FICTION FAVORITES

The Children’s Book A.S. Byatt (Knopf, $26.95) This big, bold, and ambitious novel tells the story of a group of artists—playwrights, potters, puppeteers, and writers—in the last years of the 19th century and leading up to the onset of the First World War. At the center is Olive Wellwood, a writer of fairy stories, her large family, and a close-knit group of Fabians (a progressive British political movement that laid the foundation of today’s Labour Party) and their children. The two families share parties, vacations, artistic workshops, and trips abroad, oblivious of the dark political clouds that will so dramatically change everything. This is a rich historical novel of ideas and aesthetics, showcasing a fascinating and too-little-explored period.

Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel
(Holt, $27)
The latest Booker Prize-winner opens in 1527, as Henry VIII is trying to get rid of his wife of sixteen years, Katherine. He is interested in Anne Boleyn, a well-connected young woman at court who has kept him interested by refusing to consummate their relationship until they are married.  Thomas Cromwell is the King’s man to move things along. Cromwell’s eye is on the main chance. “You don’t get on by being original. You don’t get on by being bright. You don’t get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook.” Although society no longer burns people at the stake or beheads them, jockeying for political position and religious hysteria endure. The book’s appeal is not only in its oft-told story, but Mantel’s particular telling of the story. Humor and horror are close together—that is a characteristic of Mantel’s writing and what gives her narrative so much power.

The Museum Of Innocence Orhan Pamuk (Knopf, $28.95) Kemal is a rising young businessman about to become engaged to the ideal woman, when he falls in love with 18-year-old Fusun, a boutique clerk. As this new relationship bursts over him, Kemal is so impassioned that he doesn’t see why he can’t have a wife and a lover. Both women dump him, but he remains obsessed with Fusun, eventually tracking her down and courting her for eight years, even though she’s married by then. Kemal, though self-absorbed, is so earnest and inventive in his plans and theories that he’s an unexpectedly engaging protagonist. And the inward focus of his emotional story is balanced by his habit of collecting objects for his museum. Started as part of his obsession, this collection of figurines, candles, glasses—anything related to Fusun—expands to document a wide range of Turkish life from the mid-1970s on. In fact Pamuk, the Nobel laureate, has been working for the last decade to establish such a museum as a tribute to his own enduring beloved, Istanbul.