Finn

by Jon Clinch
Why take a side character from one of America's most beloved novels and spin him off into his own book? Was it really necessary? Maybe not. But Twain does seem to invite it, leaving what amounts to an unsolved mystery in the middle of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Huck and Jim find, floating on the river, an old house occupied by a dead man shot in the back and a host of strange objects. The walls are covered in ghastly pictures and symbols. We later realize the corpse belonged to Huck's ne'er-do-well father. Who shot him? How did the house end up in the river? What is the meaning of the collected items and the decorated walls?

Jon Clinch goes beyond the meticulous solution of this mystery to create an unforgettable character of his own. Finn is an awful man; a drunkard, racist, thief, murderer, rapist, and, arguably, a slave-owner. His life follows a logic of its own, more a matter of physics -- like the steamboat Finn witnesses one night exploding into flames -- than any real intention. Finn doesn't seem like someone you'd want to spend time with, but at the same time he's fascinating, and, sad to say, not the worst man on the river. There's a self-destruction waiting in many of us, and Finn rides it all the way to the end, even as some abused and forgotten part of his soul struggles to make things right.

Everything Bad is Good for You

by Steven Johnson
In The Unfolding of Language, Guy Deutscher took a staple subject of opinion columns everywhere -- the idea that the English language (or whatever language one happens to speak) is going downhill -- and refuted it by way of a grand tour of the evolution of language. Steven Johnson does the same thing, though somewhat less grandly, with a similar idea: pop culture is in steep decline. He argues that, while there will always be plenty of dreck, the complexity of mainstream popular culture is generally increasing, and that requires more active intellectual engagement than ever before. While one could easily sit back and let Dragnet or Starsky and Hutch wash over you, one actually has to stay sharp to keep up with the multiple plotlines in Veronica Mars or 24. Video games such as The Sims require the player to juggle dozens of variables, as opposed to Pac Man's "eat or be eaten" scenario or Frogger's "be careful crossing the street."

Johnson is careful not to say that any of this new media could or should replace more traditional media; as cognitively beneficial as today's fast-paced, multi-level media may be, nothing can replace the benefits of a good book. But he does strongly feel that brains will always be attracted to challenges, not stupefaction, and our culture reflects that as strongly today as it ever has.

Life As We Knew It

by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Miranda, a 16-year-old girl in Pennsylvania, writes in her diary about her frustrations with her mom, her fixation on a handsome Olympic figure skater, her friends at school, and the upcoming astronomical event her teachers are encouraging the kids to watch: an asteroid will hit the moon, and should be visible from Earth. Miranda and her family watch that night, with others on their street, as the moon is not only hit but pushed into a new orbit. Cheers turn to screams as the moon grows disarmingly large in the sky. Before anyone has time to think about the implications, power starts to go out. Familiar sources of information are no longer available, as the major television stations go off the air. News trickles into town that massive tsunamis have killed millions living in coastal areas around the world. And that's just the beginning. Pfeffer keeps the story focused on Miranda's world, as it grows smaller and less certain. It's a terrifying and hopeful tale, wonderfully detailed and human, one of the most riveting books I've read in a while.

Who Needs Donuts?

by Mark Alan Stamaty
As a third grader who, for the first time in my life, could see all the details of the world, thanks to my brand-new eyeglasses, I became addicted to visual detail. Others seemed to take for granted all the tiny holes in the ceiling tiles, the slow swirls of wood grain in the back of a chair. I was entranced. Stamaty's 1973 children's book, Who Needs Donuts, seems to be the product of someone who not only saw the detail but celebrated it in glorious pen and ink on every inch of the page. The story is fairly simple: a boy goes on a quest for donuts, into the bustling city. This is probably the way cities bustled for me as a child: every building is covered with signs and obscure advertisements and windows full of people going about their lives. Everyone on the street seems to be on their own bizarre quest, and the streets are full of fast-moving vehicles of every shape and purpose. Stamaty hides visual and verbal puns everywhere among the busy-ness. Lots of fun.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party

by M. T. Anderson
Almost a year too late, I finally got to read the book I was hungering for after I finished David Mitchell's incredible Cloud Atlas. Octavian Nothing shares many of the same themes, and Anderson is similarly adept at creating memorable voices. Octavian is a boy growing up with his mother in pre-revolutionary Boston in a house full of scientists. Like many kids, it takes him a while to realize that his upbringing is somewhat out-of-the-ordinary. For one thing, he and his mother are the only ones in the house who have names; everyone else is numbered. Everything that goes into, or comes out of, Octavian's body is weighed and made note of. He is taught Latin and Greek and to play the violin. He knows nothing of his father, only that his mother is an African princess, and perhaps this is the reason for the special treatment. Perhaps not. The larger world slowly creeps in to Octavian's consciousness: rumors of a coming Revolution, the realities of slavery, the pending financial ruin of the scientific commune upon which Octavian and his mother depend. This is a dark novel, with the feel of a fantasy, though all of it could have happened in that place and time. Anderson has done his research, and brings to life the horrors of slavery and the precariousness of life during wartime. Octavian himself is unforgettable.

Eifelheim

by Michael Flynn
While I read this book, researchers in London announced new findings about the Antikythera mechanism, a 2000-year-old Greek computer discovered in a shipwreck in 1900. This was the kind of discovery that makes one wonder what other surprises remain to be uncovered from the past, or what past discoveries have yet to be correctly interpreted. Eifelheim tells two stories: one taking place "Now," as a historian struggles to determine why one of the many Black Forest villages hit by the plague in the 14th century was never rebuilt, despite its ideal location. (His partner, a physicist, is nearing a breakthrough that could also shed light on the case.) And the other story takes place in that village, shortly before its disappearance, as mysterious insect-like hominids suddenly take up residence in the nearby woods. We follow the priest, Dietrich, who happens to be the most educated man in town, as he tries to make sense of the visitors, who could've neatly fit in with the monstrous gargoyles on his church. Science as we know it does not yet exist, and there are no words for "interplanetary travel" or "alien species." The townspeople, who have spent their lives in the land the Grimm Brothers would later immortalize, interpret them as demons or mythical beasts, but Dietrich urges a cautious welcome. If, as they seem, they are stranded travelers, struggling to repair their craft, wouldn't it be the Christian thing to offer aid? Definitely the best medieval science fiction of the year.

Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists

by the editors of McSweeney's
If you can proudly carry around this pink and sparkly book with a moonlit unicorn on the cover, your sense of humor is probably edgy enough that you'll enjoy the humor inside. Then again, maybe you're an eight-year-old girl. In any case, Mountain Man Dance Moves takes David Letterman's Top Ten Lists to the next evolutionary level. Each list was submitted to McSweeney's magazine by a different writer, which ensures a lot of variety, and the humor ranges from silly absurdity ("Four Ways in Which My Life Is Just Like Pac-Man's") to dry wit ("Pickup Lines: The First Drafts"). Some lists build upon themselves, like tiny short stories. There were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, and, I'm ashamed to admit, read-out-loud moments. The perfect gift for your secretly-giggly hipster friends.

Stumbling on Happiness

by Daniel Gilbert
Despite appearances, Stumbling on Happiness is not a self-help book, and won't tell you much about how to be a happier person. But it may you help you avoid some wrong turns in the pursuit of happiness. Humankind's ability to predict the future is one of our fanciest tricks; it is, arguably, what makes us human. But it's also one of our newest tricks, and, as Gilbert shows in study after study, our predictive abilities have their limitations and flaws. Your own imagination, as powerful as it is, is often completely wrong when it comes to predicting the outcomes of your decisions. Gilbert's writing style is full of humor and creative examples of each of his points, and there are plenty of "a-ha!" moments. And he does offer a simple solution, which he is pretty sure you'll refuse to follow up on, thanks to your brain's built-in biases. I'll take that as a challenge!

The Ghost Map

by Steven Johnson
150 years ago, London was the largest city in the world, and in many ways very much like any modern metropolis. But the city was almost entirely lacking in infrastructure, public works. The flush toilet had recently been invented, but citywide sewers were still years off, and "night-soil men" were paid to haul off human waste when it collected too deeply in cesspools. To put it mildly, the city stank. Editorials were frequently published in the newspapers about the putrid air, and the ill-health it undoubtedly caused, especially in the poorest parts of town. Then, in late August, 1854, people start dying in Soho. It's not the first time cholera has attacked the city , but it's the deadliest. Whole families die overnight, while their neighbors are spared. Steven Johnson tells the story of the two men, a doctor and a minister, who overcome the pseudo-science of the time to find the exact cause, stop the spread of the disease, and ultimately change the way London, and cities across the world, functioned. Our 21st-century vantage point allows us to zoom in and out, from microbe to metropolis, in ways Dr. John Snow would have loved. Johnson does a wonderful job of making this scientific detective story into a page-turner.

A Spot of Bother

by Mark Haddon
It's a time-honored dramatic convention: comedy ends in a wedding; tragedy ends in death. Much of the suspense in Mark Haddon's latest book comes from the uneasy sense that the story could go either way. From the start, we follow George Hall, as he and his wife prepare for their daughter's marriage to what could very well be the "wrong man." As upsetting as this is, George has problems of his own: his body, quickly followed by his mind, seems to be slowly coming unglued. He handles this as any British Gentleman would; he keeps it to himself. Of course, losing one's mind is not something one can keep a secret for long. Unlike Haddon's last book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, his latest book gets into the heads of a wide range of characters. Some of the underlying themes, though, are similar: one's interior life may never be glimpsed, even by those one feels closest to. Everyone has their secrets, and miscommunications, and the exquisite chaos the characters spin around the Big Day is perhaps too neatly resolved. Though not as brilliant or groundbreaking as The Curious Incident, A Spot of Bother is an expertly crafted, enjoyable novel.

This is Your Brain on Music

by Daniel J. Levitin
A successful record producer who became a neuroscientist, Daniel Levitin is in a unique position to write about music. Luckily, he's a skillful writer as well, explaining the jargon-filled fields of both music and neuroscience for the layman. What, exactly, is music? Why does it provoke such an emotional response? Why do we dislike some music so passionately? How can a few tiny bones in my ear possibly sound like a symphony? How can we hear a strange new version of an old song and still identify it -- something no computer can pull off? Levitin sheds light on all these questions and many more. This is one of those science books that not only gives satisfying answers but also fills the reader with wonder.

The Polysyllabic Spree

by Nick Hornby

"If we played cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go 15 rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time. Go on, try it. The Magic Flute v. Middlemarch? Middlemarch in six. The Last Supper v. Crime and Punishment? Fyodor on points. And every now and again you'd get a shock, because that happens in sport, so Back to the Future III might land a lucky punch on Rabbit, Run; but I'm still backing literature 29 times out of 30."
- Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby writes like a good friend; he's opinionated, self-deprecating, smart and funny. The Polysyllabic Spree is a compilation of Hornby's monthly columns for Believer Magazine, in which he basically blogs about the books he bought and the books he read each month. Hornby is a strong believer that reading should be fun. This doesn't mean that books have to be trashy, just that there's no reason to slog your way through something you don't enjoy when the world is full of incredible books. His enthusiasm for books is contagious, and, whether or not you share his tastes, you may find your reading appetite re-invigorated. Fun stuff.

The March

by E.L. Doctorow
In Doctorow's latest book, Sherman's March appears like a hurricane, inexorably twisting its way across the south, unimaginably vast and destructive. At the center, if not always in control, is Sherman himself, who is both weary and strangely at home. We follow several fictional characters at the edges of the storm, as well, people who are victims, opportunists, or a bit of each. Pearl is the daughter of a slave and a slaveowner. No longer a slave, she uses the march to find a new identity: could she pass for white? Could she pass for male? Is there any place for her in the new world? Arly and Will, two convicts, use the march as their escape from punishment; they quickly don whichever uniforms are most advantageous at the time and thrive on the chaos around them. Colonel Sartorius is a surgeon who dreams of an antiseptic world where he can achieve more than daily amputations. At times the great and terrible march seems like the only place to be; the world around it has fallen apart, and the world behind it is in smoking ruins.

Wake Up, Sir!

by Jonathan Ames
Alan Blair is a sad alcoholic living with his aunt and uncle in New Jersey. Then again, he's a witty young man, a published novelist with an unbelievably efficient butler named Jeeves. When his aunt and uncle insist that he returns to rehab, he has a better idea: an artists' colony in Saratoga Springs, where he can get down to finally finishing his second novel. He and Jeeves hit the road, falling into various misadventures along the way. Part of what I loved about Alan was the way his education and erudition served him so poorly in his dirty, real-world settings. In this respect, the character brought to mind Ignatius Reilly of A Confederacy of Dunces. Both characters seem to live in denial of the real world, floating somewhere above it in their minds, and below it in the minds of everyone else. Jeeves is obviously too good to be true, but his unflappable exchanges with Alan made me laugh out loud. Wake Up, Sir! bounces around on the sheer joy and pain of never quite fitting in, wherever you go, leaving the world a wonderful, horrible adventure.

Collapse

by Jared Diamond
In his 1998 book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond argues that the most important factor determining the rate of a society's development has always been its location. In Collapse, however, Diamond shows that location does not seal the fate of societies, which can choose to adapt to their environments or not. Using examples from Montana, Greenland, Japan, New Guinea, Rwanda, and Easter Island, he builds a strong case that societies succeed only by throwing out any behaviors incompatible with their environment. And as population increases and globalization knits the world together ever more tightly, there are fewer and fewer societies existing in isolation. If every society now desires to live like ours in the "first world," can the world sustain us? Will we adapt to our global environment, or choose our lifestyles over our survival?

Black Swan Green

by David Mitchell
Mitchell, author of such headspinning novels as Cloud Atlas (see below) and Ghostwritten, has, at first glance, stepped off his runaway train to write something more traditional: a semi-autobiographical "first novel." This is a coming-of-age tale of a year in the life of one 13-year-old boy living in a suburb in northwestern England in 1982. That's right, just one boy, one voice, one village, one year. This is still David Mitchell, though, and he shows that a year with Jason Taylor can be just as wonderfully complex and multi-layered as anything else. Jason's voice is unique, something he himself learns to deal with over the course of the book. Identity is a theme familiar to Mitchell fans, as are several other themes here: self-perception, the power of the individual, the strong versus the weak, the unrelenting change inherent in being alive. Beautifully done.

Good Omens

by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Good Omens has been described with phrases like "If Douglas Adams had written the Omen" and "Monty Python does Armageddon." I don't quite see it as living up to Adams or Python, but it does hold its own as an entertaining end-times fantasy. The story revolves around a demon, Crowley (formerly employed in the garden of Eden) and an angel, Aziraphale, who are called on by their respective teams to kick the end of the world into gear. The Antichrist is switched at birth, and hijinks ensue. Crowley and Aziraphale, immortals who have spent thousands of years living on Earth, have actually grown to like humans (and each other), and are a bit ambivalent about carrying out their final mission. Meanwhile, a strange young woman named Anathema Device lives her life according to a big book of prophecies written by her distant ancestor. Is there any escape from the divine plan?

The Omnivore's Dilemma

by Michael Pollan
Pollan, whose last book was the superb The Botany of Desire, writes this time about the origin of food. That's not to say the historical origins, although he does occasionally visit that topic. I'm talking about the origin of that thing you just ate. Where did it come from? What was it made of, and why? (And why, so often, CORN?) How much better is "organic" food? How did we become people who know so little about the food we eat? Our ignorance about food is something most of us have become very comfortable with. But this yawning gap in our everyday lives is something Pollan says we should pay attention to. To blindly put our trust in the various industries assembling our grocery items, or to blindly follow whatever diet trends are on the bestseller lists can have disasterous results, not just for our bodies but for our society at large. Pollan's prose is engaging, eye-opening, and warm, despite the sometimes unsettling subject matter.

The Island at the Center of the World

by Russell Shorto
Somewhere in the New York State Library, a man painstakingly translates a sheaf of 450-year-old documents, piecing together, for the first time, a detailed picture of the Dutch settlement that would gradually evolve into New York City. From this trove of information, Russell Shorto has crafted a warm, vivid, and very human story that feels more immediate than many current-day accounts of New York life. Shorto helps us interpret what exactly happened during the infamous sale of Manhattan Island; sheds light on peg-legged Peter Stuyvesant; and introduces us to Adrien van der Donck, lawyer and dreamer, who emerges as one of the most influential (and underappreciated) founders of New Amsterdam. Van Der Donck, according to Shorto, envisioned a Manhattan that was much more than just a corporate outpost managed by military men. Van Der Donck fought passionately for his vision of religious tolerance and individual rights. This is one of those books that makes you wonder how your high school history teacher could possibly have made history seem so dull.

The Unfolding of Language

by Guy Deutscher
You hear it several times a year: the English language is going to hell in a handbasket. People are losing their ability to put together a sentence. No one has any respect for grammar or punctuation these days! Like many linguists, Guy Deutscher finds this standard rant both amusing and ignorant. Turns out that it's not just English, it's every other language as well. And it's not just "nowadays," either. People have been complaining about the younger generations' mangling of their language since the ancient Egyptians, and probably long before that. The fact is, languages are constantly falling apart, and, nostalgia aside, there has never been a Golden Age when the rules of your favorite language were perfectly upheld. So how, in the face of this constant, global linguistic decay, do languages survive and even thrive? Deutscher explains the way language evolves over time, and even speculates about how the first languages might have come into existence. The book is a bit thick at times, but illuminating, thought-provoking, and funny as well.