Top 10 Books I'm Looking Forward to in 2014

Given I have to read about 30 to 36 books from my TBR pile before I start getting new books, this list may seem to be somewhat overambitious. But here's a list of 2014 books I plan to read, either this year or next year.

1. The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman: This is the third and final (?) novel in his Magicians series, which some wag characterized as "Harry Potter says (12-letter expletive)." Both my daughter and I enjoy this series, which brings great emotional depth to tropes familiar to fantasy fans. It will be interesting to find out how the main character, banished from the magic kingdom, gets to come back, and we'll see if a wonderful character from the first book will, in some fashion, reappear.

2. The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness: I read the first two in the All Souls trilogy -- A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night. Harkness, a history professor, lacks some of the polish of more experienced fantasy writers (her prose is a little to pedestrian), and she can get bogged down in the ripped-bodice-romance side of the plot involving a history professor-witch (of course) and her vampire lover. Otherwise, this saga is enthralling, both for the period detail (time travel in book two) and the complicated, intriguing secret-history plot involving races of witches, vampires, daemons and humans.

3. Lila by Marilynne Robinson: This novel is another follow-up to the Iowa community she wrote about in Gilead and Home. Gilead was a beautiful novel, but I haven't read Home yet. So I believe I should read Home before I read Lila. Also maybe Housekeeping.

4. The Gospel of Loki: I found this one one somebody's Waiting on Wednesday entry. Joanne Harris (Chocolat) relates the rise and fall of the Norse gods through the trickster Loki. Apparently, Loki gets the last laugh here, and the novel could be a lot of fun.

5. Raising Steam: Terry Pratchett's latest involves Moist von Lipwig, the hero of the Discworld novels Going Postal (one of my favorites) and Making Money, as well as some goblins and the invention of the steam engine. Well. Sometimes his books are more fun to listen to (narrated by the great Stephen Briggs) than to read, so we'll see if the library stocks the audio version.

6. Love and Treasure: Ayelet Waldman's novel concerns the Nazi looting of art treasures, the Holocaust, historical romance and other stuff. And why not?

7. The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman -- I've never read anything by Hoffman, but this novel seems like a place to start. It's about a sideshow in Coney Island and about the owner's daughter, a strong swimmer who plays a mermaid. I liked The Tiger's Wife and The Night Circus, and this novel seems to be in the same kind of genre.

8. Updike: Adam Begley's biography is getting a lot of buzz among Updike aficionados. It's hard to imagine what more he can add to the voluminous writing Updike did about himself, but I'm willing to take a look. I visited Updike's childhood home in Shillington, Pa., last year; it's being renovated, but I did walk some of the streets where he grew up. Very hilly.

9. A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World: Competing pizza franchises rule the world? Rachel Cantor's novel sound like a fun read -- a real slice of life. Ha ha.

10. The Confabulist: A novel about Harry Houdini's life and death. Steven Galloway expands the genre of novels about magicians, and I'm ready to be taken in. 

Teaser Tuesday: 1/14

For the Teaser Tuesday web meme:

Instructions for a Heat Wave by Maggie Farrell, page 141:

Aoife stands on the pavement, just outside the gate, turning to look one way up the street and then the other, as if she's fogotten where she's going. Oddly weighty the British money feels in her hand, her purse bursting open, holding too may currencies: dimes and two-pences, nickels and ten-pence pieces.

Book Reviews: 1/1/2014-1/12/2014

These reviews are all off my 2014 TBR lists; two are titles from 2013, and one is a paperback I had for a long time.

Nine Inches: Stories: Tom Perrotta remains one of my favorite authors. These stories hit on some of the same themes from his previous novels of suburban angst -- lonely people (teens and middle-aged men and women) who choose to do things that will come back to haunt them in an exurban universe that is more or less out to get them. These stories are funny, cannily told and frequently heartbreaking. In one, a lonely woman whose son won't come back to visit becomes drawn to a cult that makes girls go out in winter without jackets; in another, a pediatrician finds his mojo -- sort of -- playing the blues in the back of a guitar store. Some people get second chances; some regret chances missed; and some just opt out entirely. Perrotta is in fine form, seeding the green lawns and flower beds of despair. And no, the title has nothing to do with what you're thinking -- it's the distance middle-schoolers must stay from each other while dancing. CHALLENGES: What's in a Name Challenge (a book with a number spelled out), 52 Books in 52 Weeks, TBR Pile.

The Two Hotel Francforts: A Novel: David Leavitt also is one of my favorite authors. After large historical mural he brought forth in excellent "The Indian Clerk," he moves to a much smaller canvas with The Two Hotel Francforts. Like "Clerk," Francforts is a historical novels about exiles -- two couples living in limbo at hotels in Portugal after fleeing the Nazis in France. Leavitt probes deeply into his two main characters: Peter Winters and his wife, Julia. The Winterses fled to Paris so Julia could escape her New York family, but now their relationship, based on neuroses and boredom, threatens to unravel as they seek passage back to the States. Meanwhile, they encounter another expat couple -- the Frelengs -- with whom they become entangled. Leavitt's narrator tells the tale from the perspective of a time long after the events, and his occasional asides hinting of what has happened lend the tale a strong sense of foreboding. Once more, Leavitt explores human desires amid chaos and frailty. CHALLENGES: TBR Pile, 52 Books in 52 Weeks, European Reading Challenge (Portugal).

Brendan: Frederick Buechner followed up his classic "Godric" with this tale of a sixth-century saint, Brendan the Navigator, as told by his close friend and aid Finn. Buechner's faux-Gaelic prose makes the novel somewhat difficult to read at first, but once one gets used to the slightly off-kilter rhythms, the story emerges as one full of humor, fantasy and poignancy. Brendan, taken from his parents at age 1, is raised to be a priest just a generation after St. Patrick has brought Christianity to Ireland. Beliefs in local myths and gods mingle with Christian tenets, sometimes comically and sometimes tragically. After an adventure selecting a new Irish "king," Brendan decides to be a "blue martyr," setting off on two long sea journeys in search of a heaven-like country of the young. He encounters whales, icebergs and, perhaps, Florida. Brendan is a faithful Christian seeking God's plan for his life, even as he stumbles through wrath and regret. This poignant tale is about existential faith and grace and tries to suggest how we can find our own way as we travel the paths of saints. CHALLENGES: TBR Pile, 52 Books in 52 Weeks, European Reading Challenge (Ireland), Roof Beam Reader.

Currently reading: Instructions for a Heat Wave by Maggie O'Farrell
Next: & Sons by David Gilbert

Waiting on Wednesday: Jan. 8

For the Waiting on Wednesday web meme:  Magician's Land by Lev Grossman. Grossman's first two novels, The Magicians and The Magician King, are highly intelligent riffs on the Harry Potter and Narnia novels with a strong contemporary attitude. A young man named Quentin is recruited to a school for young people with strong magical abilities, and his choices have repercussions in this world and in a world of magic he and his fellow students discover and later rule. He makes horrendous mistakes that have terrible costs, as do the other characters. What's more, the magical realm of Fillroy has its problems, too. The ending of the second book -- an exile and an explanation -- was so strong that I'm wondering where he has to go with the third book, but I'll read it eagerly when it comes out in August. Grossman makes you feel all the pain and suffering of his characters as well as the unexpected joys of being a magician.

Teaser Tuesday -- Jan. 7

For the Teaser Tuesday webmeme:

From: The Two Hotel Francforts by David Leavitt, page 53:

"Of all the ironclad arguments I had made against her staying in Europe, theone she had the hardest time refuting was that she was Jewis. On tis point she had always been touchy -- and not because she was anti-Semitic."