If you liked The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, or Andrew Greer's The Confessions of Max Tivoli, you would enjoy Camille DeAngelis' debut novel Mary Modern.

Though not strictly time travel, critics are calling it "imaginative, near-future, genre-bending" and "a literary mix of love story, s(cience)f(iction) and thriller".

The year is 2009. Frustrated geneticist Lucy Morrigan decides to clone her own grandmother when both academic tenure and pregnancy elude her. A blood-stained apron and her father's experimental equipment in the basement of the family home produces an indignant 22-year-old version of Lucy’s grandmother, Mary. While finding life in the 21st century challenging, Mary quickly adjusts, with the help of a little book called Everyday Life in the Twenty-First Century, penned by another mysterious time-traveler.

What Lucy does not anticipate is for her lived-in boyfriend, a classics professor to fall hopelessly for Mary. What is Lucy to do?

The plot-twists, competent characterization, and inventive storytelling will keep you turning pages. The religious-moral-ethical issues at the heart of the story would make this a good book group choice.

Emergency room physician Vincent Lam’s debut collection of linked stories - Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures* is the 2006 winner of The Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s premier literary prize for fiction. It revolves around four young multicultural Toronto medical students. (Think Grey’s Anatomy!)

Along with the requisite sex, death and sleep deprivation crucial to any hospital drama, it's action-packed and insightful. "The stories' quiet strength lies in Lam's portrayal of the flawed humans behind the surgical masks". ~Publishers Weekly

For a clear-eyed look at what it is like to be a doctor-in-training, try The Soul of a Doctor: Harvard Medical Students Face Life and Death, and Audrey Young's What Patients Taught Me: A Medical Student's Journey.

*= Starred Reviews

The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas

I like novels that incorporate the texts of other imaginary books and provide scads of non-fiction detail about topics on which I would be unlikely to read an actual non-fiction book. Add an interesting narrator, a little narrative drive, and The End of Mr. Y becomes an excellent choice to read. The book within the book shares the title and is by the nineteenth-century writer Thomas E. Lumas. The scads of non-fiction detail involve Derrida and French deconstruction, Samuel Butler, Einstein and thought experiments, theoretical physics, and homeopathy. Ariel Manto is a poor graduate student working on a dissertation about Lumas. The library classifies the book as Science Fiction, not unreasonable since it involves the ability to jump into the minds of others in the troposphere (the world of the mind). This ability is brought on by drinking a mixture of Carbo Vegetabilis and holy water then staring at a white card with a small black circle at its center. A fantastical story, most compelling before the author has to bring the story to an end.

Among the best books I read this summer was The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The genre is Robinsonade, which means it bears some resemblance to Robinson Crusoe. But this is the story of a father and his son walking alone through a totally devastated, burned America. Normally I don't choose this type of book, but my brother assured me that the warmth of the father-son relationship would carry me right through the darker parts. He was right. After it came out last year, this book became an Oprah's Book Club pick, a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, and a New York Times Notable Book.

Sarah Addison Allen’s enchanting debut Garden Spells* is a real charmer.
Claire Waverley, never very good with people, lives alone in the family’s Queen Anne mansion, tending the garden that yields the edible flowers used in her successful catering business. These are no ordinary flowers, especially the ones that grow around the curious apple tree that flowers in the winter.

When Sydney, her sister who ran away as a teenager returns home to Bascom, NC with a young daughter in tow, Claire’s world is turned upside down, especially when their new neighbor, art professor Tyler Hughes, pursues her single-mindedly.

Adding to the spot-on rendering of sibling rivalry, family feuds, small town dynamics, are the delightful story of first loves and second chances; quirky, lovable characters; culinary alchemy; and the magic of place dipped in charm.

Magic Realism fans would know Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic (1995), but have you read Jennifer Cruise's The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes (2007)? Just two more suggestions to keep you totally spellbound.

* = Starred Reviews

Although it has always been considered a controversial book, you haven't read nothin' until you've read Lolita. It is the most beautifully written book of all time (in my opinion). The lyrical style of prose is a device used by Vladimir Nabokov to distract the reader from the sordid nature of the tale and to disguise the satire completely. Through what could be described as a sleight of hand trick, he lulls the reader under a complacent spell, ignoring what the narrator is saying and instead focusing on how lilting the speech itself is. It has been a highly contested book from all sides since its date of publication, with some arguing it is pornographic while others consider it above all other novels. If you are interested in hearing more about critics' reviews of the book, follow the links below.

National Review Critique

The Chicago Way*, is a debut thriller by Michael Harvey, a Chicago-based attorney and the co-producer of the A&E award winning documentary Cold Case Files : The Most Infamous Cases (1998), which inspired the likes of CSI and Cold Case.

Michael Kelly, “the latest incarnation of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe”, (Library Journal) is an ex-Chicago cop turned PI, “ with a taste for liquor, (and an) esoteric penchant for classical literature". When his former partner turned up dead after asking Michael for help on an 8 year-old rape case, and the local brass showed up at his door, Michael smelled cover-up, big time!
In this “… fast-paced thrill ride through Chicago's seedy underbelly” Harvey has created a tough, smart crime fighter (think Spenser and Sam Spade). What stand out in this first novel are not only Harvey's knowledge of forensics and his firm grip on criminal investigations, but also how Chicago is rendered in all its many moods and facets.

For another recent debut of note set in the Windy City, try Marcus Sakey's The Blade Itself

* = Starred Review

It has been a long wait for fans of Amy Bloom, but her new novel since Love Invents Us (1997), will be payback enough. It's heartbreaking, romantic, and completely unforgettable.

Away*, a historical novel set in the 1920s, is based loosely on the life of Lillian Alling, as documented in Cassandra Pybus’ meticulously researched The Woman Who Walked to Russia (2002).

In Away,, Lillian Leyb, a 22-year-old Jewish immigrant arrived in New York City alone, mourning the loss of her young daughter. Sheer determination got her the much sought-after job as a seamstress at the Goldfadn Yiddish Theatre and the attention of the handsome lead actor and his very connected father.

But when word came that her daughter might be alive in Siberia, Lillian was determined to make her way there. The journey was arduous, to say the least.

“Encompassing prison, prostitution and poetry, Yiddish humor and Yukon settings, Bloom's tale offers linguistic twists, startling imagery, sharp wit and a compelling vision of the past. Bloom has created an extraordinary range of characters, settings and emotions. Absolutely stunning.” ~Publishers Weekly

* = Starred Reviews (see the August 20th New York Times Review).

Well, I wasn’t going to read it. Another Chicklit. I thought, and a bit too cute, judging from the cover. But I was stuck in an airport and it was there. Soon I was turning pages, surprised to be hooked by this engaging debut about a wounded healer and her African elephants.

In Still Life with Elephant by Judy Reene Singer, horse-trainer Neelie Sterling is not a good listener. She knows that and she tries hard. But when her cheating husband, veterinarian Matt tells her his partner is having his baby, Neelie can’t deny that she is dense and blind as well.

As a last-ditch effort to save her marriage, she volunteers to join Matt's rescue mission to save injured elephants in Zimbabwe. The trip is dangerous, exhilarating and the nursing of the elephants back home is grueling and frustrating. However, Neelie soon learns that healing could be mutual and there is “still” life (pretty marvelous at that) worth living, especially when the charming millionaire who sponsored the rescue comes knocking.

Nicely paced and sparkled with humor, a debut novel to wrap up the summer. The elephants will steal your heart and the romantic in you will cheer. For fans of Jennifer Weiner and Jenny Colgan.

The recent release of featured film No Reservations reminds me of the equally engaging The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones.

Mones, author of Lost in Translation (1998) gives us a “page-turner both exciting and wise, one to nourish the head, the stomach, and the soul” ~David Henry Hwang.

In this The Pilot’s Wife meets the The Iron Chef, Maggie McElroy, a recently widowed L.A.-based food writer must fly to Beijing to sort out a paternity claim filed against her husband’s estate. It looks like international lawyer Matt has kept some devastating secrets. To finance her trip, she takes on an assignment to profile a new shining star in the Beijing culinary scene – an Eurasian named Sam who comes from a long line of illustrious imperial chefs and is picked as a contender in an upcoming culinary Olympic trial.

Mones begins each chapter with some fascinating, well-researched and mouth-watering tidbits on the history of Chinese cuisine and gastronomy that would entice foodies but as Sam’s audition banquet approaches and Maggie’s efforts for a DNA match become problematic, readers will be increasingly drawn to the undeniable bond between them. Early in her visit, Maggie scoffs at the idea that "food can heal the human heart", Mones smartly proves her wrong. Delicious!