The Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman

A quirky, English-language newspaper in Rome is the spine that connects the stories in this novel, from the past-his-due date stringer who gives up the business to connect with his son to the workaholic editor who runs into an old lover and makes the mistake of asking what he really thinks about her. Good insight into the life of a paper, but the very human stories and all the things left unsaid make this an excellent read.

Hemingway's Boat - Paul Hendrickson

We can all agree that something happened to Hemingway, sometime in the 1930's. It's hard to pin down exactly when and where, but he wasn't the same writer after A Farewell To Arms. He started to believe in his own legend, never a good move, especially when most of it he made up himself. This biography of Hemingway has a revealing letter that perhaps provides some clue as to what wrong - after getting his boat, the Pilar, Hemingway wanted to chuck the writing gig and become a fisherman.
Perhaps he should have. He might have been happier, and we would have been spared the slow descent of a great young writer into a mediocre old one. And, perhaps the people around him would have been happier as well - his wives (second, third and fourth) and his children, especially his youngest son, Gregory, who died in a jail cell in October 2001.

Game Change - John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

Only four years later it's hard to remember what Barack Obama's campaign for President was like. A virtual unknown with an unusual name and a bi-racial identity beat Hilary Clinton to to claim the Democratic nomination, and then goes on to become President. There's no hint in the book of the dark days ahead, but the blow-by-blow account of the campaign is heroin for political junkies. Perhaps our only consolation is that the U.S. didn't end up with President McCain and Vice President Palin.

King John of Canada - Scott Gardiner

Less a novel than a Canadian political science major's fantasy, this novel tells of a wonderful future where peace and prosperity is brought about by Canada having a king. Not just any king, but King John, chosen randomly by a lottery. Lucky for Canada, because King John is smart, wise and able to get Quebec to secede from the Dominion, re-invigorate the Armed Forces and marry a beautiful Norwegian Princess. Told in a diary form by his loyal sidekick, it wastes too much time in the present as he details his exile in the frozen north.

American Pastoral - Philip Roth

About a third in to this book Zuckerman, Roth's alter ego, completely disappears into the life of Swede Levov, a paragon of post-war, post-religion America - born Jewish, he marries an Irish former Miss New Jersey and takes over his father's glove business and makes it more successful. He moves from the city to a rural paradise, complete with cows, stone houses that reek of history and the WASPy descendants of the men who created the country. Everything picture perfect, and a stark contrast to Zuckerman's life, who has no wife, no family. But, of course, nothing is perfect, for the Swede's only daughter joined the anti-Vietnam movement and planted a mailbox bomb in the rustic post office/general store that kills the local doctor who was dropping of his bills.

As a boy Zuckerman idolized the Swede but was always afraid to talk to him, even when Zuckerman came over to get beat at ping pong by the Swede's younger brother. Years later Swede writes Zuckerman a letter, asking if he might be interested in writing a story about his father. They meet for dinner and nothing comes of it, but it's after Zuckerman attends a high school reunion and talks to Swede's brother, now a successful cardiac surgeon in Miami who keeps divorcing and marrying his nurses, does bits of the story comes out. Of course Zuckerman was wrong about the idolized version of the Swede, just as wrong as he is about the fiction one he creates. We're always wrong, according to Roth:

''You get them wrong before you meet them,'' Zuckerman says of ''people'' in general, ''while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again.''

Honor Thy Father - Gay Talese

The true story of a son of Mafia Don who finds himself regretting the life he chose as the bodies pile up around him. Instead of the glam and gals of the Movie Mafia, it's doom and gloom, sitting for long hours in a car and wondering if the next shot you hear is for you. New Journalism once shook the foundations of non-fiction, but these we expect our stories to seem as real and as fiction. Instead of a hail of bullets the Mafia Don's son is brought down by a credit card fraud case - an example of truth being stranger than fiction.

Half-Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan

The language saves this novel from the now conventional structure in which the ending is revealed at the beginning and the middle is spent getting back to the beginning. The Nazis are "boots", men are "jacks", women are "janes". Three black jazz musicians (two Americans, one African/German) make it out of Berlin to Paris, where they meet Louis Armstrong. They record the title track, which later becomes the subject of a documentary that brings all three characters back together. We know that the two Americans survive the Nazis, and about a third of the way in we know the German does as well, but getting to the end is worth the price on the ticket.