THE ILLUMINATION by Kevin Brockmeier, STITCHES, by David Small

New school year, limited reading time. Nevertheless, after Leaning In the wrong direction on a few titles, I'm back to some good ones.

As he did in the stunning The Brief History of the Dead, Brockmeier seamlessly weaves together realism and science fiction in The Illumination. One night, people's wounds begin to glow and shimmer. What happens in a world where where pain is suddenly visible? The language is rich and gorgeous, the characters deeply human. A great read.

One picture truly worth a thousand words, in Smalls' graphic memoir about growing up in a cold, distant household where words were in short supply. The angles, perspective, shading, sequencing and sheer imagination of his images pair beautifully with the simplicity of his lines and storytelling.

LEAN IN: WOMEN, WORK AND THE WILL TO LEAD by Sheryl Sandberg; ANT FARM by Simon Rich

LEAN IN: WOMEN, WORK AND THE WILL TO LEAD by Sheryl Sandberg

Feminism for Dummies. A reductive, pedantic and whiney book, by a writer who equates success with being the boss. Did I say writer? Not really. The writing is pedestrian. (“Find the right career for you and go all the way to the top… I would not suggest that anyone move beyond feeling confident into arrogance or boastfulness. No one likes that in men or women. But feeling confident—or pretending that you feel confident—is necessary to reach for opportunities. It’s a cliché, but opportunities are rarely offered; they’re seized.”) A national bestseller? Well, okay. If what she’s saying is new to you, then you need this book.

While I’m at it, Sandberg is yet another person reviling teachers and making inaccurate generalizations about us: “Boys are more likely to call out answers and when they do, teachers usually listen to them. When girls call out, teachers often scold them for breaking the rules and remind them to raise their hands if they want to speak.” True in some classrooms, no doubt. But decidedly not the case in many others.

ANT FARM by Simon Rich

Uh-oh. Has my roll of fabulous summer reading run its course? Thumbs down for two-in-a-row. I was in the mood for something light and funny; Rich’s book had a laudatory quote from Jon Stewart, and was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor (okay, so I’ve never heard of the Thurber Prize). But I read all of Part I without so much as cracking a smile. These literary potato chips—a page or two in length apiece—are, imho, obvious and not funny. (Oh, and full of nitwit teachers.)

TENTH OF DECEMBER by George Saunders

One more great read. The latest collection of stories by the acclaimed Saunders. Even Thomas Pynchon has come out of his hidey hole to praise the writer’s “graceful, dark, authentic and funny” voice. A study in getting inside characters’ heads, Saunders thinks the think and talks the talk of his motley bunch. Here's how to do interior monologue with brilliance and wit. Wildly original. What an ear!

LOVE, DISHONOR, MARRY, DIE, CHERISH, PERISH by David Rakoff; BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS: LIFE, DEATH, AND HOPE IN A MUMBAI UNDERCITY by Katherine Boo

LOVE, DISHONOR, MARRY, DIE, CHERISH, PERISH by David Rakoff

Deserves every syllable of adulation it’s getting in the press. Multiple stories of Americans over the course of the last century, that intersect in small but poignant ways. Lest that sound like a sprawling epic, these are slender vignettes in Seussian-metered verse (with the occasional cartoon-like illustration). The whole book clocks in at 128 pages, but is a tiny, potent firework, packed with plot and character, heart, insight and joy of language. Like nothing I’ve read before. Tragic, funny, acerbic, fresh… this is the Great American Novel refashioned into a completely different beast. Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish was published posthumously. I hope Rackoff is looking down and enjoying his work’s success.

BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS: LIFE, DEATH, AND HOPE IN A MUMBAI UNDERCITY by Katherine Boo

Important, superbly researched, well written, highly readable. The inhabitants of a slum at the edge of the Mumbai airport struggle to survive and maintain their humanity. An eye-opening look at India in an age of global change, and also a clear-sighted picture of the nearly insurmountable hurdles for anyone at the bottom of a society’s social and economic pile. A worthy companion to Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickeled and Dimed.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN by Penelopy Lively

The construct for this novel is 'the butterfly effect.' An older woman gets mugged; various relationships change in the wake of this. But that's simply an organizing principal for the interwoven stories of nine Londoners, in this particular slice of time. Lively draws her smart, sharp portraits with prose that's both snappy and elegant, funny and tender, with insight into her characters--from the inside and from the outside, and with perfectly controlled story-telling. I loved this book.

THE YELLOW BIRDS by Kevin Powers

Gorgeous. One small story that paints a poignant, sweeping picture of what it's like to go to war. Exquisite, painful, poetic, immediate. Add to the canon of must-read war literature, with Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.

WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE? by Maria Semple

A terrific beach read for people, like me, who aren't the beach read type. When brilliant, sharp-tongued, socially phobic Bernadette goes missing, her 8th grade daughter, Bee, seeks to find her. At once a satire about life in Seattle and sweet mother-daughter story, well crafted, well written, nicely built characters, funny. I devoured it in in a few sittings.