A song I knew by heart : a novel
by Bret Lott
Lott brings gravitas and a biblical cadence to his story of seventysomething Naomi, a widow forced to confront death once again when her son, Mahlon, is killed in a car accident. As Naomi and her daughter-in-law, Ruth, stumble through the weeks following the funeral in a haze of grief and sadness, Naomi keeps returning to an image from her South Carolina childhood--a slant of light scattered on pine straw. This memory inspires her to move back to her hometown, and her daughter-in-law goes with her: “Where you go, I will go.” Lott's great gift here is the way he elevates the small rituals of everyday life--a child's Thanksgiving drawing, homemade biscuits for breakfast--into transcendent moments of human connection. Although the relationships presented are idealized, with nary a cross word exchanged, they are never less than persuasive. Lott's rhythmic and repetitive phrasing, revealing the source of his inspiration--the Book of Ruth--is both artful and soothing. This is a radiant, achingly tender portrait of the grieving process.

Agape Agape
by William Gaddis
The late William Gaddis wrote four novels during his lifetime, immense and complex books that helped inaugurate a new movement in American letters. Now comes his final work of fiction, a subtle, concentrated culmination of his art and ideas. For more than fifty years Gaddis collected notes for a book about the mechanization of the arts, told via a social history of the player piano in America. In the years before his death in 1998, he distilled the whole mass into a fiction, a dramatic monologue by an elderly man with a terminal illness. This "man in the bed" lies dying, thinking anxiously about the book he still plans to write, grumbling about the deterioration of civilization and trying to explain his obsession to the world before he passes away or goes mad. Agape- Agape continues Gaddis's career-long reflection via the form of the novel on those aspects of the corporate technological culture that are uniquely destructive of the arts. It is a stunning achievement from one of the indisputable masters of postwar American fiction.

Becoming Strangers
by Louise Dean
After more than half a century of marriage, Dorothy and George are embarking on their first journey abroad together. Three decades younger, Jan and Annemieke are taking the last in their tumultuous union. At first the luxury of a Caribbean resort is no match for the habits of domestic life. Then the couples'paths cross, and a series of surprises ensues— a disappearance and an assault, most dramatically, but also a teapot tempest of passions, slights, misunder­ standings, and small awakenings that punctuate a week in which each pair struggles to come to terms with what's been keeping them apart.

Beyond the waves
by Elizabeth Marek
Psychologist Abby Cohen is still reeling from the loss of her beloved daughter when another young girl arrives in her life-twelve-year-old Miranda, who appears at Abby's hospital mute, terrified, and completely alone. In her struggle to connect with this deeply disturbed child and unravel the mystery of her past, Abby must grapple with her own frozen self. Numbed by grief and on the verge of losing her relationship with both her husband and little boy, Abby finds herself tempted to leave behind what is left of the family she once cherished. But something about Miranda and the bond that has begun to form between them awakens Abby's capacity to feel, and reminds her of the power-and the limits-of love.

Mourning Ruby
by Helen Dunmore
When Rebecca's and Adam's daughter, Ruby, dies in a playground accident, their lives are forever changed. In Dunmore's elegant hands, such a simple and sorrowful synopsis is transformed into an elegiac tale of unbearable suffering and unexpected redemption as lyrical and lush as life itself. As an abandoned infant and unwanted adoptee, Rebecca spun romantic stories of her past to compensate for the meager facts of her existence. Only in her role as Ruby's mother did she find her true identity, and when that vanishes, it falls to her old friend, Joe, a writer, and her enigmatic boss, Mr. Damiano, to present her with new stories that will allow her to once more create a life without Ruby. Dunmore portrays Rebecca's palpable grief with a poignant and powerful empathy, an anguish so strong that it envelops the reader in its enormity. Yet Rebecca's story is one to be savored, one whose beauty is haunting and whose message is hopeful. Told with abundant grace and exquisite sensitivity, this is a book to fall in love with, to hold in your heart like a cherished memory.

State of Happiness
by Stella Duffy
Jack and Cindy are immediately attracted to one another from the moment they meet at a friend's party, and in time this first infatuation develops into a passionate and enduring love affair. A celebrated cartographer, Cindy maps the contours of their developing relationship as they explore its depth and test its boundaries. Five years later, Jack and Cindy believe that they have navigated every obstacle when a sudden crisis threatens their blissful state. Cindy falls dangerously ill, and as she battles her body's betrayal, the couple must also confront their diverging paths and uncharted future.

The Life You Longed For
by Maribeth Fischer
In Fischer's wrenching second novel, Grace Connolly's youngest son, three-year-old Jack, is terminally ill following a baffling, heartbreaking diagnosis of mitochondrial disease. At times, Grace, a full-time mother of three with a background in epidemiology, feels that everyone else around her (Jack's medical specialists; husband Stephen) has given up hope. Desperate to reclaim her "normal" life, Grace reignites a romance with her first love.

The Poet of Tolstoy Park
by Sonny Brewer
In 1925, when 67-year-old Henry Stuart is given a year to live, the path he must follow is immediately clear. Stuart leaves his Idaho home and moves to a ten-acre patch of isolated paradise in Fairhope, AL, which was founded by freethinker Henry George—who shared Stuart's love of Tolstoy. Stuart's decision shocks his sons and his lifelong friend, Preacher Will Webb, but his drive to live out the remainder of his life in simplicity and solitude is irresistible. Once he lands in Fairhope, Stuart's all-consuming project is to build a round shelter of cement and eat only food that he grows himself. First novelist Brewer brings honor to this real-life, little-known eccentric, from whom we could learn a great deal.

You're Not You
by Michelle Wildgen
College student Bec is dangerously adrift. Self-conscious and increasingly uncertain about her long-term plans, she's studying a major that no longer interests her and is caught up in a bewildering affair with a married professor. In an impulsive attempt to redeem herself, she answers a want ad seeking a caregiver. What she finds is a wealthy, cultivated woman in her midthirties. Once an advertising executive, accomplished chef, and skilled decorator, Kate is now in the advanced stages of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). She and her husband, Evan, handle their situation with mordant humor, careful planning, and a lot of determination. Yet while Bec perceives the couple as charmingly frank and good-humored, strains exist beneath the surface. Bec is soon a vital part of her employer's household, and their increasing closeness transforms both women's lives and their relationships.