Choice Imports
Some of the year's finest books came from continents near and far
by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 12/6/2004
FICTION
Bethlehem Road Murder
Batya Gur (HarperCollins)
Israeli author Gur's outstanding police procedural, her fifth Michael Ohayon mystery, can hold its own with the best work of P.D. James.
The Line of Beauty
Alan Hollinghurst (Bloomsbury)
This gay coming-of-age story and incisive satire of Thatcher's London won the Man Booker prize.
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse Robert Rankin (Gollancz, dist. by Trafalgar Square)
Appealing to anglophiles and Douglas Adams fans, this wickedly clever work imagines a madcap town where toys and nursery rhymes come to life.
The Half Brother
Lars Saabye Christensen, translated by Kenneth Steven (Arcade)
Steeped in European history yet startlingly contemporary, this is the story of an unconventional Oslo family.
The Master
Colm Tóibín (Scribner)
Tóibín puts himself inside the mind of novelist Henry James with this riveting portrait of the creative life.
NONFICTION
The Story of a Life
Aharon Appelfeld, translated by Aloma Halter (Schocken)
With its spare and elegant simplicity, this memoir of the Holocaust and an artist's genesis is sure to become a classic.
Good Tempered Food:
Recipes to Love, Leave and Linger Over Tamasin Day-Lewis (Miramax)
This is a sensuous package, with mouth-watering four-color full-page photos, charming anecdotes, clear and personal recipes, and the constant presence of Daniel Day-Lewis's sister's opinionated voice and uncompromising standards.
Sean Penn: His Life and Times
Richard T. Kelly (Canongate)
Like its subject, Kelly's biography of the idiosyncratic Oscar winner pulses with in- sight. The oral history format—so well suited for a subject that engenders countless stories—is perfect here.
Schott's Food & Drink Miscellany
Ben Schott (Bloomsbury)
The London "miscellanist" returns, bestowing upon hungry readers every random thing they've ever wondered about the culinary arts, and then some.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Lynn Truss (Gotham)
This spirited and wittily instructional little volume, a U.K. #1 bestseller, "gives you permission to love punctuation."
Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon
Gijs van Hensbergen (Bloomsbury)
The definitive study of Picasso's antiwar masterpiece moves passionately between art criticism, political history and biography.
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