Tirra Lirra by the River

by Jessica Anderson

The Story of a Life

by Aharon Appelfeld

Family Happiness

by Laurie Colwin

Operation Heartbreak

by Duff Cooper

Attention all Anglophile WWII buffs: you do not want to miss McNally Editions’ reissue of this fantastic 1950 novel! It’s the life story of a type of Englishman who—although born on January 1, 1900—really belongs to the 1800s, written by a very different type of Englishman who was in almost every room where it happened during the first half of the 20th C. Cooper was a soldier, politician, diplomat, historian, etc., who finally decided to try his hand at fiction and—surprisingly or unsurprisingly—produced this absolute gem. Cunningly crafted, elegantly styled, it’s both delightful and poignant. Now, I know that many of my fellow buffs are also espionage geeks. And while the title and short prologue may clue you into the plot’s set-up, I promise it will not spoil your reading pleasure. Even though I knew where things were heading, this brilliant little book still won the next spot on my 2024 Top Ten list.

The Children’s Bach

by Helen Garner

This book reminded me of the 1983 movie, The Big Chill, but with more nuance and an off-beat soundtrack (and an Australian setting). Published just a year later, it’s also about college classmates from the sixties whose orbits recross in the eighties. But while the film is smugly (says a smug Gen X-er) focused on Boomers’ disillusionment, Garner seems to see the era not as a failed revolution but a nudging open of the doors of convention. After graduating, paterfamilias Patrick and spiky-haired, loft-dweller Elizabeth made different life choices, but Garner never judges, only observes. In fact, she shows us characters through each other’s eyes—with only brief glimpses into their thoughts—making them less knowable, but more alive because of that. I adore Garner’s realism because it’s spare and straightforward and then she’ll throw in a fillip of particularity—a physical detail, a line of dialogue—that almost shifts the tone from fiction to documentary. Garner is a national literary treasure in her native Australia and she deserves a higher profile here. And YOU, Discerning Reader, deserve to be introduced to her unique style and sensibility.

The Talented Mr. Ripley

by Patricia Highsmith

Journey from the North

by Storm Jameson

I don’t often read memoirs but this reissue of two volumes by British writer Storm Jameson falls smack dab in the middle of my current literary sweet spot. Born in the small coastal town of Whitby, Jameson was a young adult during WWI, middle-aged during WWII, and so perfectly placed to watch the transformation of Britain from an empire to a European nation. The journey of the title is her move from the Yorkshire middle class to a kind of meritocratic world citizenry. Her prodigious energy of mind and body kept her continually moving house, traveling abroad, writing and speaking for political causes, all while producing a novel a year. Those books are mostly (deservedly?) out of print. But this one, recollections from her Victorian childhood though her Cold War seventies, is so alive with personality and insight that I couldn’t stop turning its 800+ pages—except when she described an emotion, a vista, or an idea so felicitously that I had to sit back and simply admire.

Astraea

by Kate Kruimink

Ordinary Human Failings

by Megan Nolan

It opens with the typical hook: a missing child. Tom Hargreaves, newbie tabloid hack, takes the bait and is formulating lurid headlines before he even gets to the scene. He plies the suspect’s family with money, alcohol and fake sympathy, but fails to elicit a tale black and white enough for newsprint. I won’t lie—I was reeled in too. But while Tom’s hopes of a scoop are dashed, readers are served something just as compelling and far more satisfying. Your fingers will itch to flip pages but slow down to absorb Nolan’s assured style and deep insight. Most impressive of all are her characters: ordinary—but very particular—people, who with just a few twitches of fate end up in out-of-the-ordinary circumstances. This remarkable second novel may be small, but it is dense with humanity—real human beings as well as all-embracing compassion. And it’s earned the first spot on my Top Ten of 2024.

Rhine Journey

by Ann Schlee

Reading the latest offering from McNally Editions, you might think it’s a reissue of a slim Victorian classic. It’s actually a historical novel that was shortlisted for the 1981 Booker Prize. Schlee not only sets her story in 1851; she seems to transform herself into a lady scribbler of that era. She allows no anachronisms of ideology or tone, understanding that she only has to record women’s daily lives and her modern readers will feel her feminist points more powerfully for having been shown and not told.  Even her sly humor is exactly what you would expect a snarky spinster to indulge in with plausible deniability. Schlee’s writing is precisely calibrated to convey the nuances that carry so much meaning in a repressive atmosphere and her characters—both women and men—are believably (de)formed by the strictures of their times. And she so shrewdly dropped hints to convince me I knew how the story would end, that I was doubly wowed for having been misled.