Versailles, Kathryn Davis

"Versailles" reads more like poetry than a novel. This short work of fiction is a collection of vignettes, snapshots from the life of Marie Antoinette. Davis' language is lyrical and evocative, but don't expect a solid storyline. It's helpful to have at least a basic familiarity with Marie Antoinette's life before you begin. "Versailles" is more the idea of a book than a finished product -- experimental perhaps, but I think not really a successful experiment. I didn't know what to expect, and yet I am disappointed. The cover, however, is beautiful.

Daughter's Keeper, Aylet Waldman

Elaine and Olivia are mother and daughter, whose tug-of-war over affection hasn't devastated their lives, but is nonetheless inexorable. The stakes of this relationship become higher when Olivia is charged with drug trafficking and must move back in with her mother while she prepares for trial. The picture is further complicated when Olivia discovers she is pregnant by a young Mexican man whose desperation for work inspired him to try dealing drugs. Elaine's fiance, an emotionally distant exercise enthusiaist, loves to cook but is totally uninterested in participating in the situation. Waldman's characters are so easy to identify with that the book sucks you into its emotional turmoil, leaving you ready to cry even after you walk away from it. For all that, the plot is fairy tale predictable, the ending as satisfying as a plate of homemade macaroni and cheese.

Lost in a Good Book, Jasper Fforde

Thursday Next, SpecOps Literary Detective and Jurisfiction Prose Resource Operative, keeps on her toes as she dashes in and out of books, meets crotchety literary figures and keeps the world from turning into pink frosting. Jasper Fforde's second book in the Thursday Next series isn't any easier to follow if you've read the first, but is nonetheless a merry, pun-laden romp. Yes, I used the word "romp"; it was especially meant to describe a book like this and I'm not just being pretentious. Or only a little pretentious. I've meandered into a tangent like this in order to avoid actually describing the plot of this book to you. Let's just say this: it's really fantastic fantasy, and Fforde doesn't feel the need to explain his "science." In his England there are Shakespeare fans so rabid they assume the identity of Anne Hathaway, inventors that make scone dough that never leaves behind any waste, and people keep dodos as pets. Oh, and they've cloned neanderthal man; they drive the trains.

Lost, Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire's two previous books gave the Wicked Witch of the West and Cinderella's stepsister a voice -- his retellings of popular fairy tale fantasy were very successful. "Lost" is a depature from that genre into pure fantasy. Winifred Rudge, author and possible descendent of Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge, has writer's block. Upon arriving for a visit to England, Winifred finds her cousin missing, a ghost haunting his chimney, and a dotty elderly neighbor who gets less dotty and more senile as time goes on. Winifred sets about solving these mysteries with gusto, happily ignoring her own problems while she does it. Things go from mad to madder when she is possessed by the spirit of an medieval Frenchwoman who needs to know whether her child lived when she died. "Lost" intrigues and confuses.

Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee

Why is it that the really good books are so sad? J. M. Coetzee's "Disgrace" won the 1999 Booker Prize, as well it should. David Lurie, a lackluster communications professor in Cape Town, engages in a little peccadillo with one of his students, bringing his career to a precipitous end. The novel follows his exploration of the state of disgrace, which he inhabits with deliberation. While visiting his daughter's farm in the Eastern Cape, Lurie and Lucy are attacked -- and Lurie can understand nothing about the reactions of those around him. The book's writing is quietly effective, leaving you genuinely disturbed.

Sleepyhead, Mark Billingham

I picked this one up for its interesting premise: the killer doesn't want his victims to die, but to put them into a permanent vegetative state (a coma) yet still cognizant of everything happening around them. He's not all that successful, however, and manages to kill all but one of his young, female victims. Sadly, though the book begins well, it spins off wildly into trite detective fiction standards, including flashbacks, intuitions and surprise endings. There is little new here besides the initial premise, which is never fully explored. Nonetheless, "Sleepyhead" is competently written and keeps you turning the pages.

The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo, Paula Huntley

These are selections from a journal Paula Huntley kept while teaching English in Kosovo in 1999, while her husband volunteered his legal expertise. There is so much thoughtful material to appreciate here -- Huntley's rose-tinted profiles of her students, her discomfort with America's role in Kosovo, the occasional funny moment of cultural misunderstanding, a look at a country most of us will never visit. Her faith in people is rewarded by her students' appreciation and efforts. Together, Huntley and her students read Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, a book that becomes an expression of hope for the future of the students as individuals and for Kosovo as a country.

Old School, Tobias Wolff

Old School is the story of a boy's prep school and of one boy's literary aspirations. Our hero is a scholarship boy who works hard to fit in, masking his personality and hiding a secret he seems to feel will have serious social repercussions. During a school literary competition, things go first very right and then very wrong. Will our hero ever become a writer? Wolff's book is beautifully written and his descriptions of life at a boy's school are lyrically beautiful. Nevertheless the book has some plot flaws that distract from the main thrust of the theme, and the book ties up just a little too neatly in excusing the main character's misdeeds. Wolff is to be admired for creating a character a very real set of fears and secrets. The cameo appearances by Ayn Rand and Robert Frost are highly comical.