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Best Fiction of 2004

Selected by the Burnham Hoyt staff, these were their picks for the best works of fiction from 2004.

	Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke	This thick novel may seem a bit daunting, but the story draws you in and keeps you turning the pages. It is a historical novel with lots of great detail about 19th century Britain. Woven in is the story of a rivalry between two gentleman magicians. Unusual, hard to sum up in a few sentences and definitely worth a try.
	The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat	"Dew Breaker" means torturer and in this novel the torturous history of Haiti is rendered through the life of Ka, a Haitian-American artist living in New York City, and her father, a dew breaker in 1960s Haiti. It’s a book of love, remorse, hope, and rebellion, examining the compromises people make in order to continue living their lives after trauma.
	Someone to Run With by David Grossman	This is the story of Tamar, a young Israeli woman who has lost her dog, and Assaf, a young man from other end of the city, searching for the owner of a stray yellow lab. Maneuvering through the Jerusalem summer on their separate but related teenage quests, tempestuous Tamar and shy Assaf are destined to find themselves and one another. A runaway bestseller in Israel, Someone to Run With is a must read by a celebrated author.

The Religion War	by Scott Adams	In Scott Adams' futuristic sequel to God's Debris: A Thought Experiment, the smartest man in the world goes on a mission to save civilization by stopping a cataclysmic war between Christian and Muslim forces.
Hannah Coulter	by Wendell Berry	This latest installment in the Port William Series recollects life, love and historic events from the perspective of an 80 year-old Kentucky farm matron.
Emma Brown	by Clare Boylan	A 20-page manuscript by Charlotte Bronte serves as the first two chapters of this nuanced novel, relating the experience of an amnesiac, young woman deposited in a London boarding school.
Someone Not Really Her Mother	by Harriet Scott Chessman	Hannah hears what people are saying even though it takes a while to recognize even close family members. Familiar voices evoke memory fragments that help her gradually piece together important life events that include her love child with a British soldier and the granddaughters that remind her so much of herself. Chessman portrays the effects of senile dementia on patient and family in this story that takes place mostly inside Hannah’s head.
Double Shot	by Diane Mott Davidson	Caterer extraordinaire Goldy Schult once again solves the crime in the fictional town of Aspen Meadow. Colorado author Diane Mott Davidson includes a dozen of Goldy's best recipes.
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists	by Gideon Defoe	In what may well be the funniest novel of 2004, the Pirate Captain and his salty crew embark on a raucous adventure, brimming with pirate culture and awash with interesting, historical celebs. Reminiscent in tone to Richard Brautigan's best works, Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists is simultaneously brilliant and absurd.
Night Fall	by Nelson DeMille	A socially prominent couple inadvertently record evidence in a mysterious plane crash while videotaping their adulterous romantic beach rendezvous. To release this tape, however, would involve exposing their liaison. Husband and wife antiterrorist investigators from the FBI and NYPD encounter threatening barriers from their prospective agencies when they reopen the case, try to track down the video, and discover a possible official cover up of the original crash investigation.
Alone at Night	by KJ Erickson	This compelling, fast-paced, multi-layered mystery features a team of “Cold Case” detectives investigating the 1986 disappearance of a young female convenience store clerk who worked alone at night.
Memorial Day	by Vince Flynn	The U.S. is at war with itself again. This second civil war is the white majority against the many groups of minorities and the U.S. government.
The Tarnished Eye	by Judith Guest	A small-town sheriff discovers the shotgun-blasted bodies of a wealthy family, left to unceremoniously swelter in their posh summer cottage. Based on a true, decades-old, unsolved mass murder, this suspenseful novel by the author of Ordinary People was named a Booklist Editors’ Choice of 2004.
The Distance Between Us	by Masha Hamilton	This is the story of a seasoned Middle East war correspondent whose photographer lover is killed beside her in an ambush when they are on the way to an interview.
Lake of Sorrows	by Erin Hart	An American pathologist in Ireland, investigating two recently discovered bodies (one long dead and the other fresh), teams up and falls in love with an archeologist.
Eventide	by Kent Haruf	Familiar characters from Plainsong, including the McPherson brothers and their adoptive daughter and her baby, join with new personalities in this heartwarming story depicting the residents of a rural Colorado community resiliently working through life’s ebbs and flows.
Skeleton Man	by Tony Hillerman	Former Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn comes out of retirement to help investigate what seems to be a trading post robbery involving a teenager and many bodies scattered around the cliffs of the Grand Canyon.
Broken for You	by Stephanie Kallos	An elderly, wealthy divorcee lives alone in her Seattle mansion in Seattle amid thousands of ceramic items, purchased in WWII Europe by her collector father. A medical crisis propels her to dramatically modify her isolated lifestyle as she creates a large network of friends who allow her to loosen the connections to her ceramic family.
The Swallows of Kabul	by Yasmina Khadra	Set in Kabul during the Taliban’s reign, this novel illustrates the complex reality of Afghanistan by telling the story of two couples whose lives intertwine following the stoning to death of a woman accused of being a prostitute. Their stories provide an unflinching yet compassionate look into a society that violence and hypocrisy have brought to the edge of despair.
Here Kitty Kitty	by Jardine Libaire	Strikingly beautiful and seemingly bent toward self-destruction, a SoHo restaurant manager reels through her drug-addled, designer-clothed existence, struggling to come to terms with her mother’s death. Juggling men and chemical substances, Lee searches for meaning and comfort in the simultaneously glamorous and gritty New York cityscape.
Runaway: Stories	by Alice Munro	In her newest collection of short stories, this masterful author once again transforms the mundane world of her characters’ lives into pathos. Many varieties and nuances of love among those characters are unveiled to readers through her prose. The title story, “Runaway”, concerns the unusual friendship between a widow and her young neighbor who wants to leave her ill-tempered, vindictive husband but – even with the widow’s help – can’t.
The Fountain at the Center of the World	by Robert Newman	This acclaimed novel offers a smart, engaging look at the anti-globalization movement. From a rural village in Latin America to the streets of Seattle during the 1999 WTO protests, a chorus of voices demands accountability for corporations that have scorned fundamental human rights in exchange for a higher profit margin. Part cautionary tale, one of the main characters starts out in London as a major player in the corporate spin machine but ends up halfway across the globe in a race to find the cure for a rare tropical disease connected to his birth in an impoverished part of Mexico.
Coal Run	by Tawni O’Dell	Losing his father in a massive Pennsylvania coal mine explosion, a young man grows up to be the town’s most legendary football player. After suffering an injury himself, he becomes a detective whose emotional baggage gets in the way of life and career. He cannot be healed until he comes "home."
My Sister’s Keeper	by Jodi Picoult	A 13 year-old girl whose cord blood and bone marrow have been used to extend the life of her older sister with leukemia seeks medical emancipation when she is asked to give up a kidney. Picoult sensitively and thoroughly probes the effects of a child’s devastating illness on a family.
The Full Cleveland	by Terry Reed	The mother saturates her family in Novenas, the father’s social sensitivities and drinking endanger the family fortunes, and their five children can’t keep their noses out of each others’ business. This poignant, sometimes laughing-out-loud funny story about a family growing up in an upscale Cleveland neighborhood is recounted from the droll perspective of a girl on the brink of adolescence.
Gilead	by Marilynne Robinson	Gilead takes the form of a letter written by the late Reverend John Ames, addressed to his son as a grown-up. It records the turmoil within their family history, going back about to Civil War era, between Rev. Ames' abolitionist grandfather and his pacifist father. This novel has elements of a confessional autobiography in which life lessons learned by the father are passed on to his son as a guide to life.
The Plot Against America	by Philip Roth	What if famous aviator, and Nazi sympathizer, Charles Lindbergh had become President of the United States in 1940? In this novel, Philip Roth weaves fiction and history together, painting a frightening picture of what America might have become.
Miriam the Medium	by Rochelle Shapiro	Her husband’s pharmacy is going belly-up; their daughter, in her stormy adolescence, hooks up with a scary biker; and Miriam, a successful telephone medium, is frustrated in her attempts to help them both. Miriam’s family’s embarrassment with her gift causes her to hold back in this family-wide coming-of-age story.
Light on Snow	by Anita Shreve	Eleven-year-old Nikki and her father have withdrawn to a secluded wooded area far from city life after her mother and one-year-old sister are killed in a car accident. While on a walk one day they find an abandoned newborn baby. The incident gets a lot of press, the baby’s mother – a fugitive – reenters the scene, and the police suspect Nikki’s father of wrongdoing. The event serves as a catalyst that helps father and daughter review and reconcile their losses and proceed with their lives in Anita Shreve’s best novel yet.
The Perfect Age	by Heather Skyler	A young woman growing up in sun-baked Las Vegas spends three summers working as a lifeguard at the Dunes Hotel/Casino swimming pool. We first meet Helen as a shy 15 year-old, dealing with the jealousies of her first boyfriend and questioning the nature of attraction. Following Helen’s course through the subsequent two summers, we learn that the questions vexing Helen plague her mother as well. We watch Helen mature, growing leggy and confident. This wonderful, debut novel captures the nuances of adolescence in a brilliant, modern, coming-of-age tale.
An Unfinished Life	by Mark Spragg	The "unfinished life" of the title is Griffin, the son of Einar and the husband of Jean. Griffin died in an accident that Einar blames on Jean and the two have not seen each other for many years. In fleeing an abusive boyfriend, Jean and her daughter Griff are forced to seek shelter with Einar who grudgingly takes them in. Their weeks together teach them about themselves and each other. Great characters, very evocative descriptions of rural, small town life.
The Amateur Marriage	by Anne Tyler	Michael had been waiting for a woman like Pauline, despite the fact that they are complete opposites. Their marriage is an 'amateur' experience the couple never ever gets good at but their love for one another keeps it afloat through many years of trials and tribulations.
Good Grief	by Lolly Winston	A poignant, honest, sometimes humorous chronicle of a gutsy young widow’s year-long efforts to create new life experiences while working through her grief.
The Shadow of the Wind	by Carlos Ruiz Zafón	A boy is taken to visit the Cemetery of Forgotten Books where he finds one called The Shadow of the Wind. He soon discovers that this is probably the last existing copy of the book and that someone desperately wants to destroy it. A bestseller in Spain and a must read for you.

The book selections displayed in the Burnham Hoyt Room at the Central Library.