THE BIG SLEEP by Raymond Chandler

Reviewed by Ryan Bradley

An old millionaire named General Sternwood lies on his deathbed. His two daughters rack up gambling debts, fall into blackmail plots, get men killed and see men killed. They giggle, bat their eyelashes, sway their hips, and jump into bed with all the racketeers and two-bit hoodlums that populate the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles circa 1939. Rain pours, daylight rarely comes, and Philip Marlow—private eye—attempts to undo the damage the Sternwood girls have wrought. “The Big Sleep” is death. That is, to sleep the big sleep is to die. It is a hard, harsh world that Raymond Chandler manifests, one in which the hero (Marlow) limps home, alone, to nurse a bottle of whiskey and never gets the girl. (more…)

THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE by Haruki Murakami

Reviewed by Francisca Hu

Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an ominously dreamlike and contemplative look at the powerful reach of evil and those who are scarred by its effects. The story begins with the seemingly ordinary disappearance of a household cat. Toru Okada, an unemployed man uncertain of his purpose in life, is given the task of finding the cat by his malcontented and distant wife, who also takes off without any explanation shortly after the novel starts.

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THE UNBINDING by Walter Kirn

Reviewed by Melissa Fish

Let’s face it – I’m a sucker for novelty. That, in fact, is what first piqued my interest in Walter Kirn’s : its format is so utterly unique. Kirn first published the novel in January 2006, not in hard-copy format, but as an “Internet novel”, with new updates added every week. Taking full advantage of all the bizarre, interesting, and slightly creepy phenomena available on the Internet, Kirn provides links at certain phrases throughout the story to different videos or websites, some of which seem totally irrelevant and others absolutely crucial to the understanding of the plot. An interactive book! I thought. If nothing else, this will be fun! And it certainly was fun; the prose is very accessible, the plot is infused with intrigue, the characters are quirky, and the web links provide their own continual entertainment.
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SNOW by Orhan Pamuk

Reviewed by Alex Glaser

Margaret Atwood is correct when she claims that Orhan Pamuk is literally ‘narrating his country into being’ with the book Snow. More than anything else, this novel of a lost poet in search of love and inspiration in small town Turkey concerns itself with heady political, social, and spiritual questions unique to modern-day Turkey. The author treats these debates with care and prudence, and these debates in many ways reflect the ongoing debate about Turkey’s (in/ex)clusion to the European Union, making the novel incredibly relevant to Easterners and Westerners alike.
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MISSION TO AMERICA by Walter Kirn

Reviewed by George Quraishi

Mason LaVerle sets out from an isolated Montana commune seeking to replenish the gene pool of his dwindling, inbred religious sect, the Aboriginal Fulfilled Apostles. What he finds is that the only people willing, or even likely, to come back with him could use some pretty serious help themselves. In Walter Kirn’s book everyone is in need of being saved. Besides the Apostles tucked away in Bluff, there are teenage Wiccans, new-age environmentalists, trust-fund ranchers, a harried writer, a failed actress, even a herd of buffalo; all seem perfect candidates for a little earthly salvation as prescribed in the pages of the Apostles’ newsletter, Luminaria (except the buffalo, who of course can’t read).
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REMAINDER by Tom McCarthy

Reviewed by Patrick Walsh

What do an undisclosed “accident,” ₤8.5 million, and a small crack above a bathroom mirror have in common? Answer: together they are the catalysts behind Tom McCarthy’s first novel Remainder, the contemporary story of an anonymous, London-bred narrator and his painstaking efforts to precisely reconstruct specific moments in time. McCarthy begins his work slowly, as if consciously trying to preserve the ambiguity and detached nature of the narrator, who, after an inexplicable incident involving falling machinery and a resulting settlement, is left as wealthy as he is mentally distorted. Despite the deliberate start, Remainder cleverly diverges from the orderly and the methodical into what can only be described as bizarre and completely out of control. (more…)

LOVE AND OTHER IMPOSSIBLE PURSUITS by Ayelet Waldman

Reviewed by Heidi Immesberger

Ayelet Waldman’s Love and Other Impossible Pursuits is the engrossing and skillfully-written story of a woman who struggles to understand and to practice love in the aftermath of losing her infant daughter. In the months after her infant passed away, Emilia Greenleaf, an upper-class Manhattan attorney and the novel’s protagonist, struggles most to relate to her stepson, William. A bright and well-spoken five year old—perhaps unrealistically so—William challenges Emilia and places her in the line of fire of his intelligent, sophisticated, and angry ex-wife mother. The relationship between Carolyn and Emilia, carefully conducted through William and his father, Jack, is one of the best elements of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. (more…)

THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEAD by Kevin Brockmeier

Reviewed by Melissa Fish

The entire compendium of world literature and philosophy is sprinkled with conjectures as to what happens to people when they die, a universal question that has transcended culture and time. Kevin Brockmeier, in his novel The Brief History of the Dead, provides his own unique answer to this question by drawing particularly on African traditions and creating a place called the City, populated by those who have died but are remembered by those still living. The City parallels our own world in every possible way; its inhabitants eat, sleep, work, and speculate on the uncertainty of what will happen when they leave the City for the next stage of death. In an intriguing narrative style that serves to emphasize this parallel, Brockmeier alternates chapters about the City with chapters that take place in the living world, telling the story of Laura Byrd, a woman trapped alone in Antarctica, and her struggles to survive and escape.

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COMPANY by Max Barry

Reviewed by Ellen Wernecke

Something’s rotten in the state of corporation in Max Barry’s third novel Company. Sales assistant Jones has been recruited out of college to work for Zephyr, a busy and successful company which does… well, Jones isn’t sure, but he’s eager to find out. Rivalries stripe his new department of Training Sales, but all Jones knows is that he’s already earned the ire of his cubicle-mate, who hasn’t been promoted in five years.

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