Michael Cunningham is the master of the slow romantic sizzle, and he's at the top of his form here. The sizzlers in this one couldn't be more unlikely, a middle aged man and his sister's good-for-nothing brother. I was excited to enter the SoHo art scene (with artists in Bushwick, of course) and the book inhabits rarified space, indeed. Sleeper of the year, for sure!

I was never so Faulknered by a book before!

I read this deeply layered, extraordinarily literary mystery as slowly as I could because I didn't want the smart language, thick allusions and crackling wit to ever end. Filled with finely wrought characters of students, teachers, and a distinctly professorial dad at a preparatory high school the year before our heroine goes off to Harvard, this tome is filled with real and fake footnotes (references?) designed chiefly for the reader to notice the sheer brilliance of the author.

Others may be bothered by this. I, however, am not. This is a work of staggering genius. And the drawings by the author add a good deal to the enjoyment.

Ms. Pessl is a future superstar.

This is a great read. Period. Forget that it's a great look-at too. Graphic novels are not my thing. Yet I love this.

A rollercoaster treat of gigantic proportion. Buffoonery of the highest order. Immediately followed by the most poignant insight into our culture and where it currently finds itself. Then hilarity again.

If every tenth person in America read Helprin's description of what a soccer mom has versus what a soccer mom wants on page 467 society itself would shift in remarkable ways.

Charles and Diana are in there. As is our Seattle buddy Bill Gates. This book is a marvel. Just give me a great, brilliant, kook with integrity and generosity of spirit for a hero and I'm yours, I guess.

Oooh, this is going to be a biggie. I think Chuck's breaking through, here, with his most accessible romp to date. Filled with his usual gross-outs, of course, but walloping some huge themes just for kicks, but seriously. Biblical shit you swear he's making up, but I'm too biased and lazy to check for sure, and I'd rather believe Chuck's take, anyway. So many things make sense when you do that.

Chabon's my hero. That being said, his mastering-of-every-brand-new-to-him genre is not always as successful as this one.

This book contains the best single sentance in the noir style ever written. Here it is:

The clock on the hospital wall hummed to itself, got antsy, kept snapping off pieces of the night with its minute hand.

The whole thing's this good. Really.

What a gorgeous, stunning rebuttal to any and all controversy. A beautiful book by a genius story teller. Did I just love it because I'm a native Los Angelino? No. Did I love it because A MILLION LITTLE PIECES was a watershed moment? No. I love it because it messes with the truth in a way other authors can only DREAM of messing with the truth. Meanwhile it tells thousands of great stories a little bit, hundreds of great stories a bit, and a few great stories deeply and brilliantly.

Wow! This is one of the rare ones. It makes me wish my 21 year old girl was little again, just so we could read this together about 297 times. It would've added quite a lot.

Heim revisits some of the same motifs from his novel Mysterious Skin, including a vivid, worn-down Kanasas landscape, an unusual mother-and-son relationship, and, most poignantly, people being stolen, abducted, or 'disappeared.' No matter what odd thing happens next, I want to go on the ride with these characters and their ill-advised lives.

It's literature, folks, just like A Million Little Pieces. This was the redemptive story after all the heartbreak of the first. And, no matter what some very powerful people in the media say, they're both brilliant reads told from a voice so fresh and powerful you never forget it. Just like good literature is supposed to do. How in the world can you mix that up with journalism?