March's Pick: On Beauty

March's Book Club selection is On Beauty by Zadie Smith.

New Year's Book Predictions

With each passing calendar year, the tendency is to make resolutions or set new goals for the coming year. While I don't usually make resolutions, I feel that a few reading resolutions are in order. This month, I will outline a couple of these modest goals that I will set for myself in 2013. 

1. Read a Zadie Smith novel. 

My wife is always a little surprised that I haven't read any Zadie Smith novels yet - she always assumes that I have read Zadie Smith before. So I guess it makes sense for me to finally read a Zadie Smith novel. 

 We own the first three, and NW just came out this September. I think I will start with the one that catapulted Smith into the international literary scene: On Beauty. Look for it in a review in 2013! 

Fall Preview - Books to Read This Fall

Many, many publications and blogs have been looking forward to Fall as there are several heavyweights releasing books in the next few months. The first to be released is Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan - reviews are mixed so far, but I like Kerry's review at Pickle Me This. There's also novels by Michael Chabon, Zadie Smith, and Junot Diaz, which promise to be great (however, Jennifer Egan doesn't think so: read here and here).

A couple of (gasp) overrated forthcoming releases are The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling and a "new" novel from Roberto Bolano. Who knows? Rowling may surprise some readers, but those expecting the charm of Harry Potter will be disappointed, I am sure. Bolano has been dead for a few years now, but his manuscripts keep popping up.

Two other books that I am looking forward to are on the non-fiction list: Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie and Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace by D.T. Max. Rushdie is a brilliant writer and his memoir about his life in hiding while a fatwa was placed on him should be great reading. David Foster Wallace's life story is compelling and this first biography of him will be just as compelling.

Read the Toronto Star's most anticipated books of the fall in this article.

June Selection Poll

I like to use a theme to select potential book club reads, and for June I was drawing a blank, so I decided upon a British writers theme, based mostly on titles sitting on my bookcase that I have yet to read. So, the list of nominees for the June selection are as follows:

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

I've read Mitchell's Black Swan Green and really enjoyed it, and Cloud Atlas has been up there on my to be read list. Mitchell plays with linearity, telling the story across several generations and through several characters. Its structure is essentially 12 short stories that make up the whole of the novel. Interesting enough to try, anyhow. Here are two views that, in my mind, add to the hype: Reading Matters and this one.

The Believers - Zoë Heller
Zoë Heller is also the author of Notes on a Scandal: What Was She Thinking? that was made into a pretty good movie with Cate Blanchett a few years back. Her latest novel is a "layered and utterly assured study of a family driven by political passion whose personal lives refuse to comply with prescribed ideology." So it's funny and bittersweet and sharp, and brilliant, according to this critic. Sounds interesting!

On Beauty - Zadie Smith
Another modern classic of the British family, Smith's novel was shortlisted for every major award in 2006, winning the Orange Broadband Prize which celebrates female authors. I've read a number of reviews and synopses of On Beauty, and I can only say that it intrigues me more. Her writing is celebrated, the characters are celebrated, the cultural and social issues are celebrated, and, of course, she's celebrated. It sounds delightful.

So there's the three. After researching these three I feel that it is not a question of if I will read them, but in what order. Which will be first? You decide. Poll opens tomorrow.