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Best fiction of 2008
January 16, 2009
The author is known for his prodigious skill in creating fully realized worlds peopled with richly drawn characters and ideas: Anathem lives up to this reputation. The planet Arbre has parallel worlds of maths (cloistered sanctuaries for scientists, mathematicians and philosophers) and Saecular (the everyday world outside their walls). When young Fraa Erasmus leaves the math during a ritual, held every ten years, in which the cloistered scientists reconnect with the outside world, he gets drawn into an epic quest that will either save the world or end in its destruction. The intricacy and richness of the universe the author has created is astonishing and wonderful.
This stunning debut story collection consists of seven short stories set in places around the world, from Australia, to Colombia, to Manhattan, and Iowa, and dealing with an astonishing variety of people and circumstances. What they have in common is the polished and powerful writing of the author, who presents the reader with stories that are often raw and painfully real, but always compelling and beautiful.
In Stalinist Russia, the state mantra is “There is no crime;” Communism has created a perfectly just society where there are no murders, only “accidents.” If crime doesn’t exist then there is no need to pursue a serial killer, as war hero and Soviet security officer Leo Demidov discovers to his chagrin while investigating the grisly deaths of a number of children. Since the government denies that these crimes ever happened, Demidov must fight against the state security apparatus to try to discover the truth and catch the murderer before he kills again. Fast-paced and sometimes shocking, this novel will grab hold of the reader and never let go until the novel’s final sentence.
Benjamin Ford is on his way to his daughter’s wedding in Los Angeles when he gets stuck at O’Hare Airport, a casualty of a cancelled flight. As hours go by with no possibility of escape in sight, Bennie starts writing a complaint letter to the airline; however it quickly becomes an autobiography as he writes about his family, his work, and his problems. His story is hilarious and poignant, and will resonate strongly with readers.
A huge bestseller in Europe, this debut thriller does not disappoint. The title character, Lisbeth Salander, is a twenty-four-year-old private investigator and brilliant computer hacker with a tough and somewhat unorthodox personality. When investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist hires her to help him look into the very cold case of the disappearance of a teenage girl nearly 40 years ago, it appears she may have been the victim of a serial killer. Things start heating up as it becomes obvious that someone still has a stake in making sure they don’t discover the truth. The two detectives will need their wits about them to stay ahead of the killer, and to prevent more murders. This is a terrific, fast-paced and engrossing mystery with perhaps the most compelling and original character of the year.
Thirteen-year-old Nico is having a difficult time dealing with the drowning death of her glamorous and adored older sister, Margaret, at the family’s lake home in upstate New York. After Nico’s grief-stricken parents withdraw into their own worlds of tranquilizers and work, Nico becomes close to Margaret’s boyfriend, Aaron, as they both try to deal with their sorrow and confusion. Lyrical and beautifully written, this novel exactly captures the commingled feelings of apprehension and excitement of a young teenage girl just beginning to enter the adult world, as well as the heavy toll bereavement exacts from a family.
A wonderful epistolary novel that compares favorably to Helen Hanff's classic 84 Charing Cross Road, this novel begins with Juliet Ashton, who in 1946 happens across the story of Guernsey Islanders and their experiences during the recent war. Fascinated, she begins a correspondence with the members of the Literary and Potato Peel Society, which began as an excuse to escape the German occupying force's punishment for defying curfew. This is a funny, sweet and sometimes sad novel about strength in the face of adversity, and how books can change-and even save-people's lives.
Kenyan birdwatcher Mr. Malik has his eye on Rose Mbikwa, the widow who leads the weekly bird watching walks of the East African Ornithological Society; but when competition arrives in the form of his rather dashing former schoolboy adversary Harry Khan, can the rather retiring Mr. Malik win the day? Readers who enjoy Alexander McCall Smith will love this wonderfully charming book.
Robinson’s follow-up to 2004’s Gilead is more of a companion than a sequel; this time the focus is on Reverend Robert Broughton, the closest friend of John Ames. Broughton is dying, and his children have returned to help care for him, and to make peace with their lives, and with each other. His daughter Glory is recovering from a personal loss, and his son Jack has returned after twenty years away, reeling from his failures and his failings. The two siblings form a strong bond as they try to cope with their burdens, and both find some form of redemption and grace in doing so. Beautiful writing and vivid characterization make this one of those books you will think of long after you have finished the last page.
Paul Tarrant is trying to escape his working class origins by studying to be a painter at London’s Slade School of Fine Art. It is the spring of 1914, and distant rumblings of war have not yet affected the art students. Paul loves the beautiful Elinor Brooke, but she is involved with Kit Neville, a Slade alumnus now making a reputation for himself as a painter. When Elinor draws Paul into their circle, the situation becomes tense until Paul decides to join the war effort, going to France as an orderly in a military hospital. Paul’s service in the war affects him profoundly, and he finds his voice as an artist, but he has extreme difficulty adjusting to the civilian world and reconnecting with Elinor. There are many beautiful and devastating moments in this book that will remain in the readers mind, just as memories of the war remained with those who witnessed it long after.
This terrific follow-up to 2007’s In the Woods goes in an unexpected direction. Six months after the events of that book, Dublin Detective Cassie Maddox has left the homicide unit and is involved romantically with Detective Sam O’Neill, one of her colleagues from her days on the murder squad. When a body turns up just outside Dublin, Cassie is shocked to discover that the murdered girl is her doppelganger, and what’s more, is carrying ID in the name Cassie used while working undercover in a drug investigation: Lexie Madison. Cassie’s former boss decides to send her back into the investigation posing as Lexie again, but this proves dangerous in more ways than one. French has a terrific ear for dialogue, and her characters are so lifelike that you can easily imagine going to the pub with them. The anticipation is building for the author’s next offering.
The thirteen stories in this book all feature the title character in some way; in some she is the main protagonist, in other she makes only a brief appearance, but Olive Kitteridge always makes an impact. When we first meet her she is about as disagreeable as a person can be, and the author spends the rest of the book delving into her character, showing us that even the most difficult person often has hidden depths. As Olive goes through life she also learns, grows and changes, often in unexpected ways; by the end of the book a very complete and wonderful portrait of a complex person has been indelibly etched on the reader’s mind.
The author has written a droll and sharply observed chronicle of modern office life in a nameless New York company, whose actual purpose remains a mystery throughout the book. The workers slog through their days, developing a camaraderie based on proximity and misery at their dull jobs, until the layoffs begin. No one knows who has been targeted already, or who’ll be next; and what exactly is the nefarious plot being cooked up by their boss? Witty and engaging, this novel is to corporate America what The Simpsons is to the American family.
Louise Erdrich's mesmerizing new novel, her first in almost three years, centers on a compelling mystery. The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives.
It seemed just like any other day when 18-year-old Kim Larsen left to drive to her summer job at a local gas station; but when she didn’t show up and then never came home, everything changed completely for Kim’s parents Ed and Fran, and her 15-year-old sister Lindsay. The reader expects this to become a thriller, with clues followed, suspects unearthed, examined, discarded and pursued, leading to an eventual solution; but the author is much more interested in what happens to the people left behind when a family member disappears. We see how Kim’s frantic parents do whatever they can to find her, and to cope with the terrifying uncertainty and loss, as well as the double-edged sword of media coverage. Their other daughter Lindsay is also having trouble coping, and is feeling somewhat neglected in all of the chaos. This novel is reminiscent of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones in some ways; the author creates a situation where terrible things happen, but the reader just cannot look away, no matter how hard it is to “witness” these events.
This debut novel, written by a software engineer from Colorado, has been astonishingly successful; it has been on the bestseller lists for months, and was even chosen by Oprah for her book club. It’s very satisfying that this novel lives up to its hype. Edgar Sawtelle, a mute teenage boy, and his family live in rural Wisconsin, where they breed a very special kind of dog that has an unusual ability to bond with people. When Edgar’s father dies and his strange Uncle Claude joins the family, Edgar runs away with the Sawtelle dogs as his companions; he suspects Claude may have had something to do with his father’s death, and fears what will happen to the family and to the dogs. The author draws the reader in with beautiful, elegiac writing; although the book is more than 500 pages long, it goes so quickly that the reader is surprised when it’s over and is left wishing for more.
Everly Lederer and K.C. Stites are the privileged children of American expatriates in Cuba in the 1950’s, in the last years before Castro’s revolution; their families live in the luxurious, sheltered enclave of the United Fruit Company, insulated from the poverty and injustice that are stirring the Cuban people to revolt. As the children watch the...
Lahiri’s last volume of short stories, The Interpreter of Maladies, was one of the best books of 1999; with this new collection she has raised the bar even higher. These stories consider the lives of Indian immigrants to the west, and their struggles with assimilation and preserving their families and culture. All of the characters have different ways of coping with the problems and stresses of modern life; some are more successful at this than others. Lahiri has created a wonderful, fully-realized microcosm of the world we live in through gorgeous writing and rich characterization; this is a must-read for anyone who loves good fiction.
In 1984, ten-year old and budding private investigator Kate Meaney disappeared from a shopping center in Birmingham, England; twenty years later, Kurt, a security guard at the mall, sees a young girl on the security camera. Along with his friend Lisa, who has a more personal connection to Kate’s disappearance, Kurt tries to understand what he is really seeing, and together they try to find out what really happened. This is a terrific mystery, and also a touching meditation on love and loss.
Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver. A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it.
A memorable new detective makes his debut in a gritty and evocative new series set amid the beauty and darkness of contemporary Africa.
Would you give up your vengeance against someone you hate if it meant saving someone you love? Would you want your dreams to come true if it meant granting your enemy's dying wish?
The Great War is ending; the Bolsheviks are overthrowing the Tsar, the Kaiser is running roughshod over Europe, and the Spanish influenza is beginning its deadly rampage. On American shores, communist and socialist movements are swelling in numbers and anarchists are tossing bombs in the street. Set in an era of unprecedented uncertainty, The Given Day tells the story of those who learn the true consequences of demanding change-of asserting one's worth in a world bent on devaluing one's time and effort; of building common good from astonishing feats of uncommon strength; and of asking not to accept the way of the world, but to remake it.
This is the hilarious and tender story of Harry Rent, a down-on-his-luck widower, who tries to reinvent himself following his wife’s untimely death. Harry’s emotional journey takes him from his own solipsistic and outrageously misdirected fantasies about an obsidian-haired, twenty-two-year-old waitress at his local greasy spoon to the tenuous beginnings of an actual personal transformation.
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival.
A relentlessly gripping tale spun by a master, Faye Kellerman's The Mercedes Coffin races through a dangerous urban world of fleeting fame and false dreams, making heart-pumping hairpin turns at each step of a terrifying journey, where truth and justice are fine lines between life and death.
In the ninth installment of this infinitely enjoyable and bestselling series, Precious Ramotswe is doing what she does best-solving crimes and taking care of business: her own and everybody else’s.
In a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, Hans--a banker originally from the Netherlands--finds himself marooned after his English wife and son return to London. Alone and feeling lost in the country he had come to regard as home, Hans stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a charismatic and charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted country.
Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation, and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.
In the nervous silence of a funeral mass, a Catholic priest slowly brings the chalice to his lips -- and falls over dead, a victim of poisoning. Called in to investigate the ghastly crime, Detective Lieutenant Eve Dallas struggles to make sense of the sparse evidence. Father Miguel Flores seems to have been a clergyman who took his vows of poverty and chastity serious, yet lurking in the backrooms of his previous history are deeds and associates that need to be tracked.
At the heart of this vibrant saga is an immense ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its purpose to fight China's vicious nineteenth-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed tribeswoman, from a mulatto American freedman to a free-spirited French orphan. As their old family ties are washed away, they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais, or ship brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races, and generations.
Heiress Caroline Dixon has managed to alienate nearly everyone with her alcohol-fueled antics, which have also provided near-constant fodder for the poison-pen tabloids and their gossip-hungry readers. As Caro tentatively begins atoning for past misdeeds, she reaches out to two wonderful people who years ago brought meaning to her life: her former nanny, Astrid Brevald, now living in Norway and Arizona dude ranch owner, Cyril Dale. In a series of e-mail exchanges, Caro reveals the depth of her pain and the lengths she went to hide it. In turn, Astrid and Cyril share their own stories of challenging times and offer the unconditional support this young woman has never known. The correspondence leads to the promise of a reunion, just in time for Christmas. But the holiday brings unexpected revelations that change the way everyone sees themselves and one another.
Several people's lives converge in this gripping, character-driven novel by Whitbread Book Award winner Kate Atkinson. The story threads back three decades to the lightning-strike moment when six-year-old Joanna Mason witnessed a terrifying crime. Snap forward to a crowded train where an ex-detective passenger is about to hear a life-crushing sound. Meanwhile in Edinburgh, a teenage named Reggie is settling down for her favorite television shows when something shatters her calm. Atkinson manages to knot us into all this terrifying happenstance, propelling us toward an uncertain yet sought-after future.
Set in a raw and unromanticized India, The White Tiger--the first-person confession of a murderer--is as compelling for its subject matter as it is for the voice of its narrator: amoral, cynical, unrepentant, yet deeply endearing.
Best nonfiction of 2008
December 11, 2008
The arts
This work of art history reads like a spy thriller. The paintings of Johannes Vermeer, perhaps the most admired European artist of all time, command astronomical prices and are coveted by collectors; there are only about 30 paintings generally accepted as genuine Vermeers. During the Second World War, Dutch artist Han van Meegeren became frustrated at the critics’ disdain for his own work, and began creating and selling “undiscovered” phony Vermeers to an astonishing variety of buyers, including Hermann Goering. How van Meegeren managed to fool so many experts for so long, as well as the surprising ending of the saga, makes for a riveting read.
David Thomson is the author of the New Biographical Dictionary of Film, the gold standard for film industry biographical information. His new book is both authoritative and personal, an idiosyncratic look at the best movies ever made, from the very beginnings (L'Arrosseur Arrossé, 1895) to last year’s Oscars (No Country for Old Men, 2007). The depth and breadth of his knowledge is amazing, and his critical appraisal of the best in the history of film will make you want to start working your way through the list so you can see them all for yourself.
Harris, an editor and columnist for Entertainment Weekly, has produced a fascinating look at the Best Picture nominees for 1967 and their impact on the film industry. The nominees-Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Doctor Doolittle, and Bonnie and Clyde-could hardly have been more different. The Oscar race focused a glaring light on the conflict between the old Hollywood and the new way of making movies for a new and different audience; Tinseltown would never be the same. This book is a funny and fascinating must-read for anyone who loves the movies.
Biography and memoir
After more than forty years of interviewing heads of state, world leaders, movie stars, criminals, murderers, inspirational figures, and celebrities of all kinds, Barbara Walters has turned her gift for examination onto herself to reveal the forces that shaped her extraordinary life.
"Nothing is harder to grasp than a relentlessly modest life." These words, taken from Patricia Hampl’s exquisite memoir of growing up in St. Paul in the fifties and sixties, illuminate the difficulty a writer faces in documenting a life; they also make Hampl’s success in writing such a luminous memoir seem even more impressive. The beautiful writing will stay in your memory long after you have finished the last page.
New York Times columnist (and former Minnesotan) David Carr has written a searing and brutally honest portrait of a man consumed by drug addiction who eventually redeems himself and goes on to live a productive life. In this unusual memoir, Carr realizes that his own memories of the time he was using drugs are unreliable, and so he does what any good journalist would do; he interviews all of the other people who were there at the time, and discovers that they often have very different memories of what really happened. This is an absorbing portrait of a man overwhelmed by addiction, but it is also a fascinating look at the nature of memory itself.
The author’s father shot himself at age 61, leaving behind a family devastated by loss and grief, and leaving her with a mystery; why would the father she adored do such a terrible thing? This book is Wickersham’s attempt to make sense of the tragedy by searching out and organizing the facts of her family history and her father’s life. Beautiful, sad and poignant, this is a deeply affecting memoir.
For Americans born in the 1920s and 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only President they had ever known in their lives; elected in 1932 for the first of four terms, he served as President until his death in 1945, through the Great Depression and most of World War II. His actions greatly changed and expanded the roles of the President and the federal government, leading to the creation of a new and different post-war nation and world. Many of his initiatives were strongly opposed by people of his own social class, and were perceived by them as a move toward creating a socialist country. This biography illuminates Roosevelt’s life and important legacy.
History
From 1965 to 1972, it seemed almost as though America was destroying itself; the Civil Rights struggle was tearing the country apart, opposition to the Vietnam War was growing daily, and America was gripped with uncertainty, violence, and a near state of war across lines of class and race. After the riots in Watts and the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the chaos of the Democratic National Convention in 1968, the rise of militant protest groups and the counter culture, there was great fear for what the future would bring. In 1972, Richard Nixon was re-elected in a landslide victory, using the chaos as a rallying point for his campaign emphasizing law and order and patriotism, only to be forced to resign in disgrace two years later after the Watergate scandal became public. Perlstein describes how the country reached the point of near breakdown, and how Nixon exploited it for his own purposes; he also traces the legacy of those years into the present with George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and others who came onto the political scene during the Nixon years, and the division that still exists in American politics. This is a fascinating look at America in a time of great distress, in some ways very similar to the current situation.
Every school child in America knows that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, perhaps the most transformative piece of technology every created; but is this really the truth? Shulman was perusing Bell’s notebooks and found a sketch of the liquid transmitter, the key component of the early telephone; he wondered why there did not seem to be any evidence of work leading up to this brilliant inspiration. Upon investigation, he discovered that Bell may have stolen this idea from another inventor, Elisha Gray. What followed is a complicated tale of greed, ambition and love that rivals a soap opera. Shulman probes the origins of the telephone, but also asks larger questions about the nature of scientific inquiry, and how credit for major discoveries is assigned; it’s a detective story with broader implications for the reading (and writing) of history.
After the end of the Second World War, the pulp comics industry in America exploded in popularity, producing such titles as Amazing Stories, Crime Does Not Pay, Spicy Detective, and Weird Tales, along with hundreds of others. These comic books were wildly successful, until a psychiatrist named Frederic Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, a screed against the pulps that blamed them for leading the nation’s youth to moral decay and juvenile delinquency. Unlike past campaigns to ban “indecent” comics, this one was successful, eventually resulting in the Comics Code, which effectively censored the industry. It was not until decades later that independent comics artists were able to successfully able to produce and distribute comics and graphic novels that defied the Code. Hajdu gives us a fascinating look at the development of a key part of American pop culture, and provides a sobering lesson on Americans’ willingness to give up their freedoms, a lesson that still resonates today.
Humor
Hodgman is probably best known as the “PC” on the Apple commercials or from his appearances on The Daily Show, but he is also a writer and humorist. This compendium of fake information will provide hours of hilarity on such topics as “Gambling: sport of the asthmatic man,” “700 mole man names and occupations,” and “How to be a minor television personality.” Fans of David Sedaris or David Foster Wallace should try this one.
It’s history, and it’s really funny. Vowell traces the Puritan’s journey to America in search of religious freedom, and explains the Puritans’ role in the founding of our nation. Vowell presents a balanced (and hilarious) take on the good, the bad, and the ugly of the Puritans and their legacy.
This terrific book is both a memoir of Kantner’s childhood growing up in the Alaskan wilderness, and a meditation on how humans fit into the landscape in a place where every day of survival is a victory against unforgiving nature. Kantner, who is a novelist and photographer, has written an entertaining and thought-provoking book on how people adapt to living in a hostile environment, and their impact on the wilderness in which they live.
The interesting ideas discussed in this book include how corruption in government and the private sector is related to driving behavior, why traffic jams form (not always for the reasons you would think), and why it always seems like the other lane is moving faster than the one you are using. Based on traffic research from around the globe, the author provides an elegant and very entertaining look at something most of us experience every day, but probably don’t think about very much; this book will change that.
Why does the human body have the form it does today? Shubin provides answers to that question in this accessible and very enjoyable history of the evolutionary process that produced modern human beings. It turns out we more closely related to other parts of the animal world-including worms, insects, and long-extinct organisms like the Tiktaalik, a fish that also had some skeletal features like later land vertebrates-than was previously believed. The author explains how evolution works in a way that will be understandable for people who do not have a degree in biology, and what’s more, makes this explanation very interesting.
Society and Culture
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration pursued policies that were intended to improve national defense and security, and prevent another such attack; however they also greatly expanded the scope of the President’s powers to a degree never before seen, even during the Civil War of the First or Second World Wars, and violated the Constitution, according to Mayer. In an ironically tragic twist, many of the actions the administration took ostensibly to protect American interests may have actually strengthened terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, leaving the nation-and the world- still vulnerable more than seven years after the attacks. The author provides a great deal of evidence to back up her assertions; this is a sobering and important work on a topic of vital importance.
Teach for America was founded in 1990 by Princeton University student Wendy Kopp as a way to recruit outstanding college students to teach for two year terms in at-risk urban and rural schools. Since then, more than 20,000 people have gone through the program, but it is not without its critics. Donna Foote writes about the experiences of four Teach for America recruits at Locke H.S. in South Los Angeles, one of the toughest and most underprivileged schools in the country. Their triumphs and failures are documented very movingly and effectively, and the larger questions about whether or not the program is truly benefitting the schools and the students it was founded to help are addressed with fairness and insight.
Travel
The author, the Africa bureau chief for London’s Daily Telegraph, was fascinated by the bloody history of the Congo region; against the advice of friends, family and just about everyone else, he decided to recreate the journey made by H.M. Stanley in 1874-77 to trace the course of the Congo River. On that expedition, more than half of the company of 350 died, including all of the Europeans except Stanley; more than 100 years later, the journey is no less perilous now than it was in the 19th century. Butcher’s journey into the “heart of darkness” lasted 44 days, and he witnessed the bloody legacies of colonialism and decades of civil war, as well as the struggles of the people to survive in a brutal environment, and overcome their problems. This book is an excellent, and heartbreaking, introduction to one of the most remote and dangerous areas of the world.
Theroux’s classic travel book The Great Railway Bazaar was published in 1975; in this new volume, he reprises that rail journey, following the original route as closely as possible. Theroux makes his way through Eastern Europe and on to Turkey, and then the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan; he continues on through India, with stops in Mumbai, Bangalore, Amritsar, and other places, and then on to Myanmar, Singapore, China, and Japan, to end up in Kyoto. Along the way he carefully observes everything and everyone around him, offering the reader an account of his experiences like a vast and exotic buffet of gourmet food, to be savored and remembered fondly long after it has been devoured. Theroux has set a very high standard for travel writing in his previous works, and this latest book more than lives up to it.
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