Here’s my complete reading list for 2016. This year, I made a conscious effort to try to read more fiction from female authors. I didn’t get up to gender parity, but I did discover some awesome writers- Lorrie Moore and Deborah Eisenberg, I’m looking at you.

I’ve also included a completely arbitrary “Best 5 Reads of 2016” at the end of the complete list. Let me know your thoughts on any of these books and please share any recommendations that you think would be up my alley.

January

Bernard Malamud, The Natural
Alice Munro, Open Secrets
Ted Hughes, Lupercal
Jorge Luis Borges, Brodie’s Report
Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child
Ted Hughes, Birthday Letters (and Howls & Whispers)
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

February

Alice Munro, Runaway
Graham Greene, The Quiet American
Toni Morrison, Tar Baby
Alice Munro, The Moons of Jupiter
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
J.M. Coetzee, Foe
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Ian McEwan, Solar
Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV

March

Saul Bellow, The Victim

April

Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness
Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

May

Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts
David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Martin Amis, Night Train
Roberto Bolano, By Night in Chile
Denis Johnson, Train Dreams
Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
Lorrie Moore, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
Lorrie Moore, Like Life
Mario Vargas Llosa, Who Killed Palomino Molero?
Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

June

Chuck Klosterman, On Pop
Wallace Shawn, Essays
John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Elmore Leonard, Touch
Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist

July
Jonathan Lethem, You Don’t Love Me Yet
Ali Smith, The First Person and other stories
Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach
Ali Smith, Public library and other stories
Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda
Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety
Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading
Orhan Pamuk, The White Castle

August

Dave Eggers, A Hologram for the King
Oliver Sacks, The Mind’s Eye

September

Deborah Eisenberg, Transactions in a Foreign Currency
Stephen King, The Shining
Isaac Asimov, I, Robot

October 

Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel
Simon Winchester, The Surgeon of Crowthorne
John le Carré, A Murder of Quality
Isaac Asimov, The Naked Sun
John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe

November

John le Carré, Call for the Dead
J.M. Coetzee, The Childhood of Jesus
Otessa Moshfegh, Eileen
Jonathan Lethem, Gun, With Occasional Music
Ian McEwan, Nutshell
Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler’s Planet
Colm Tóibín, The Testament of Mary
J. M. Coetzee, Age of Iron
Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Ian McEwan, The Cement Garden
J.M. Coetzee, Three Stories
Milton, Samson Agonistes

December

Elie Wiesel, The Sonderberg Case
Elie Wiesel, Night
Paul Krugman, End this Depression Now!
Jorge Luis Borges, The Last Interview
Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake
Joe McGinnis, Jr, Carousel Court
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics
Ray Bradbury, The Last Interview

My Best Reads of 2016:
Lorrie Moore, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda
Alice Munro, Runaway
J.M. Coetzee, The Childhood of Jesus

What were the best books you read last year?

Here’s what I read in May 2016:

• Cormac McCarthy, The Road
• Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
• Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts
• David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
• Martin Amis, Night Train
• Roberto Bolano, By Night in Chile
• Denis Johnson, Train Dreams
• Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
• Lorrie Moore, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
• Lorrie Moore, Like Life
• Mario Vargas Llosa, Who Killed Palomino Molero?
• Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
  

I’ve been aware of Barnes’ Man Booker-winning novel Sense of an Ending for years, but never picked it up. It’s a marvel of quietly subtle narration and a Proustian exploration of the workings of memory. If English stoicism and heartbreak are up your alley, give this one a try.

Train Dreams is a masterful short novel, the first I’ve read from Denis Johnson. Any fan of Cormac McCarthy would find plenty to admire here;

My favorite new discovery for the month is Lorrie Moore. Both her novel Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and her story collection Like Life are contenders for favourite reads of the year. She’s funny and emotionally incisive without ever cloying.  Frog Hospital is the best portrait of adolescent girlhood I’ve ever read (sorry Carson McCullers) and her short stories balance beautifully specific writing with a sparkling, humorous, and idiomatic voice. I’ll definitely be checking out the rest of her catalogue during the next couple of months.

What’s on your summer reading list? New discoveries or old favorites? Please share your picks in the comments, I love new recommendations.

January

Victor Wooten, The Music Lesson

February

Jonathan Lethem, Lucky Alan

Art Spiegelman, Maus

Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl

Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang

His Illegal Self

Thomas McGuane, Crow Fair

Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Yasunari Kawabata, Beauty and Sadness

March

Paul Beatty, The Sellout

Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks

William S. Burroughs, The Ticket That Exploded

Samuel Beckett, Endgame

Raymond Carver, Cathedral

April

Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

Toni Morrison, God Help the Child

E.L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel

Wallace Stegner, The Spectator Bird

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

May

Mario Vargas Llosa, The Discreet Hero

Primo Levi, The Periodic Table

T. C. Boyle, The Harder They Come

Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence

Nick Tosches, Under Tiberius

André Gide, The Immoralist

DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little

June

Robert Coover, Pricksongs and Descants

Phil Klay, Redeployment

Jonathan Lethem, Chronic City

Jorge Luis Borges, The Maker

Shakespeare, King Lear

Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones

Alice Munro, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

Angela Carter, Black Venus

J.M. Coetzee, Slow Man

William Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style

Thomas Mann, Felix Krull: Confessions of a Confidence Man

Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

Lydia Davis, Break it Down

Lydia Davis, Almost No Memory

Lydia Davis, Samuel Johnson is Indignant

Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance

Toni Morrison, Sula

Stephen King, On Writing

Stanley Fish, How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One

July

Alice Munro, Who Do You Think You Are?

George Saunders, CivilwarLand in Bad Decline

Alice Munro, The Love of a Good Woman

Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel, Bring Up The Bodies

August

Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

William T. Vollmann, The Dying Grass

Philip Roth, Exit Ghost

Haruki Murakami, Wind/Pinball

Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

Cynthia Ozick, Heir to the Glimmering World

Zadie Smith, On Beauty

Doris Lessing, Briefing For a Descent into Hell

Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

Jonathan Franzen, Purity

David Mitchell, Slade House

Jennifer Egan, The Keep

September

Salman Rushdie, Two Years, Eights Months, and Twenty-Eight Nights

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

October

Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

November

Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn

December

Anatoli Kuznetsov, Babi Yar

Philip Roth, Goodbye Columbus and Five Short Stories

E.L. Doctorow, Welcome to Hard Times

Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift

Jonathan Lethem, As She Climbed Across The Table

What did you read in 2015? Did you meet your reading goals? What books did you first meet this year that will always stay with you?

Although it doesn’t measure up to my 2013 reading list in terms of sheer bulk, 2014 was a great year for classic novels as well as some modern masterworks. Looking back on my list for 2014, I was forced to confront the overwhelming homogeneity of my authors, almost uniformly white and male. The exceptions only prove the rule, and despite my longstanding discomfort with the idea of reading “by quota”, I’ve been inspired this year to consciously spend more time discovering female writers. I heartily recommend this exercise to anyone who’s feeling bored or stuck with reading choices: only this year, I’ve been introduced to the wonderful writing of Hilary Mantel, Alice Munro, and Doris Lessing.
2014 had some great reads- among the best of the year were Bolano’s epic 2666, Byatt’s Possession, Graves’ Claudius novels, and Ali Smith’s How to Be Both.
What were your best reads of 2014? How is 2015 measuring up? I’ve already handily surpassed my 2014 total, and it’s looking like I’ll break 100 novels by Christmastime. Happy reading!

1. William T. Vollmann, Rising Up and Rising Down vol.III
2. Hunter S. Thompson, The Curse of Lono
3. Knut Hamsen, Hunger
4. William T. Vollmann, Rising Up and Rising Down vol. IV
5. Roberto Bolano, The Skating Rink
6. Saul Bellow, Herzog
7. E. L. Doctorow, Andrew’s Brain
8. Isaac Bashevis Singer, Enemies, A Love Story
9. William T. Vollmann, The Book of Dolores
10. Roberto Bolaño, 2666
11. Susan Sontag, In America
12. Richard Price, Lush Life
13. Sarah Tolmie, The Stone Boatmen
14. A . S. Byatt, Possession
15. John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
16. Richard Preston, The Hot Zone
17. John Williams, Stoner
18. Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber
19. Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
20. Renata Adler, Speedboat
21. Don DeLillo, The Body Artist
22. Tom Franklin, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
23. Sam Lipsyte, The Ask
24. Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad
25. Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World
26. J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
27. Carl G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
28. Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale
29. Jared Diamond, Collapse
30. Robertson Davies, The Cunning Man
31. Robert Graves, I, Claudius
32. Robert Graves, Claudius the God
33. William T. Vollmann, Last Stories and Other Stories
34. Philip Roth, Everyman
35. Zadie Smith, White Teeth
36. Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage.
37. Roberto Bolaño, The Third Reich
38. Philip Roth, Indignation
39. Philip Roth, The Humbling
40. Philip Roth, Nemesis
41. Ian McEwan, The Children Act
42. Roz Chast, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
43. Italo Calvino, Cosmicomics
44. Ali Smith, How to Be Both
45. James Ellroy, Perfidia
46. Martin Amis, The Zone of Interest
47. Martin Amis, Money
48. Martin Amis, House of Meetings
49. E. L. Doctorow, The Waterworks
50. Howard Jacobson, J
51. John Banville, The Sea
52. Peter Carey, Jack Maggs
53. Michael Chabon, The Final Solution
54. Don DeLillo, Underworld
55. Gore Vidal, 1876
56. Roddy Doyle, Two More Pints

Given the pace at which William T. Vollmann publishes lengthy essays, nonfiction studies, and short fiction collections, it’s easy to forget that he hasn’t released a novel since 2005’s National Book Award-winning Europe Central. His new novel The Dying Grass is both a return to form and a triumphant realization of the experimental tendencies and moral concerns of all his earlier work.

The Dying Grass is the fifth installment in Vollmann’s Seven Dreams series, a cycle of historical novels that deal with various interactions between Europeans and indigenous cultures in North American history. This volume recounts the story of the 1877 Nez Perce War in careful, historically accurate detail. As the novel opens, a group of Nez Perce bands under the leadership of Chief Joseph refuses to move onto a reservation according to U.S. government demands. When three of the tribe’s disaffected young men murder several white settlers, the U.S. Army begins a pursuit that will follow the tribe from Northern Oregon through more than 1,000 miles of wilderness to the border of Canada.

The novel alternates between the perspectives of the fleeing Nez Perce and the pursuing Americans, offering readers a detailed comparison of the motivations and worldviews of the two groups. Vollmann’s grasp of the military details of the campaign is impressive and gives a propulsive quality to the narrative. At the same time, Vollmann allows for detailed character development, which highlights the complexities and contradictions that plagued both sides of the conflict. As the Nez Perce’s flight takes them farther into unfamiliar territory, conflicts among the leadership become more pronounced. On the American side, the contradictory character of General Oliver O. Howard speaks to the confused and malicious attitudes of the Americans towards Native populations. A Civil War veteran and devout Christian, Howard is convinced of the Americans’ righteousness despite the unpopularity of the campaign. Lieutenant C.E.W. Wood, Howard’s aide de camp, is plagued by humanitarian doubts over the imperialist attitudes of the Americans, while striving to remain loyal to his mentor General Howard. Vollmann’s presentation of Nez Perce culture is similarly nuanced, offering insight into the perspectives of the women and non-combatants as well as those of the chiefs and leaders.

Stylistically, Vollmann achieves a legitimately epic tone, especially in his representation of the impressionistic language of the Nez Perce tribes. With large sections of the novel given over to dialogue, Vollmann manages to give a panoramic view of American society and culture while remaining incredibly faithful to the historical record. Vollmann’s attempt to represent speech and thought poetically, with a series of indented line breaks, is almost entirely successful. Many of the passages from the Nez Perce perspective, with their imagistic bent, rank among Vollmann’s best and most elegant writing.

In both its style and subject, The Dying Grass may be Vollmann’s best and most important work yet. For those who enjoy challenging, detailed historical fiction, The Dying Grass is a timely and hugely engaging read.

Oh, so sorry that Salinger bored you. Sorry that this perfectly constructed monologue doesn’t hold your interest. Sorry you don’t “get” Holden. I’ve already pegged you as an Ackley. Plus, I know that you’re just parroting this episode of South Park, as if I haven’t seen it. You damn phony.

But, fellow bookworms, I imagine that most of you relate to Holden just as much as I did. The intimately personal, spoken style of the narration; the free-floating anxiety that Holden can’t coherently describe (can anyone?); the pitch-perfect dialogue and scenes of interaction (with Mr. Spencer, with Sally, with Phoebe): they’re all part of my literary DNA, one of the formative reading experiences of my life.
I thought it might be fun to see if any other books have a similar impact: I’m looking for a young narrator, some emotional vulnerability, and possibly a nostalgia factor. Here are some Books You Should Probably Read If You Loved The Catcher in the Rye:

1. David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

Mitchell’s most straightforwardly realistic novel finds him in bildungsroman territory, describing a crucial year in the life of a British adolescent. This carefully written piece features amazingly authentic dialogue and representation of the teenage headspace. Definitely recommended for former high school nerds.

2. Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter gets more press, but Member is a more personal, focused, and—I think—successful book. Frankie Adams, 12-year-old tomboy, faces some complicated emotions surrounding the marriage of her older sister. McCuller’s provides a note-perfect rendition of adolescent dreams—their mixture of idealization and impossibility, wanting to imitate adulthood without quite understanding what that might entail.

3. E. L. Doctorow, World’s Fair

One of Doctorow’s quieter works, World’s Fair tells the story of a young New Yorker’s memories of one unforgettable summer: 1939, when New York’s World Fair was held in Flushing Meadows. The young narrator’s childhood recollections are imbued with excitement as well as nostalgia for the minutely represented particulars of time and place. Highly recommended for fans or as a starter Doctorow; also essential reading for New Yorkers.

4. Alice Munro, Who Do You Think You Are?

Published in 1978, Munro’s fourth collection is an ambitious set of interrelated short stories. Together, they give a panoramic view of the life of Rose, whom we first see as a young girl in small-town Ontario and follow through a marriage, career aspirations, the difficulties of motherhood, the complications of sex, and more. In short, Munro, with her narrative vivacity and psychological insight, somehow succeeds at representing an entire life.

Readers, do you have any favourite books that measure up to or call to mine Catcher?

T. Coraghessan Boyle is one of America’s most prolific and respected novelists and short story writers. A student and associate of John Cheever and Raymond Carver, Boyle’s work, like the stories of those masters, displays a flair for understatement, a penchant for surprising climaxes, and vividly concrete imaginings of character.

Boyle’s latest novel is an ambitious critique of American culture that uncovers the violent tendencies incipient in the national ethos of independence, individuality, and self-reliance. The novel focuses on three characters: Sten Stenson, a Vietnam veteran whose violent act of self-defense opens the novel; Sara, a Californian libertarian who runs into trouble with the law; and Adam Stenson, a delusive and marginalized man in his mid-twenties whose increasing disconnection from society propels him into a shocking act of aggression. Boyle’s narration, always lucid and enviably direct, pulls off the impressive feat of representing the inner worlds of these three very different characters: the lingering resentments of the reactionary, embittered elder Stenson; the puerile immaturity of Sara’s libertarian criticisms of “the system”; and, most strikingly, the convincing portrayal of Adam’s retreat into obsession and fantasy.

Boyle’s treatment of Adam and Sara’s casual relationship provides a convincing analysis of both characters’ motives and worldviews. Adam’s obsessions with mythologized frontier narratives and military jargon offer a jarring criticism of American nationalism and a convincing representation of mental illness, while Sara’s sophomoric political stances are both consistent with her character and reveal some of the emotional satisfactions offered by libertarian ideals. Few writers can deal with ideology so deftly; Boyle deals with political concerns as an aspect of life, with a keen eye for the predictably irrational behaviour of his characters.

Boyle’s vivid representation of Adam’s inner world is all the more unsettling for being sympathetic and eerily familiar. Adam’s final breakdown and violent rampage were “inspired” by a true story; the crimes that Boyle describes are by now another aspect of the American mythos, an uncanny addition to our culture’s storeroom of symbols. In this novel, one of his best, Boyle’s spare and unpretentious voice forges some of his most memorable and resonant characters.

Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa has worked in startling array of genres over the course of his long and prolific career. Whether he writes an epic historical novel or a murder mystery, Llosa is always an entrancing storyteller, a novelist who seamlessly weaves social and political critique into his novels without ever sacrificing the momentum of his deceptively intriguing narratives.

His latest novel has these tendencies on full display: from the opening chapter, in which a businessman receives an ominous letter demanding protection payment, the narrative barrels forward at a relentless pace. The Discreet Hero tells two stories in alternating chapters, a favorite strategy of Llosa’s that works to great effect here. Both narratives feature middle-aged protagonists whose lives are disrupted by professional problems that quickly become personal. These two suggestive stories, and their memorable and distinct characters, inexorably build suspense as they gradually intertwine.

Both of the novel’s protagonists are unlikely heroes, cautious family men whose reserve and principles come to seem truly exceptional in the tangle of schemes and intrigue that develops around them. Felícito Yanaqué, the successful businessman, refuses to give in to the extortionists’ demands, even if it endangers his life. Don Rigoberto, who has appeared in two of the author’s previous novels, acts as witness for a controversial wedding, thereby inviting a slew of legal and personal threats into his otherwise tranquil life.

Llosa’s discipleship to Flaubert is always apparent in his brilliant rendering of character and his flair for dialogue that is both effortlessly natural and dramatic. The Discreet Hero features all the narrative excitement of a crime thriller, with Llosa’s characteristic political, cultural, and metaphysical meditations seamlessly woven into the texture of the story.

Translated by Edith Grossman—the leading translator of Latin American literature into English—The Discreet Hero is a welcome addition to Llosa’s canon and a great read for the summer.

Paul Beatty’s new novel is a comic tour-de-force, a satirical romp that holds nothing sacred. The Sellout is like Invisible Man turned inside out; it’s a search for black identity that hilariously dismantles every bromide and cliché about race relations in America. Its irreverence allows it to ridicule the most vexed and difficult points of contention in American society without being weighed down by the history it confronts.

Like Catch-22, a summary of The Sellout’s plot gives little indication of its mood of constant invention. The unnamed narrator unwittingly becomes a leading figure in his small L.A. community—until his outrageous violations of political correctness land him in front of the Supreme Court. The absurd itinerary of the novel finds the narrator cultivating watermelons and marijuana in his urban farm, taking on the services of an elderly slave of questionable usefulness, and eventually re-segregating the public schools and stores in his area by means of signs that proclaim “No Whites”, thereby increasing test scores and civic pride in his predominantly black and Latino neighbourhood. The plot, dialogue, and one-liners are riotously offensive; the sanctities of political correctness and the idiocies of racism are attacked with equal verve and imagination.

To maintain this stream of absurd and corrosive humour while still confronting the realities of racism is a remarkable feat of balance and tone. The Sellout is a celebration of individual freedom and feeling that refuses to be hampered by a political program or by social mores. Like George Saunders and Gary Shteyngart, Beatty’s politically pointed writing never sacrifices humour or heart in its coruscating analysis of contemporary society’s blind spots. Paul Beatty has produced a provocative comedy in the best American tradition, one that demands to be discussed and debated. These jokes deserve to be taken seriously.

Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s new novel is her first and only book to be set in contemporary America. For fans of Morrison, who has set her most famous novels in historical periods ranging from the Antebellum American South to Jazz Age Harlem, the experience of seeing the modern world through her uncompromising and anti-romantic eye is nothing short of jarring.

But the contemporary setting provides a platform for one of Morrison’s most spare and unembellished narratives, abandoning her kaleidoscopically complex modernist narration for a far more minimalist aesthetic. As usual, Morrison’s concerns in the novel include race relations and questions of identity, but this novel also delves into the sexual politics of modern dating, the traumatic aftereffects of abuse and victimhood, and questions of class. Morrison tackles this weighty subject matter with an unusually swift-moving and economically spare narrative, resulting in a readable and entrancing novel that rivals her earlier work in its powerful range of effects.

The events of the novel are assembled from a variety of interlocking perspectives, but the protagonist of the narrative is Bride, a successful businesswoman who owns and manages her own cosmetics company. The story deals with the lingering effects of two strands of Bride’s complicated past: she suffered emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of a mother who resented the darkness of Bride’s “blue-black” skin. As a child, Bride was pressured to testify against a teacher accused of molesting her students; her attempt to establish contact with the unjustly imprisoned former teacher results in an eruption of violence that disrupts Bride’s sense of stability. As Morrison gradually elaborates the reverberating effects of these seemingly unrelated episodes, she shows how the ripple effects of violence and trauma persist through a lifetime, while also allowing for a redemptive and affecting conclusion.

As in Beloved, Morrison deftly challenges the reader’s knee-jerk ethical reactions, introducing complicating evidence and opposing views that direct the reader towards a more nuanced view of the moral dilemmas of her characters. Typically, Morrison always refuses to let simple categories summarize the experiences of her characters: although Bride’s roles as independent woman and as successful African-American entrepreneur both contribute to her crisis of self-hood, her journey to forgiveness is irreducibly personal. Here, Morrison’s rare talent for interrogating identity politics and the hypocrisies of social convention is on full display; characteristically, these elements bolster the depiction of character rather than replace it. This rare ability to coherently investigate political themes while also remaining true to the individuality of her characters is perhaps Morrison’s signal literary triumph: the success of this delicate balancing act results in a novel of rare moral force and emotional power.

This novel is worth reading on the strength of Morrison’s narrative talents alone, but it also makes an inviting introduction to her body of work. God Help the Child finds this American legend still breaking new ground and, as always, delivering an uncompromising and memorable novel.