Jami Attenberg, The Middlesteins: A Novel (New York: Grand Central, 2012) (See Julie Orringer, "Suburban Sprawl," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 12/30/2012.).
Emma Donoghue, Astray (New York & Boston: Little, Brown, 2012) (From "Counting the Days": "What distances cannot be traveled by the gaze of Love?" Id. at 77, 88. Also see, Brooke Allen, "far From Home," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 11/4/2012.).
Nell Freudenberger, The Newlyweds: A Novel (New York: Knopf, 2012) ("If you wanted one thing too much, she had said, God sometimes found a way to show you your mistake." Id. at 26.).
Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior: A Novel (New York: Harper, 2012) (CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING ARE REAL. AND WE ARE RESPONSIBLE, BOTH AS THE PRINCIPAL CAUSE AND FOR OUR FAILURE TO OWN UP TO OUR CONTRIBUTION AND TO ADDRESS IT, WE DON"T HAVE TO CONTINUING LIVING OUR LIVES AS WE DO IN SELFISH, SHORTSIGHTED STUPIDITY AND IGNORANCE. That is what this book is about. Our individual and collective irresponsibility. "She thought of a magazine article that advised keeping your marriage sexy by closing the bathroom door. She couldn't remember whether she'd actually read that article, or just wished someone would write it." Id. at 42-43. "Christmas tree farms were just proof that every gone thing came back around again, with a worse pay scale." Id. at 51. "Dellarobia studied the label on the jar. It had so many warnings, if you read all the way to the end you'd probably want to run for your life." Id. at 79. "She was embarrassed that her five-year-old was asking questions that had not occurred to her." Id. at 93. "I never learn anything listening to myself." Id. at 122. "'Are we speaking of Bear Turnbow's morals? Oh, just a minute. Let me wave some money in the air and see which way his morals turn.'" Id. at 165. "The equipment was not necessarily new. Most of it, in fact, seemed to be older than she was, 'pre-Reagan administration,' they both remarked dolefully, as if that had been some Appomattox Court House with the scientists on the losing end." Id. at 216. "'The official view of a major demographic...is that we aren't sure about climate change. It's too confusing. So every environmental impact story has to be make into something else. Sex it up if possible, that's what your news people drove out here for. It's what sells.'" "For God's sake, man,' Ovid nearly shouted, 'the damn globe is catching fire, and the islands are drowning. The evidence is staring them in the face.'" Id. at 230-231. "A world where you could count on nothing you'd ever known or trusted, that was no place you wanted to be. Insofar as any person could understand that, she believed she did." Id. at 325. "'Here is my full statement. What you [that is, the news media] are doing is unconscionable. You're allowing the public [that is, you and me] to be duped by a bunch of damned liars [that is, public relations firms].' Tine raised both hands. 'Like I could even use that word on TV.' Ovid clipped the mike bock on his lapel and managed a fair reconstruction of hi normal grin, the full revelation of eyeteeth. 'Sorry,' he said, 'You are allowing the public to be duped by a bunch of damned prevaricators.' 'O-kay,' Tina said. 'That's a wrap.'" Id. at 369. Also, see Dominique Browning, "The Butterfly Effect," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 11/11/2012.).
Lois Lowry, Son (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2012) ("Then she remembered what Einar had told her: When something went wrong--and it's sure that something will, he had said--you stopped to think, then found a way around it." Id. at 249. "'Evil can do anything, Gabe,' Mentor said, 'for a price.'" Id. at 328. Also see, Robin Wasserman, "The Searcher," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 10/14/2012).
Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Body: A Novel (New York: Henry Holt, 2012) ("'Madam, I have no time for wooing. I am fifty. At my age one would be the loser on a long-term contract. If I want a woman, best rent one by the hour.'" Id. at 24-25. "'Men will tell you that they are so in love with you that it is making them ill. They will say they have stopped eating and sleeping. They say that they fear unless they can have you they will die. Then, the moment you give in, they get up and walk away and lose interest. The next week they will pass you by as if they don't know you.'" Id. at 198. Both Wolf Hall (2009) and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, won the Man Booker Prize.).
Alison Moore, The Lighthouse (Cromer, United Kingdom: Salt, 2012).
Alice Munro, Dear Life: Stories (New York: Knopf, 2012) (From "Train": "Jackson of course knew that books existed because people sat down and wrote them. They didn't just appear out of the blue. But why, was the question. There were books already in existence, plenty of them. Two of which he had read at school. A Tale of Two Cities and Huckleberry Finn, each of them with language that wore you down through in different ways. And that was understandable. They were written in the past." "What puzzled him, though he didn't intent to let on, was why anybody would want to sit down and do another one, in the present. Now." Id. at 175, 187. Also, see Charles McGrath, "The Sense of an Ending," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 11/18/2012.).
Marie NDiaye, Three Strong Women: A Novel, translated from the French by John Fletcher (New York: Knopf, 2012) ("But she had been ignorant of the fact that evil can have a kindly face, that it cold be accompanied by a delightful little girl, and that it could be prodigal in love . . . she knew that now. Id. at 23. "Had he become the sort of man feared by women and despised by other men, especially strong men capable of self-restraint....?" Id. at 13-139. From the bookjacket: "This is the story of three women who say no: Norah, a French-born lawyer who finds herself in Senegal, summoned by her estranged, tyrannical father to save another victim of his paternity; Fanta, who leaves a modest but contented life as a teacher in Dakar to follow her white boyfriend back to France, where his delusional depression and sense of failure poison everything; and Khady, a penniless widow put out by her husband's family with nothing but the name of a distant cousin (the aforementioned Fanta) who lives in France, a place Khady can scarcely conceive but toward which she must now take desperate flight." "With lyrical intensity, Marie NDiaye masterfully evokes the relentless denial of dignity, to say nothing of happiness, in these lives caught between Africa and Europe. We see with stunning emotional exactitude how ordinary women discover unimagined reserves of strength, even as their humanity is chipped away. Three Strong Women admits us to an immigrant experience rarely if ever examined in fiction, but even more into the depths of the suffering heart.").
Joyce Carol Oates, Black Dahlia & White Rose: Stories (New York: Ecco, 2012) (From "Run Kiss Daddy": "He hadn't yet grasped this simple fact of human relations--the more readily you give, the more readily it will be taken from you as what you owe." Id. at 93, 97. From "Spotted Hyenas: A Romance": "...No animal has quite the undeserved reputation as the hyena--the 'laughing hyena.' Jackals, vultures, any sort of scavenger--you'd think people would be intelligent enough to realize that, in the ecological scheme of things, all creatures are 'equal'--all have 'equal' status. Without scavengers, without maggots--where would we be?'" Id. at 187, 214-215.).
Joyce Carol Oates, Two or Three Things I Forgot To Tell You (New York: HarperTeen, 2012) "Merissa had been afraid--just a little, putting herself in Hannah's place--....that Hannah would be hurt, and envious, and even resentful, for it is not nearly so easy to be happy for your closest friend's good news as it is to (secretly) rejoice in your closest friends bad news." Id. at 3. "Merissa had heard of these girls and had always thought they must be mentally ill, or neurotic--to cut themselves with something sharp! It had seemed just too weird, like pulling out your hair a single strand at a time--why would anyone want to do such a thing?" Id. at 49. "Always tell an adult what she/he wants to hear. Especially if it's an adult with authority over you...." "This was Tink's philosophy: Promise them any damn thing, then do whatever damn thing you were going to do anyway." Id. at 128.This is something that many who think of themselves as 'good judges of character" don't get about young adults, including law students. The jokes is on us! "Never would Nadia tell or report sexting. Worse than being a whiner was being a snitch." Id. at 203.).
J. K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy (New York, Boston & London: Little, Brown, 2012) (Also, see Amanda Foreman, "New Faces of Evil," NYT Book Review, Sunday, October 28, 2012.).
Tatiana de Rosnay, Sarah's Key (New York; St. Martin's Press, 2007) ("'Sorry for not knowing. Sorry for being forty-five years old and not knowing.'" Id. at 249.).
Tatiana de Rosnay, A Secret Kept (New York: St. Martin's 2009, 2010) ("'The first question is, do you want to know, Antoine? Do you really want to find out?" 'Of course! Why are you asking?' The crooked smile, again. 'Because sometime it's easier not to know. Sometimes truth hurts.'" Id. at 173.).
Zadie Smith, NW: A Novel (New York: The Penguin Press, 2012) (46. Pause for an abstract idea[:] In households all over the world, in many languages, this sentence usually emerges, eventually: 'I don't know you anymore.' It was always there, hiding in some private corner of the house, biding its time. Stacked with the cups, or squeezed between the DVDs or another terminal format. 'I don't know you anymore!'" Id. at 230. "57. Ambition[:] They were going to be lawyers, the first people in either of their families to become professionals. They thought life was a problem that could be soled by means of professionalization." Id. at 238.).
M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans: Novel (New York; Scribner, 2012) ("It is a luxury to do something that serves no practical purpose: the luxury of civilization." Id. at 35. "The old clock in the kitchen wall still clicked its minutes with fussy punctuality. A life had come and gone and nature had not paused a second for it. The machine of time and space grinds on, and people are fed through it like grist through the mill." Id. at 90. "A lighthouse is for others; powerless to illuminate the space closest to it." Id. at 185. "'...We live with the decisions we make, Bill. That's what bravery is. Standing by the consequences of your mistakes.'" Id. at 258.).
Cheryl Strayed, Torch: A Novel (Boston & New York: A Mariner Book/ Houghton Mifflin, 2005, 2007).
Elizabeth Taylor, Angel, with an introduction by Hilary Mantel (New York: New York Review Books, 1957, 2006, 2011).
Karen Thompson Walker, The Age of Miracles: A Novel (New York: Random House, 2012) ("Sometimes the saddest stories take the fewest words...." Id. at 265.).
