Lost Horizon

James Hilton's 1933 novel was made into a Frank Capra film a few years later, and its cinematic qualities are easy to spot: a plane crash, the survivors' trek through the mountains, and their arrival at a mysterious and serene Shangri-La (the name originates here). There is also a rather artificially binary dispute between the doomed outside world and this Eden populated by contemplative lamas. Stay or go?

Survivor

As entertaining as Chuck Palahniuk's flamboyant nihilism and wordplay can be, he is a bit of a one-trick pony. It's a nice trick, though. Still, Survivor's portrayal of the emptiness of celebrity comes off as quaint a mere decade and a half after publication.

Another Great Day at Sea

A full entry will need to wait till May, when this latest Geoff Dyer nonfiction work is published, but safe to say that anywhere Dyer goes (here, to the carrier USS George H.W. Bush), readers will enjoy following.

Irish Journal

On finishing Heinrich Boll's observations of mid-1950s Ireland, a reader might well wonder how much of that place remains. Boll himself added an appendix remarking on the centuries-deep changes that had occurred only a decade hence. But the rain must still be there, and the green and dirty Liffey, and Yeats's grave, and good tea. Boll finds and describes the folkloric and picturesque in a way that dissipates all mists.

Detective Story

A new member of the Corps (secret police) in an unnamed banana republic: "I actually thought we were serving the law here." His boss: "Those in power, sonny boy." The officer: "Up till now I thought the two were the same." Boss: "Fair enough, only you shouldn't lose sight of the order." Officer: "What order is that?" Boss: "Those in power first, then the law."

This novel by Hungarian Imre Kertesz from the 1970s should never have found parallels in the United States. But the naive were taught the hard way that exceptionalism is a myth and evil knows no borders.

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

Geoff Dyer has admitted to having trouble cooking up plots, which explains why the device of a journey shoulders a lot of the narrative load in his books, even the nonfiction ones. This novel shines a light on the contrasts between a decadent West and a bewildering East. Humor and pathos compete on the surface, but by the end a kind of rough and ready philosophy emerges.