Bob's Picks

Two friends growing up in the vast Wyoming landscape fall in love the same girl, who, without warning—after some twenty years of marriage to one and friendship with the other—leaves them both. This sets the two men off on a journey across the Rocky Mountain West trailing remnants of their former lives and picking up pieces of a possible future along the way. With witty dialogue, vivid settings and a memorable cast of supporting characters, The Fruit of Stone is a deeply moving novel destined for major awards. —Bob

This excellent work of fiction has three overlapping story lines, two of which share the tone of a well written adventure novel and the other, the mother's tale, takes the reader into the realm of truly great storytelling. The rave review I had read in the New York Times was right on the mark—The Good Son is well crafted, tightly edited, and tough to put down. -Bob

Why would anyone want to read a novel about poetry? Or about a teacher of poetry who can't bring himself to write an intro to an anthology of collected poems for a tidy fee despite having lost his teaching position and needing the income badly? Well, those few, those happy few ardent Nicholson Baker fans who have so deeply enjoyed his previous works will not be disappointed with The Anthologist. In Baker's new novel we share the musings of this thoroughly imperfect man who, despite his shortcomings, offers us many brilliant, fascinating and often laugh-out-loud observations on the world of words. I could only stop reading when the book fell from my hands in the late hours of the night. David Orr, who writes the On Poetry column for the New York Times Book Review, called Nicholson Baker's Anthologist a "tremendous success." —Bob

Redemption is what you seek when you have lost something that is very important—like trust or respect or friendship or the love of a good woman. You can work for redemption, but you can't earn it—some luck is involved. But luck alone won’t get you there. The work is essential. The work is necessary but not always sufficient. So you work and wait and never give up hope. Ron Carlson has written a beautiful story illustrating these very qualities of redemption. It is one of those novels that when you’ve read the last page, you shake your head in wonder how the author has put into words a truth that you know but could never have expressed so precisely or so elegantly. With The Signal Ron Carlson joins Mark Spragg and Kent Haruf in the circle of great western writers. —Bob