Sybil’s List 2013
Sybil's List is compiled annually by Westporter Sybil Steinberg, contributing editor for Publishers Weekly.
Previous lists at westportlibrary.org/recommended/more
*Man Booker Award finalists
+National Book Award longlists
FICTION - NEWEST
THE LOWLAND by Jhumpa Lahiri
Two brothers whose lives and destinies are affected by politics and the loss of native roots. * +
DISSIDENT GARDENS by Jonathan Lethem
Radical politics engulf three generations of a lower class Jewish family.
SOMEONE by Alice McDermott
The ordinary life of an Irish-American woman living in Brooklyn. +
THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS byElizabeth Gilbert
The richest man in Philadelphia during the 1920s and 30s has a brilliant daughter who becomes a botanist.
LONGBOURN by Jo Baker
Jane Austen portrayed the Bennet family who lived Upstairs in Pride and Prejudice. Here we read about the people Downstairs,
the servants.
QUIET DELL by Jayne Anne Phillips
A real case of multiple murders by a con man who preyed on widows. Mesmerizing story of the victims as reconstructed by a female journalist who covers the trial.
THE MAID’S TALE by Daniel Woodrell
A real catastrophe in a small Ozarks town during the 1920s is recreated for a young boy by his grandmother, who knows the secret
of who caused the explosion in the dance hall.
CLAIRE OF THE SEA LIGHT by Edwidge Danticat
As lyrical as poetry, vignettes set in a coastal village in Haiti, as a fisherman, the widowed father of a young girl tries to find her a
stable home.
TUMBLEDOWN by Robert Boswell
Set in a rehab center in California, this novel follows a man about to be appointed its director and the emotionally and mentally
damaged people in his charge.
FICTION - CURRENT
TRANSATLANTIC by Colum McCann
Braided together over a span of 100 years are the lives of the ex-slave Frederick Douglass, aviator Teddy Brown, and contemporary statesman George Mitchell.
WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES by Karen Joy Fowler
The narrator, the daughter of social scientists, was raised with a chimpanzee she thought of as her sister.
THE GOOD LORD BIRD by James McBride
A young slave forced to disguise as a girl is caught up in abolitionist John Brown’s misguided raid on Harper’s Ferry. Laugh-aloud
humor and poignant insights. +.
FIN AND LADY by Cathleen Schine
The guardian of a young orphan boy is his flamboyant half sister, whose bohemian life in 1960s Greenwich Village hides a bitter
secret.
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HARVEST by Jim Crace
Change comes to a small, isolated English village and brings dislocation and tragedy. Eerie, mesmerizing, with applicability to our
own era. *
A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA by Anthony Marra
A haunting story set in Chechnya in 2004 in which the characters struggle to survive a Russian invasion of their Muslim village,
and quiet heroism brings a small redemption. +
DAUGHTERS OF MARS by Tom Keneally
An engrossing story of two sisters from Australia who become nurses in WW I and witness the debacle at Gallipoli and the battle
of the Somme.
LOVE, DISHONOR, MARRY, DIE, CHERISH, PERISH by David Rakoff
An utterly original series of vignettes about interrelated characters, told entirely in verse.
A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING by Ruth Ozeki
A writer living on an island off Canada finds a Hello Kitty backpack washed up by the waves. In it is the diary of a young Japanese girl. *
WE NEED NEW NAMES by NoViolet Bulawayo
A gang of dirty, starving kids living in an abysmal slum called Paradise in Zimbabwe manage to survive despite their hardships.
AMERICANAH by Chimamanda Adichie
Two high school students fall in love in Nigeria but they separate during the country’s political turmoil. The woman, who comes to
America, experiences racism for the first time.
& SONS by David Gilbert
The quintessential novel of upper East Side Manhattan and the life of a writer whose initial success made him famous but deeply
troubled.
THE SON by Philipp Meyer
A Western epic set in Texas over three generations. The patriarch of a ranching and oil empire was kidnapped by Comanches.
Thereafter he is ruthless and fearless.
THE BLOOD OF HEAVEN by Kent Wascom
A tumultuous, violent period in what was then West Florida during the early 19th century.
ENON by Paul Harding
The grandson of the man so beautifully evoked in Tinkers strives to survive after the accidental death of his teenage daughter.
SPARTA by Roxana Robinson
Having enlisted in the Marines after graduating from an Ivy League school, the hero returns from Iran suffering from PTSD. A
disturbing vision of how we’ve failed our vets
THE TESTAMENT OF MARY by Colm Toibin
A revisionist picture of the mother of Jesus, who denies the story of the crucifixion proclaimed by his disciples. *
BOOKS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED
AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED by Khaled Hosseini
A captivating story that begins in a small Afghan village and follows interconnected characters to Kabul, Paris and California.
LIFE AFTER LIFE by Kate Atkinson
Ursula Todd is stillborn in England in 1910. No, that’s wrong. She lives, and Atkinson imagines her experiences during dozens of
different lifetimes. A brilliant tour de force.
THE WOMAN UPSTAIRS by Claire Messud
“How angry am I? You don’t want to know,” says Nora, the embittered narrator of this story about a woman’s frustrated life and
how she deluded herself into a false friendship.
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THE FLAMETHROWERS by Rachel Kushner
A young artist becomes involved with the Manhattan art scene during the 1970s , and then goes to Italy with her lover, whose family owns a motorcycle empire. +
THE INTERESTINGS by Meg Wolitzer
Six teenagers who meet at a summer camp in the 1970s expect to live exceptional lives.
THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI by Helene Wecker
Two mythical figures, one from Jewish tradition, the other from Arab lore, meet in New York as immigrants. Highly imaginative.
THE YONAHLOSSEE RIDING CAMP FOR GIRLS by Anton Disclafani
During the 1930s Depression, a 10-year-old girl is banished from her family’s idyllic Florida plantation and sent to boarding
school in North Carolina.
FLORA by Gail Godwin
An 11-year-old girl becomes more mature than the loving cousin sent to live with her during the summer her widowed father
works at Oak Ridge.
THE END OF THE POINT by Elizabeth Graver
Three generations of a WASP family grow up and grow old in a summer cottage off the Maine coast. War (the Army puts a base
there), illness, real estate development shadow the idyllic refuge.
THE BURGESS BOYS by Elizabeth Strout
Two brothers return to their Maine hometown to help their sister, whose son has been accused of committing a race crime.
BENEDICTION by Kent Haruf
Beautifully paced and understated, a dying man looks back on his life in a small town on the Western prairie.
ALL THAT IS by James Salter
A novel about the literary world when publishing was in its glory days. An editor reflects on a lost world and on his own attempts
to find lasting love.
HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH IN RISING ASIA by Mohsin Hamid
A coming of age story in a country like Pakistan, where the hero goes from poverty to being a ruthless millionaire, and then down
again.
ME BEFORE YOU by Jojo Moyes
An unlikely but immensely affecting love story between a lower class Englishwoman and the quadriplegic man for whom she is
nurse and caretaker.
THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS by M.L. Stedman
When a childless couple who live in a lighthouse find a tiny baby in a boat with a dead man, they face a moral question with many
possible outcomes.
THE SILENT WIFE by A.S.A. Harrison
This year’s Gone Girl, but better.
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
ARCHANGEL by Andrea Barrett
Quiet, beautifully researched stories about interconnected lives whose characters are involved in scientific exploration.
BOBCAT by Rebecca Lee
Intricately structured stories, full of twists and surprises. Amazingly good.
TENTH OF DECEMBER by George Saunders
Darkly satiric stories in which people self destruct. Surreal and bizarre. +
VAMPIRES IN THE LEMON GROVE by Karen Russell
Ebulliently imaginative. Russell is a magician of words and worlds.
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FOOLS by Joan Silber
Some people are fools for love, others devote themselves to losing causes.+
BATTLEBORN by Claire Vaye Watkins
Ten publishing houses competed for this debut collection. Set in Nevada, each story has a core of emotion that persists in the
reader’s mind.
LAST EXIT OVER THE SAGAMORE BRIDGE by Peter Orner
Orner is considered a master of the short story form. Completely satisfying.
I WANT TO SHOW YOU MORE by Jamie Quatro
Provocative, sometimes shocking stories about people on the edge.
THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER by Junot Diaz
Prize-winning stories, written in a Spanish vernacular, sharply observant, funny and profane.
NONFICTION - NEWEST
THE MEN WE REAPED by Jesmyn Ward
Tough, no-holds-barred, heartbreaking story of how young men raised in Mississippi lose their lives to drugs, violence and suicide.
LEVELS OF LIFE by Julian Barnes
Indescribable and masterful. Ballooning, photography and grief—the death of his wife.
BOOK OF AGES by Jill Lepore
Benjamin Franklin’s younger sister, highly intelligent and brave, endured a life of drudgery and domestic tragedy.
NONFICTION - CURRENT
COUNTRY GIRL by Edna O’Brien
A life touched by scandal, unrequited love, betrayal, and enlivened by famous friends and literary renown.
ROTH UNBOUND by Claudia Roth Pierpont
The best analysis of the man and writer that we have so far.
THE SPY WHO LOVED by Clare Mulley
The extraordinary life of a woman born into the Polish aristocracy who became a British spy during World War II.
RESISTANCE by Nechama Tec
Heroic Jews who managed to resist the Nazi genocide. Demolishes the notion that they went to their slaughter without sufficient
protest.
BEND, DON’T BREAK by Ping Fu
Almost incredible story of a Chinese woman who survived brutality of the Gang of Four years and became an entrepreneur in
America.
STILL POINTS NORTH by Leigh Newman
Growing up in Alaska and Baltimore with divorced parents. Major cultural dislocation.
FAR FROM THE TREE by Andrew Solomon
Autism, schizophrenia, deafness, homosexuality—all considered not normal. 700 pages. 20 of them sources and notes. Deeply felt,
humane and beautifully reasoned.
CITIZENS OF LONDON by Lynn Olsen
London during the Blitz. Edward R. Murrow, Averill Harriman and a wonderful man named Gil Winant. Heroes under fire.
MORTALITY by Christopher Hitchens
Essays by a masterful writer as he contemplates his death and the meaning of life.
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