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I've been reading some ARC books, some of which are quite good. The best recently is Defending Jacob by William Landay which is a crime-mystery novel. Landay is a former District Attorney who has used that profession for his protagonist who has to deal with his teen-age son being accused of murder. Landay writes from both the prosecution and defense sides of the aisle and give the reader some insights into the legal process. He is not particularly complimentary of the judicial system in this book. It should be a high profile advertisement when it comes out Jan 31, I suspect.
Another surprisingly good book I'm reading is Ernie Pyle's War by James Tobin. Pyle was well-known to my parents' generation as the definitive news correspondent for the common G.I. in WWII. Tobin wrote the book in 1997 as a look back into the struggles and fame of this famous writer and peppers the book with many paragraphs from Pyle's columns and his personal correspondence with his editors. It doesn't look so much on the horrors of war as on the daily struggles of the ground soldier and Pyle himself.
The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman is an historical crime novel set in pre-Nazi controlled Germany and looks at a Jewish detective trying to work under increasing Nazi influence.
Embers by Sándor Márai is an Hungarian translation of an excellent novel written as a near-soliloquy on friendship and revenge. Unique and a great book.
A Sound Among the Trees by Susan Meissner is a contemporary novel based on Civil War history as revealed by letters found in an old trunk.
The Innocent Man by John Grisham has been out for a few years. It is the only book written by Grisham that is not fiction. It chronicles the fate of a man accused of murder and the incompetence of the criminal justice system.
Northwest Corner by John Burnham Schwartz is novel using the familiar topics of family estrangement and coming-of-age tensions and mistakes. I liked it especially for its unexpected metaphorical descriptions and humor.
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