Fiction Top Ten - Mid-Year 2013

Here we are at mid-year and fully half of of the titles on my Fiction Top Ten from just three months ago have dropped off this updated list.  I take that as a good omen, one reminding me that there are always more great books on the horizon.  Say what you will about avid readers, we are seldom bored for long.

Fiction Top Ten

Second Quarter Update

1.   Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald - by Therese Anne Fowler (a fictional look at the Fitzgerald marriage that leaves the reader wondering which of the partners was the most reckless)

2.   Light of the World - by James Lee Burke (book number twenty in the Dave Robicheaux series, it proves the author is still at the peak of his writing skills)

3.   The Dinner - by Herman Koch (Dutch novel proving that boys will be boys - and so will their parents)

4.   The Heat of the Sun - by David Rain (Madam Butterfly: The Rest of the Story)

 5.   Tenth of December - by George Saunders (The New York Times called this the "best book you will read in 2013" almost before the year started.  Agree?)

6.   Dear Life - by Alice Munro (Munro officially announced her retirement last week, so unless she has something still in the vault, this will be her last new short story collection) 

7.   Blood Drama - by Christopher Meeks - (the author hits a home run on his first venture into the crime thriller genre)

8.   Havana Lost - by Libby Fischer Hellmann (wonderfully atmospheric novel about Castro, the mob, and generations of family greed)

9.   The Broken Places - by Ace Atkins (third in the author's Quinn Collins series, this is Southern noir at its finest)

10.  Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - by Robin Sloan (a mysterious bookstore with no customers hires a curious new manager)