Bright, precious days, by Jay McInerney

Thirty-two years after McInerney’s novel Bright Lights, Big City made his reputation, he is back again on his old stomping grounds.  Yet another New York City story, which references his earlier book in the title.  I, however, found the word “precious” in the title to be more descriptive.  Although it is a compulsive read and very well written, it is hard to sympathize overly with the privileged characters’ problems, most of which are of their own making.  Corrine and Russell Calloway are a long married couple with twin children in their early adolescence.  Although successful -- Russell heads a small but well-respected literary publishing house -- they are not as financially comfortable as some of their peers and still live in their original, crumbling, loft apartment in Tribeca.  Corrine left a better-paying career post-9/11 to work for a non-profit that distributes healthy vegetables to poorer residents.  She began a short-lived affair with a wealthy man she met working at a soup kitchen immediately following the terrorist attacks.  When he reappears six years later, she is once again drawn into a relationship with him.  Meanwhile, Russell has bet everything on a book by an acquaintance who has written an account of his kidnapping and escape from the Taliban in Pakistan while at the same time dealing with a volatile young author whose book of short stories has become a literary sensation.  The Calloways best friends are also involved in various infidelities (and Russell has had more than one dalliance himself).  Inevitably, these deceptions, as well as the book deal, all blow up in their faces right in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis.  The writing is vivid and the author is obviously well-entrenched in both the fashionable and rarified world his characters move in and the publishing scene he describes.  But it left me cold. 397 pp.

Sweetbitter, by Stephanie Danler

Twenty-six year old Tess goes to The Big City from the provinces and unexpectedly lands her first job at a renowned New York restaurant.  Her tastes are unformed, but the manager senses something in her that will lead to her becoming a “fifty-one percenter,” someone who exceeds expectations.  Chef tells her it “is all about balance.  The sour, the salty, the sweet, the bitter.  Now your tongue is coded.  A certain connoisseurship of taste, a mark of how you deal with the world, is the ability to relish the bitter, to crave it even, the way you do the sweet.”  As Tess learns to love oysters, develops her wine palate, and is introduced to the world behind the scenes of a famous restaurant, she also falls in with the staff, who after a frenetic night of making diners happy, retreat in the small hours to a local bar.  There there are drugs, lots of booze, and romantic and sexual intrigue.  The novel follows Tess in her first year in Manhattan and Williamsburg as she comes into her own and learns some hard lessons.  The book won’t necessarily make you want to eat in a restaurant anytime soon.  352 pp.

Relic

Relic by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child  382 pp.

This is the novel that introduced the world to FBI Agent Aloysius Pendergast, the mysterious southern aristocrat who is a mystery unto himself. In the days before the opening of a grand new exhibit at the New York Museum of Natural History two young boys are found brutally murdered in the museum basement. Soon more victims are discovered and the museum scientists realize that what they are dealing with is neither human nor animal but a combination of the two. Agent Pendergast arrives on the scene from New Orleans to assist in the investigation. The museum killings are strikingly similar to unsolved ones he investigated many years before. In spite of warnings, the museum goes ahead with its lavish exhibit opening...to disastrous results. Preston & Child have taken the character of Pendergast to new levels in subsequent books.

Pale Fire

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov 239 pp.

This novel is a 999 line poem written by the fictional character John Shade just before his death. The rest of the story is a foreward and detailed commentary by Shade's neighbor and fellow professor, the equally fictional Charles Kinbote. The poem covers aspects of Shade's life including the death of his daughter and his attempts at understanding the powers that may control the universe and its inhabitants. However, the commentary is not just about the poem. The somewhat deranged Kinbote carries on about his own story, his supposed friendship with Shade, a story about the missing king of his home country of Zembla. Key in this commentary is Kinbote's belief that the poem Shade was writing before his murder was to be the story of the deposed king. Is Kinbote this King Charles II living incognito as an exile from his homeland or is he just deranged and there is no such person or place. Nabokov leaves it to the reader to decide.

The Cabinet of Curiousities

The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child  466 pp.

A serial killer is loose in New York City in the eighth book in the Agent Pendergast series. But is it possible that the killer is really over one hundred years old? The murders are spectacularly brutal and Pendergast, archaeologist Nora Kelly, and journalist Bill Smithback are trying to stop him before he kills even more victims. The clues lead back to a late nineteenth century "Cabinet of Curiosities" (museum of the strange and macabre).and a man's brutal experiments in immortality. How is Agent Pendergast connected to these crimes? And will Pendergast and the others stop the killer or become his victims. This is a good, if gruesome mystery/thriller.

Hot Milk

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy, 218 pages.
Deborah Levy, has written a number of books, including a novel, Swimming Home,which was shortlisted for the Booker in 2012,of which I have to confess I was unaware. She is a really good writer though; quiet, fun, and engaging, so this was my loss. Sofia, our protagonist, is an all-but-dissertation anthropologist who was working as a barista and caring for her mother, a self-centered and controlling hypochondriac named Rose. Sofia has been relying in turn on her mother for financial support. She and Rose have now traveled from England to Almeria, in southern Spain, to see specialist Dr. Gomez in the hope that he can somehow help  Rose with her ever growing list of imagined maladies. In Almeria Sofia encounters jellyfish and attractive strangers and begins to see a way back to her own life. Sofia is a charming character, unembarrassed by her many flaws and aware of all that she is quietly enduring. She and other characters talk about the confusion they face in their lives, the effect that others have upon them, and the roles they are forced to play, A well-written and enjoyable book.

Razor Girl

Razor Girl by Carl Hiaasen, 333 pages.
Former police detective, and current health inspector, Andrew Yancy returns in this second novel set among the more ethically challenged citizens of the Florida Keys. While tagging along with his former partner, and hoping to get back in the sheriff's good graces and return to the police force, Yancy meets Merry Mansfield, a specialist in faked car accidents. Merry's specialty gives rise to the title. There's a lot going on in this book, with reality TV stars, mobsters, and, as with Yancy's debut, Bad Monkey, neighbors who want to block the main character's view.
A fun read for fans of Hiassen.

Pax

Pax by Sarah Pennypacker, 276 pages.
When his father goes off to war, young Peter agrees out of necessity to return his pet fox, Pax, to the wild, but immediately regrets his decision. Left with his grandfather, a man who seems to have no love for him, Peter decides to run away, after Pax, and then back home. He embarks on a quest to recover his best friend without too much planning, and runs into trouble fairly soon. Vola, a wounded war veteran, grudgingly offers assistance. Despite injury and delay, Peter is determined to be reunited with Pax. Pax, who is telling his side of the story, tries to stay alive and deal with the wild world as he waits to be reunited with Peter.
A bit didactic, and though it is lacking in wizards, mythological creatures, or vampires, Pax is a decent story.

The Girls

The Girls by Emma Cline, 355 pages.
Evie is a semi-lost teen in the waning years of hippiedom, in the late 1960s. Her father has moved on and her mother is mostly interested in her own happiness. Evie is drawn into the orbit of a Manson-like character, Russell, not because of his charisma, but because of what she feels for Suzanne, one of Russell's inner circle. Part of the book is told with Evie looking back from years later, and part of it is told as it was happening then. Evie and all of the characters are well-drawn, and it is an interesting and emotionally rich tale. Or maybe I really need to write this before I forget the whole story. I know that I enjoyed it, that I listened to part of it on audio, and that I enjoyed that too, but honestly I wrote the first part of this a while ago, and the year is almost over so I am going with this as my review.

Beowulf

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney, 213 pages.
Teju Cole, in the introduction to his book of essays, Known and Strange Things, tells how when he is shopping for a new pen he tests the candidates out by writing the first page of Heaney's 2000 translation of this (more than) thousand year old Anglo Saxon tale which he had memorized. I am assuming that he meant the  "So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled then had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns."
and not the "Hwaet we Gar-Dena in gear-dagum peod cyninga . . ." part.
So, the tale of the Geat warrior, Beowulf, and his battles with Grendel and then with Grendel's mother, retold by one of this century's (and the last one) greatest poets. Heaney, who died in 2013, has made this classic poem exciting and accessible for generations to come.
Plus it's the bilingual edition, so double page points.