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The year in books: Our reviewers select their best reads of 2013

"The Lowland," by Jhumpa Lahiri
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We asked our intrepid troupe of reviewers for the best books — fiction, nonfiction, thrillers, young adult, etc. — they’ve read in 2013. Here are their selections:

Lois Atwood

“Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II,” by Michael Zuckoff. (Harper) The story of three military planes lost on the ice cap of Greenland during WW II and the 2012 joint Coast Guard/private company search to find and retrieve the bodies. Against heavy odds, one group survived 148 days, sustained by their care for one another and by hazardous air drops of food and fuel.

“David’s Inferno: My Journey through the Dark Wood of Depression,” by David Blistein. (Hatherleigh Press) Blistein illuminates the interaction between creativity and depression, as he describes the brainstorm that altered his life for two dismal years. A good description of many aspects of the illness, in a hopeful rather than depressing book.

“How the Light Gets in,” by Louise Penny. (Minotaur) The forces of good and evil battle in this culmination of the problems between Chief Homicide Inspector Armand Gamache, his Sureté boss and his former assistant, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Penny wraps it all up pretty fast, with a mad poet and her duck Rosa playing a vital role.

“Yellowstone, Land of Wonders: Promenade in North America’s National Park,” by Jules Leclercq, translated and edited by Janet Chapple and Suzanne Cane. (University of Nebraska) A lively guide based on an 1883 horseback ride through our first national park by a well-known Belgian travel writer. Leclercq’s ardent curiosity and the charm of his descriptions make this a treasure. It’s a well-made book, with meticulous editing and a felicitous translation.

Sam Coale

“Harvard Square,” by Andre Aciman. (Norton) A mesmerizing tale of an Egyptian academic drawn to the raucous opinions and self-confidence of a Tunisian cab driver, both outsiders in a new land.

“Light Of The World,” by James Lee Burke. (Simon & Schuster) An epic exorcism of evil with echoes of Elizabethan and Greek tragedy set in the mountains of Montana.

“The Glass Ocean,” by Lori Baker. (Penguin) A strange eerie saga of a Victorian family that involves disappearance and glass-blowing.

“Bleeding Edge,” by Thomas Pynchon. (Penguin) An unsettling descent into the dark underworld of the Internet and a billionaire’s scheme for possible mayhem in the Middle East.

“The Circle,” by Dave Eggers. (Knopf/McSweeney’s) A disturbing look at life within the Google empire where all spy and are spied upon.

Betty J. Cotter

“The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls,” by Anton DiSclafani. (Riverhead Books) From the opening sentence, the voice of Theodora Atwell transfixes the reader in this wrenching story of a teenage girl who has been sent away to a North Carolina boarding school in the 1930s. Her story is rich and heart-breaking, and DiSclafani never hits a false note in its telling.

“The Burgess Boys,” by Elizabeth Strout. (Random House) After winning the Pulitzer Prize for the short story collection “Olive Kitteridge,” Strout is back in fine form with a richly layered novel about two brothers from Maine and the secrets that keep them bound to the past. The story alternates between their hometown of Shirley Falls, Maine, and their present home of New York City, and both settings ring with authenticity.

“And the Mountains Echoed,” by Khaled Hosseini. (Riverhead Books) In his third novel, Hosseini returns to Afghanistan to tell the interlocking stories of a wealthy couple in Kabul and a peasant farmer who sells them his beloved daughter, Pari. Although the story meanders at times, Hosseini’s vivid, compassionate prose makes the journey worthwhile.

“The Obituary Writer,” by Ann Hood. (W.W. Norton & Co.) This novel interweaves two narratives — that of Vivien, who begins writing obituaries to deal with grief over the loss of her lover in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and Claire, a conflicted housewife during JFK’s Camelot whose impulsive affair threatens to unravel her marriage. Rhode Island’s premier novelist delivers once again with compelling insight into the landscape of the human heart.

“White Dog Fell from the Sky,” by Eleanor Morse. (Viking) Isaac Muthethe, a South African medical student smuggled over the border into Botswana in 1976, has two guardian angels: a white dog who appears out of nowhere, and Alice Mendelssohn, the white government worker who hires him to be her gardener. This story of their intersecting fates offers both hope and redemption.

Jon Land

“The King’s Deception,” by Steve Berry. (Ballantine) Berry’s at the height of his storytelling prowess in this elegant mix of historical speculation and non-stop thrills that takes Cotton Malone back to the English Tudors in order to solve the riddle of a modern day conspiracy. Add to that a father-son theme and you have the recipe for a tale as smart as it is chilling and as bold as it is brash. If you want to know everything a thriller is supposed to be, read Steve Berry.

“The Eye Of God,” by James Rollins. (Morrow) The absolute master of the world-facing-catastrophe thriller presents a superbly researched and conceived thriller about the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy foretelling the destruction of mankind. No writer today better captures the spirit of Alistair MacLean and Ian Fleming in crafting timely, terrific tales that make us feel like we’re kids again. A great book in all respects.

“Touch And Go,” by Lisa Gardner. (Dutton) The Rhode Island native continues her mastery of crafting pitch-perfect journeys into affluent suburbia’s dark underbelly. She writes about bad things happening where they really aren’t supposed to, chilling us with the notion that the monsters have moved into the house next door. The surprises come fast and furious to the point where you can never predict what’s going to happen next — hallmark of a great thriller crafted by a great writer.

“Never Go Back,” by Lee Child. (Delacorte) My list just wouldn’t be complete without Jack Reacher; neither would my year. Child has broken the mold in crafting his nomadic, loner hero who remains the most unique and interesting in thriller fiction today. His latest brings Reacher home again to his former Military Police Virginia stomping grounds where he, at long last, meets the successor with whom he’s become smitten. Not surprisingly, she’s in trouble and it’s going to take both Reacher’s wits and fists to keep both of them alive. Stunningly effective in all respects.

“The Sixth Station,” by Linda Stasi. (Forge) The best debut thriller of the year hands down takes us into the heart of a mammoth global conspiracy through the eyes of intrepid reporter Alexandra Russo. Stasi, a reporter herself, has crafted an expertly researched and wondrously conceived tale that delivers at every level, propelling her right out of the box to a Ludlum-esque level and making her heir to the throne once occupied by the great Helen MacInnes.

(tie) “Murder as a Fine Art,” by David Morrell. (Mulholland Books) The master at work in truly wondrous display here in a richly atmospheric, darkly hypnotic tale that whisks us back to Victorian London and a series of Jack the Ripper-like murders. Morrell’s brilliant rendition of a long gone place and time evokes the very best of Edgar Allen Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle as Thomas De Quincey trails a serial killer he himself is suspected of being. The most daring and original thriller of the year hands down.

Tony Lewis

“The Day is Dark,” by Yrsa Sigurdardottir. (Minotaur Books)The shocks in this Icelandic whodunit are a product of the frigid setting and of the pervasive sense of claustrophobia. Something very wrong is happening at the Arctic Mining camp and lawyer Thora Gudmundsdottir and her boyfriend fly in to sort it all out.

“The Norman Conquest,” by Marc Morris. (Pegasus Books) Morris excels at clarifying the Norman Conquest’s ramifications for Britain’s demographics, language, ruling elite and underclass. The complex story he tells is a fitting complement to the same tale woven in the Bayeux Tapestry.

“The Sleep Room,” by F.V. Tallis. (Pegasus Books) In this deliciously chilling and scary mystery set in Wyldehope Hall in Suffolk, England, newly appointed psychiatrist James Richardson tries out experimental therapies on a small group of mentally ill residents, some of whom lie prostrate in the facility’s “sleep room.”

“The Queen’s Agent,” by John Cooper. (Pegasus Books) “The Queen’s Agent” describes Francis Walsingham’s rise to power in Queen Elizabeth I’s court and his creation of England’s first state-sponsored intelligence gathering arm, an undercover network that reached across Europe and into throne rooms and prisons, churches and castles.

“The Lady and Her Monster,” by Roseanne Montillo. (William Morrow) Montillo is adept at placing Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” in the context of 19th-century science, and at the same time of illuminating Wollstonecraft and Shelley family history. The result is a book that will need to be shelved with biography, certainly, but also with history of science.

Mandy Twaddell

“Double Down,” by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. (Penguin) Reading history that I actually remember is oddly illuminating. To relive the Republican debates, “nine nine nine” etc. makes the Romney primary win seem ordained rather than won. The authors manage to make this a suspenseful read, even when we know the outcome.

“The Lowland,” by Jhumpa Lahiri. (Knopf) The main characters in this penetrating novel spend much of their lives in Rhode Island. Only one of them is someone to know outside the pages of a novel. Lahiri convincingly portrays the mother-in-law from Hell, but breaks from the pack in her empathy for men as fathers.

“The Coat Route,” by Meg Lukens Noonan. (Spiegel & Grau) A young man and a tailor pursue a quest for a coat of the highest possible quality. The author’s balanced mix of scholarship and charm make this book a breezy and memorable read.

“King Of Cuba,” by Christina Garcia. (Scribner) Two Cuban men, a dictator and an exile living in Miami, suffer the indignities of old age, while indulging in memories that include a rivalry for the same woman: entertaining informative, with intimations of things to come.

“The Tenth Of December,” by George Saunders. (Random House) You know you are in the hands of a master, when a foreclosure, hardscrabble poverty, and spirit breaking systems, make you unexpectedly laugh. These short stories are full of surprise, absurdist humor, and the skill in telling them overtakes their gloom.

Next week: Our reviewers pick their favorites in nonfiction and young-adult literature for 2013.


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