The 30 great reads of 2008

FICTION

What may be P.D. James' final novel, The Private Patient (368 pages, Knopf, $25.95), offers further proof -- if proof were needed -- that she retains, at age 88, her formidable powers of deep storytelling, of creative imagination, of rich characterization and of well-crafted prose.

The private patient of the title is Rhoda Gladwyn, a 40-something investigative journalist who decides, after decades, to have an ugly scar removed from her face. Rather than take advantage of Britain's National Health Service, she chooses to pay the full cost herself and checks into Cheverell Manor, the private clinic in Dorset of plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell, who also maintains an NHS practice in London.

The operation is successful, but that night, the patient dies -- strangled in her bed at the opulent clinic. Commander Adam Dalgleish of New Scotland Yard and his team step in to solve this intricate case, and James, while excelling at the mystery genre, once again transcends it in this rich, compelling and moving novel.

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When Elizabeth George killed off aristocratic Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley's wife, Helen, in "With No One As Witness," her readers were heartbroken. When she examined the killer's life in "What Came Before He Shot Her," they were moved. And when she returned Lynley to her formidable body of work in Careless in Red (640 pages, Harper, $27.95), they were intrigued and satisfied.

Lynley, deep in grief, sets out to walk the Cornish coast and discovers a body. Drawn into the investigation, he is recalled to life as George explores one of her favorite subjects -- family. In "Careless in Red," she expands and reverts at the same time, first by focusing on the suspect families, then by bringing back Lynley. As is her wont, George will wrench your heart and return it enriched.

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When it's bad, historical fiction is a parody of history, empty of significance and poorly envisioned. But when it's good, as Ellen Feldman shows in Scottsboro (384 pages, Norton, $24.95), it augments the reader's understanding of real events, in this case the shameful story of the Scottsboro Boys and the fabricated rape allegations brought against them.

With a sure sense of storytelling, a deft hand at characterization and a stylish and sensitive use of language, Feldman has created an affecting portrait of the past. And in so doing, her tale of racism and poverty, lies and hopelessness, brings an American disgrace to life with eloquence, intelligence and passion.

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The fine old British tradition of a novel told in letters lives on, complete with tea, pigs, eccentrics, wit and whimsy, in Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows' The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (288 pages, The Dial Press, $22).

Set on the island of Guernsey in the aftermath of World War II, this charming book is a cornucopia of gentle humor, an account of wartime heroism and wartime horror -- and a love story -- that will evoke smiles, possibly tears and great satisfaction.

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Susan Hill knows how to tell a ghost story, and The Man in the Picture (160 pages, The Overlook Press, $15) is a stylish little gem that's creative in conception and traditional in execution.

Hill masterfully builds the dread as she lays out the story, but she never oversteps the bounds of edginess into excess. With a refined touch that other authors should envy, she makes this elegant story sing by melding the ethos of the traditional ghost story with the assurance of a contemporary prose artist.

NONFICTION

On Aug. 31, 1970, Gov. Linwood Holton escorted his eldest child, Tayloe, to Richmond's previously all-black John F. Kennedy High School. At the same hour, first lady Virginia "Jinks" Holton was taking younger children Anne and Woody to Mosby Middle School. And a nation familiar with Southern governors standing in the schoolhouse door or waving a pickax to prevent integration marveled at an act of reason made in obedience to the law of the land.

Holton, who in 1969 was elected Virginia's first Republican governor since Reconstruction, tells his story in Opportunity Time (226 pages, University of Virginia Press, $27.95) with the unpolished but disarming candor that has become his trademark.

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Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon were among the first female singer-songwriters, and they broke gender ground. But all three women had to overcome great obstacles, as Sheila Weller writes in her riveting Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon -- and the Journey of a Generation (592 pages, Atria, $27.95).

A triple biography must be a tricky business, but Weller hits all the right notes. She neither favors nor slights any of her three subjects, she explains with insight the commonality of their experience as women of the'60s, and she writes with reportorial precision (much of the book is based on interviews with people who have known the subjects in all life stages, as well as Simon, but neither King nor Mitchell), a wealth of detail, powerful imagery and sardonic humor. The result is an affecting account of three women whose struggles and successes mirrored their times and their generation.

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As Virginia's own Renaissance man, Thomas Jefferson, once said, "I cannot live without books." Neither can the distinguished American author Larry McMurtry, whose Books: A Memoir (272 pages, Simon & Schuster, $24) is the captivating story of his nearly lifelong devotion -- as a reader, a writer and a bookseller.

This engaging memoir allows readers to revel in the stories McMurtry tells of the lovable eccentrics known as bibliophiles.

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Nancy Ellis-Bell had her heart set on an African grey parrot. But she changed her mind at a friend's bird-rescue sanctuary when she saw Peg Leg, a 2-foot-tall macaw who was missing her left foot (probably cut off by her captors when it became hopelessly tangled in a parrot snare in Latin America when she was 2 years old). In addition to her disability, Peg Leg was sick with an infection and carried a reputation for viciousness.

Mean, ill and missing a paw? Pshaw. Ellis-Bell forsook her African grey dream for what could have become a macaw nightmare. That it didn't, and that the love the two shared became the basis for The Parrot Who Thought She Was a Dog (256 pages, Harmony, $23) is a testament to devotion. Equally comical, affecting and wrenching, it's a little charmer that reminds us of the love we owe our fellow travelers on Earth and the difference that love can make -- in their lives and ours.

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That Alfred Hitchcock demeaned, disrespected and distressed women is no secret. The stories have made the rounds for years, but until now, with Donald Spoto's Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies (352 pages, Harmony, $25.95), no one has focused on the issue in one engrossing book.

With a wealth of examples, Spoto shows how Hitchcock abused his female stars -- mostly psychologically, but in Tippi Hedren's case, physically. Spoto, the author of a number of celebrity biographies, informs "Spellbound by Beauty" with his profound knowledge of his subject, years of sound reporting, highly polished prose and sensible analysis. This is a disturbing and compelling read, reminiscent of Hitchcock's movies themselves.
Contact Jay Strafford at (804) 649-6698 or .

FICTION

Clyde Edgerton's The Bible Salesman (243 pages; Little, Brown; $23.99) opens with the titular character hitchhiking on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere with a stack of stolen Bibles at his feet. For some readers, that's enough to know they're holding a keeper.

But Edgerton sweetens the deal. A con artist pulls up in a stolen Chrysler, and after sizing up the salesman, he says he has infiltrated a gang of car thieves for the FBI. Would the salesman like to help him deliver cars? Happily for us, the salesman climbs aboard. "The Bible Salesman" is a font of wildly creative comedy, but it's the novel's quiet, introspective moments that are most memorable.

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Wondrous things happen in Steven Millhauser's short-story collection, Dangerous Laughter (246 pages, Knopf, $24). In "The Dome," a fad for enclosing gardens under enormous domes becomes so popular that the United States erects a giant dome over itself. On the other end of the scale, a maker of miniatures discovers the insatiable restlessness that infinite regress provokes after he begins shrinking his work smaller and smaller in "In the Reign of Harad IV."

But the best story in the collection may be "The Room in the Attic," in which a teenage boy befriends a girl who never leaves her darkened room. The boy slowly finds himself being sucked into her dark, amorphous world, and readers caught up in this exhilarating collection may find themselves following him.

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When it comes to the sheer number of novels featuring James Bond, his creator's tally was relatively unimpressive. Ian Fleming wrote 12 Bond novels; his successors -- Kingsley Amis, John Gardner and Raymond Benson -- wrote 21. But Sebastian Faulks did something this year that eluded the other post-Fleming novelists: He wrote a Bond novel "as Ian Fleming."

Faulks should hold onto whatever ectoplasmic device he used to channel Fleming's spirit, because Devil May Care (285 pages, Doubleday, $24.95) is a superb entry in the Bond series. Exotic locales, Bond girls (twins, no less) and a mad-genius villain sporting a memorable deformity . . . what's not to love?

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Most readers would expect something terrible to happen in a novel that opens with a stripper taking her 3-year-old daughter to work. But the way Andre Dubus III makes things go terribly wrong in The Garden of Last Days (537 pages, Norton, $24.95) is surprising.

Despite its considerable length, "The Garden of Last Days" is the sort of book that begs to be read in one sitting. Don't expect the pages to be illuminated by resplendent rays of hope, though.

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On the surface, Joseph O'Neill's Netherland (261 pages, Pantheon, $23.95) is a straightforward affair. After his marriage collapses in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, New York transplant Hans van den Broek finds solace in cricket, a sport he had played as a child in the Netherlands.

A friendship with a West Indian cricket player offers an element of intrigue, but plot points don't pull readers through "Netherland." The book's suspense lies chiefly in how Hans will draw his former selves into a coherent story. It's a mesmerizing experience.

NONFICTION

Jean-Antoine Watteau, the 18th-century French rococo artist, doesn't make many art critics' Top 10 lists of great painters. But Jed Perl thinks his fellow art critics should give Watteau a second look. As far as he's concerned, the Frenchman is wonderful.

In Antoine's Alphabet: Watteau and His World (213 pages, Knopf, $25), he explains why. The book's structure is as memorable as its arguments. It's an alphabet book, with an entry for each letter. Freed from conventional narrative constraints, Perl drills down into a labyrinth of Watteau-driven free association. Repeated readings reveal how subtly Perl's ideas advance across the seemingly isolated entries.

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In a bumper-crop season of books examining the American war on terror, Dexter Filkins' The Forever War (373 pages, Knopf, $25) may have been the most stunning yet. It's also markedly different from many of the books about the war.

Rather than focusing on politics or policy making, Filkins writes about his experiences as a journalist on the ground in two radically different war zones -- Afghanistan and Iraq. Filkins' eye for detail and his ability to capture a scene with understated, impressionistic eloquence are impeccable.

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Andrew Meier's The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin's Secret Service opens with a simple question: Did the Soviet Union place American prisoners in its labor camps? The answer: yes.

As Meier discovered, the Soviets imprisoned an American named Isaiah "Cy" Oggins at Norilsk -- "that Pompeii of Stalinism in Russia's far north," as Meier describes it. Here's the catch: Oggins was one of the first Americans to spy for the Soviet Union. Meier's account of how Oggins went from being an American spy for the Soviets to one of its millions of labor-camp prisoners is breathtaking.

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Julian Barnes has worried about death on a daily basis for most of his life "without acquiring any mellowness or philosophy," he writes in Nothing to Be Frightened Of (247 pages, Knopf, $24.95), his unconventional memoir of melancholia. Religion has offered no solace, but Barnes' stance on religion has softened over the years.

An atheist at 20, he writes that he began calling himself an agnostic at 50. (He is now 62.) At this rate, Barnes will be a bishop before he's 300. Despite the book's morbid subject matter, Barnes is a virtuosic prose stylist with a dry wit, and the urge to applaud his agility arises often.

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Pixar Animation Studios' collection of movie hits is impressive -- among them, "Toy Story," "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles." But what makes Pixar special? David A. Price's The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company has a simple explanation: Pixar has managed to balance the medium's technical demands with good, old-fashioned attention to story and character.

Price has wisely followed Pixar's strategy for his own book. It has a compelling mix of interrelated story arcs (technological, financial and artistic) and an impressive cast of intriguing characters. And any book that has Steve Jobs storming out of his office after an underling has the temerity to write on Jobs' private whiteboard is bound to be entertaining.
Doug Childers is a Richmond writer and edits WAG, a literary Web site at http://www.thewag.net.

FICTION

A novel set in a divisive era -- the Iraq war -- could be a rant. Instead, Ellen Gilchrist, while acknowledging the issues, writes sensitively in A Dangerous Age (256 pages, Algonquin, $23.95) about men and women who love one another, and their country.

The protagonists, cousins Winifred, Louise and Olivia, originally from North Carolina, live elsewhere but keep in touch. After Winifred's husband dies in the Sept. 11 attacks, she moves to Washington, where she connects with Louise, and the cousins meet two soldiers. Olivia, an Oklahoma newspaper editor, falls in love with a Marine reservist. When he's called up, she finds it hard to be editorially detached. Though the war touches all three, the cousins find love --but at a price.

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Sword-play and treachery are as essential in swashbuckling novels as handsome heroes and happy ending are in romances. And in The King's Gold (304 pages, Putnam, $24.95), another tale of Captain Alatriste, set in 1642 Spain, Arturo Perez-Reverte does not disappoint.

Alatriste, a fighting thinker, is a thoughtful observer of his times. Though he realizes that Spain is in decline, and deservedly so, he accepts a dangerous mission that has the king's blessing. Alatriste must retrieve gold stolen from a recently arrived treasure ship from South America that is rightly the king's. Alatriste needs the money, so he reluctantly signs on. Much blood is spilled as he confronts ruthless enemies, as well as his nemesis, Gualterio Malatesta.

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Virtuous heroes are seldom as engaging as the wicked, especially in fiction, but Rose Tremain's protagonist Lev in The Road Home (432 pages; Little, Brown; $24.99) is both good and engaging. Recently widowed, Lev leaves his former communist country to find work in England. An engineer laid off from a sawmill because there are no trees left to cut, he is haunted by memories of his dead wife and his home.

In England, he experiences disasters and disappointment -- thugs steal his money, a woman he loves leaves him for a trendy artist, and he picks asparagus for low wages. But a restaurant job inspires him, allows him to find a niche, and work -- cooking -- that makes him joyful.

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Declaring that her vampire days over, Anne Rice recently wrote an acclaimed novel about the young Jesus Christ. In her second such novel, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana (256 pages, Knopf, $25.95), another compelling story of what might have been, she imagines what Jesus did in his last months of normal life.

Despite his attraction to young and beautiful Avigail, Jesus knows that marriage and a family of his own are not to be. Rice persuasively describes him torn between his sense of destiny -- though he wonders when the Angel's prophecy will be fulfilled -- and the comforts of a family. News that John the Baptist is preaching that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand is the sign Jesus needs. Seamlessly melding her imaginary background with the Gospel story, Rice relates how Jesus performs miracles, preaches salvation and enters history.

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In The Betrayal Game (384 pages, Bantam, $25), a gripping page turner that also subtly explores how history is made, Richmond's David L. Robbins continues to entertain as he revisits a turbulent year: 1961.

The CIA, with Cuban exiles' help, is busy plotting, as are mobsters, to assassinate Fidel Castro. Which makes Havana the perfect place to be for protagonist Dr. Mikhail Lammeck, an authority on assassination. A hero who uses brains, not brawn, Lammeck is soon enmeshed in the competing conspiracies -- all dangerous -- as he tries to figure out whom to trust. A deft plot twist -- a "what if?" historical moment -- agreeably adds to the tension.

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NONFICTION

In an evocative reminder that poets still matter, former Poet Laureate Donald Hall recalls how at 14 he decided to become a poet. His recollections in Unpacking the Boxes: The Memoir of a Life In Poetry (208 pages, Houghton Mifflin, $24) are prompted by the arrival of 80 boxes from his mother's home.

He recalls idyllic summers on his grandparents' New Hampshire farm, studying at Harvard and Oxford, as well as befriending such poets as John Ashbery, Robert Bly and Adrienne Rich. Now living on "antiquity's planet," he has written a subtle ode to poetry as well as a moving tale of people and places he's loved.

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Books about the Middle East are mostly dispiriting accounts of treachery and error, but Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace (720 pages, Knopf, $35), historian Avi Shlaim's magisterial biography, is an antidote to the usual gloom. Hussein was, despite flaws, a hero. Admired in the West for his courage, he preserved Jordan's independence, while keeping peace as best as he could with Israel and the Arab states.

Shlaim also documents the contacts Hussein developed with Israelis. Initially covert, they culminated in the 1994 Peace Treaty. Hussein, as this model biography shows, was above all "a peacemaker."

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Anne Rice, celebrated for her vampires, is not your usual contributor to the literature of faith. But, in Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession (256 pages, Knopf, $23.95), a distinguished memoir of faith lost and regained, she movingly describes her 38-year sojourn in the secular world.

Raised in New Orleans, she found spiritual comfort in the Catholic Church, but after her mother died of alcoholism, her father remarried and the family moved to Texas, she lost her faith. The loss was absolute, but beginning in the 1990s, she increasingly felt Christ-haunted. Moments of revelation culminated in the miracles of 1998, when she simply let go of "all the theological or social questions which had kept me from Him." The book is impressively reflective and resonates with love of God and man.

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The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (608 pages, Norton, $35), Annette Gordon-Reed's examination of the Hemings family's relationship with Thomas Jefferson, is both an important historical contribution and a reminder that the American family has always been a complex organism.

Assertions that Thomas Jefferson's slave and his wife's half sister, Sally Hemings, bore him six children, are controversial. And mindful of that, Gordon-Reed offers a scholarly brief for the relationship. Relying on contemporary documents and writings, she builds her case, while also giving a history of the Hemingses and their association with Jefferson. Though critical of Jefferson, she acknowledges his concern for his reputation, the mores of the times, and his financial worries.

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Western Europe's reluctance to wage war reflects neither cowardice nor appeasement, historian James J. Sheehan persuasively argues in Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? The Transformation of Modern Europe (264 pages, Houghton Mifflin, $26). Rather, he suggests, 21st-century Europe is very different from the one that waged two world wars.

He cites the effects of the enormous casualties: in World War I when, out of 70 million soldiers, 9.45 million died; and in World War II, 24 million civilians died. These successive disasters, as well as states' increased responsibility for their citizens' social welfare, eroded old military values and made European leaders reluctant to go to war. This is a compelling and well-made argument and a timely history.
Judith Chettle is a Richmond-based book reviewer and writer.