The Blue Flower

A recommendation from William Nicholson, The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald is a novel of sly wit. It is both a portrait of a time of intellectual ferment, with Goethe wandering in the margins, and a strange love story. Nicholson found it completely believable, the litmus test for any novel, but I see the author's winks and nods too often to be convinced. She writes, in any case, with a gorgeous style that reads like a combination of Evelyn Waugh and Anatole France.

Rich and Mad

Reading YA fiction past age 50 is a little silly, but this one is by William Nicholson, whose novels (and movies, like Shadowlands) I have enjoyed. There's no real suspense here about how things will end up between the main characters, but the journey is well done and includes a grocery list of adolescent challenges. Nicholson especially deserves credit for giving The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm a key role in the story. Young people could hardly do better than to consult that book on a subject that has unfortunately been deformed by culture and media into something trivial and, often, ugly.

The Open Door

The nature and importance of theater is explained lucidly and convincingly by Peter Brook. If all theater companies had to read and re-read this book, we'd have a theater that intensifies real life, works its will through surprise, and never bores.

The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

"The point is to live." I will confess to getting stuck in some of the abstract thickets of Camus's essay, but the clarity and power of his central message, summarized in that sentence, ultimately shines through. Philosophers of old like Seneca taught their students how to live; Camus does likewise, echoing Beckett's "I can't go on, I'll go on." The other essays in this collection reveal Camus's affection for Algeria and his big-hearted view of the writer's role.

The Cold Song

Sprawling and at times unconvincing, this Linn Ullmann novel nonetheless delivers a nuanced portrait of a family in crisis. This is pure guesswork, but it seems that her publisher has indulged Ullmann lately; her last two novels are loose and overwritten. The first three are more powerful, as if they benefited from a stronger editorial hand.

The Colour of Memory

Geoff Dyer paints a vivid, impressionistic picture of gray, damp Brixton in The Colour of Memory, and gives his young characters a philosophical bent that comes through as genuine in the dialogue. With all that going for it, who needs a plot?

The Deportees and Other Stories

There is an element of improvisation in these Roddy Doyle stories, written as they were on a deadline in serial form. The magnet is reversed as Ireland, source of so much exile literature, becomes the attractor. "Fecking eejit" are the two words that come to mind whenever I hear Doyle's name, but a couple of these stories plumb beyond this welcome good humor to a deeper place.

The Children Act

Ian McEwan's new novel revolves around a 59-year-old family court judge in London, Fiona Maye, and a 17-year-old Jehovah's Witness whose family objects to a life-saving blood transfusion. It is a short, strong effort, although McEwan can't seem to make his characters wear their erudition lightly; it always thuds. As well, the prose style can get prissy, but perhaps that's just the impression created by the smirking author photograph.

Beethoven: The Man Revealed

Without his music, the man Ludwig van Beethoven would be unknown to history. I understand John Suchet's purpose in this non-specialist biography, but the scarcity of information about how and why Beethoven's music was revolutionary is frustrating. In particular, the break between the early symphonies, redolent of Haydn and Mozart, and the massive No. 3 needs a better explanation. One area where Suchet succeeds is in demonstrating how the personal situation of the composer, frequently dire, was no obstacle to his producing the most glorious music.

Indignation

The randomness of the universe and the high cost of maintaining principles: two themes that drive this Philip Roth novel to its inevitable (given his late output) dire conclusion.