Canada - Richard Ford

A series of bad decisions can ruin not only your life but the lives of people around you. Dell Parsons, the narrator in this very sad story, learns this first hand. He traces the first bad decision back to his mother deciding to marry his father, then building in a series until the ultimate bad decision that his father and mother make to rob a bank. He's taken to Canada to live with the brother of his mother's friend, a man that has made a series of bad choices that has left him hiding in a small town in Saskatchewan. Ford writes with the same level of mastery in Independence Day, and though Dell is no Frank Bascome, he's a man coping to his circumstances, most of which are beyond his control.

The Age of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker

When you're 12, it often feels as if the world is ending, that things are changing beyond your control. For the narrator of this tightly written story, it's true - the world slowly stops rotating, causing days and nights to last longer and people to go crazy. It's an end-of-the-world story without the usual trappings (roaming gangs, mass panic, survival against all odds). The ending had me wanting more, but there it's nicely written, with hardly an extra word.

Interworld - Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves

Intended originally as a TV script, this story moves quickly, told from the perspective of a regular teenager who discovers that alternate universe versions of himself are engaged in a battle between two warring forces over the fate of the universe. Perhaps a little too colloquial at times, it's nevertheless very entertaining.

Griftopia - Matt Taibbi

 A dark and cynical look into the 2008 financial crisis. Based on a article Taibbi wrote for Rolling Stone about Goldman Sachs back in 2009 that caused a shit storm, the book fleshes out the argument with additional articles on how financial institutions have plundered the U.S., written in a frank style that offers up hilarious analogies.

The Man Who Knew Too Much - GK Chesterton

A look into the dark corners of upper-crust, pre-First World War British society, a place where hypocrisy and murder nestle nicely with tea and a stiff upper limit. The comparisons of the detective to Sherlock Holmes are apt (and perhaps intended) but Horne Fisher's deductions come from knowing what shadows lurk in men's souls and the moral implications weight more heavily on him than the resident of 221B Baker Street.

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami

It builds to a point that never finally comes, ending with a whimper not a bang. Ambitious, yes, but its reach far exceeds its grasp, and the reader is left holding a long story with no satisfying conclusion. Not that you need a satisfying conclusion in all cases, but in this one there are too many loose threads. The three book structure (collected as one for North American readers) does the story no favours - most of the third volume could be (and should have been) cut and there's far too much time spent by the characters sitting around, waiting for something to happen.

Having read Murakami before I expected something bigger (not in word count but in concept) and there are different paths the story could have gone down that would have made it more satisfying. (There's that word again) Even a Sixth Sense switcheroo (as it's known in the literary world) would have been better, but perhaps that was the kind of event Murakami was trying to avoid. If so, he also avoided the chance to make something truly great. Not to bring a crass pop culture reference, but this book reminds too much of the last episode of Lost - starts out strong, creates a layer of suspense, but willingly fails to followup on all of its promise.