available as a down- load only. Dastor, who was born in India, delivers a brisk, uncomplicated Indian accent for the fewactual natives in this book.His great triumph, however, lies in his general narration, which expresses the book’s terrific irony at the contrast between British propriety and the chaotic mess these people find themselves in. When the voices of individual characters pipe up, they are uniquely their own. Among them are theMagistrate, whose
clipped tones most certainly do “not in- vite debate,” and the Padre, whose voice is perfectly balanced between donnish- ness and clerical sing-song.
TRAVELS IN SIBERIA By Ian Frazier Macmillan Audio, 20½hours, 16 CDs, $59.99;
audible.com download, $41.99
Ian Frazier caps his travels through Si-
beria’s vastness by narrating his own ac- count of them, another enormous under- taking. The author doesn’t have the pol- ish or range of a professional voice actor, but soon we appreciate how this some- what pedestrian tone suits both the crude reality of Siberia and the deadpan humor that pervades his book.How could any- one doubt that this is the voice of the ac- tual man who, as he admits, had a “chronic fear of being run over while asleep inmy tent” or who was annoyed that his tea tasted like the shaving cream someone had mixed in his cup?
bookworld@washpost.com
Katherine A. Powers regularly reviews audio books for BookWorld.
the washington post book world sunday, december 12, 2010 l l
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