The Reader's Shelf—From Seattle PL's “Living Room”: Fiction Faves of 2008

The next time you're in Seattle, you'll probably visit the Seattle Public Library's famous central branch, with its striking architecture and innovative systems. As you explore the breathtaking third floor, aka “the living room,” home to the library's adult and teen fiction collections, you'll almost certainly run into some of the readers' advisory experts of the library's renowned Fiction Department. While they are happy to answer questions about their stunning building or lively literary programs or provide copies of model booklists, what they really like to do is talk about books. In keeping with this column's annual tradition of asking readers' advisors to write about the books that meant the most to them each year, I invited this amazing group to share their favorite titles of 2008.

The psychic drain of Liza Donovan's vivid dreams of unfulfilled love and a death at sea bring her to Nantucket to exorcise emotional demons and research island history in Kate Brallier's The Boundless Deep (Forge. 2008. ISBN 978-0-7653-1972-2. pap. $14.95). As Liza's love life gets even more complicated and heart-wrenching details from the past spring to life in her present, how will she put the uneasy ghosts to rest?

Paul Goes Fishing (Drawn & Quarterly. 2008. ISBN 978-1-897299-28-9. $19.95), the latest installment in Michel Rabagliati's semiautobiographical comic, finds Paul older, married, and contemplating impending fatherhood while vacationing with his wife and extended family at a lakeside cabin. Moving between past and present, Rabagliati's clean, graceful drawings vividly depict fun-filled days at the lake and Paul's bittersweet memories of childhood. A touching graphic novel; an underappreciated talent.

Feminism, Foucault, and...teen chick lit? This unlikely combination results in teen author E. Lockhart's best novel yet, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Hyperion. 2008. ISBN 978-0-7868-3818-9. $16.99). Frankie is thrilled to be dating Matthew, a member of her elite boarding school's all-male secret society of pranksters. But when she realizes that Matthew and his friends don't take her seriously, she sets out to show them how brilliant she really is.

Roddy Doyle sets The Deportees and Other Stories (Viking. 2008. ISBN 978-0-670-01845-1. $24.95) in Dublin, where the old and new Irish collide in hilarious and awkward ways. In “57% Irish,” Ray creates a test for newcomers to determine their Irishness, while in the title story a ragtag band of musicians turns Woody Guthrie into a multicultural Mulligan stew.

In James Collins's charming modern comedy of manners, Beginner's Greek (Little, Brown. 2008. ISBN 978-0-316-02155-5. $23.99), young professionals Holly and Peter meet briefly on a cross-country flight and years later come together again in a fairy-tale ending sort of way. Witty dialog, feel-good romance, and intelligent conversation blend smartly in this sweet debut that leaves you thinking of Collins as the male Jane Austen.

In Marc Acito's Attack of the Theater People (Broadway. 2008. ISBN 978-0-7679-2773-4. pap. $12.95), Edward Zanni, the hero of How I Paid for College, is on the road to stardom—until he's kicked out of Juilliard for being “too jazz hands.” NPR commentator Acito brings a Sedaris-like wit to this absolutely hilarious romp through 1980s Manhattan.

Breath (Farrar. 2008. ISBN 978-0-374-11634-7. $23) by Tim Winton is a stunning book. Two teenage boys, under the tutelage of an enigmatic mentor, discover the thrill of living dangerously while learning how to surf off the coast of Western Australia. Using sparse, poetic language, Winton unflinchingly examines friendship, sexual desire, secrets, and the fear of being ordinary.

A best seller in France, Muriel Barbery's smart, insightful, and tender The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Europa Editions. 2008. ISBN 978-1-933372-60-0. pap. $15) is told through the eyes of Renée, a 54-year-old Paris concierge and closet autodidact who reads philosophy and great literature, and Paloma, daughter of a wealthy family, who ruminates on the pointlessness of life as she readies to kill herself on her 13th birthday.

Mistaken for an anarchist, a European Jew is gunned down by Chicago's police chief in Aleksandar Hemon's The Lazarus Project (Riverhead: Penguin Group [USA]. 2008. ISBN 978-1-59448-988-4. $24.95). A century later, a Bosnian American writer journeys to the old country and into the curiously familiar xenophobic past. Alive with striking images, keen observations, and amusing anecdotes, Hemon's writing is as brilliant as it is charming, expressing a wide-eyed weltschmerz that seems the perfect lens for our times.

This column was contributed by the Seattle Public Library Fiction Department (selections and annotations are in the order given): Jen Baker, Abby Bass, Hayden Bass, Beth de la Fuente, Susan Fort, Linda Johns, Hannah Parker, Misha Stone, and David Wright