A Highly Unlikely Scenario (Rachel Cantor)

This is an odd story, set in a strange future where the main social conflicts are between philosophies of  fast food chains and the nature of time and reality are breaking down. A few people are thrown together to save the world: Leonard, a Pythagorian who handles phone complaints for Neetsa Pizza; Felix, his nephew with unexplained super powers; Sally, a book guide from the university; and an assortment of dead people, including Leonard's grandfather, Marco Polo, and Roger Bacon. The action is absurd, funny, and, in the end, satisfying. Nothing happens the way you think it will, but it all works out. I enjoyed it.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce)

This is a charming, gentle, life-affirming book, though there is a lot of dark material there.  Harold and Maureen are living in a cold, empty marriage in a cold, empty house, when Harold gets a letter saying that an old friend is facing death on the other side of England, and it shakes him. He heads out to mail her a letter of sympathy, but simply keeps walking, heading north to be with her in her last days. His walk takes on mythic dimensions, and helps him and Maureen work separately on the issues that keep them apart. The big reveal toward the end is not actually much of a surprise, but it all fits together. I found it moving and engaging, and felt that I got to know the characters well.

Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson)

This is a big book with an amazing number of threads: math, computers, cryptography, World War II, treasure hunting, data security, hacking, and more. At first, the two halves of the story (WWII and present day) seem connected only by the last names of some of the characters and the general theme of cryptography, but by the end everything has come together. I enjoyed all the science geekery, presented in a way that is accessible but also accurate, and was completely caught up in the personal stories of loyalty, trust, and love. Highly recommended.

Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood)

This tragic and gripping post-apocalyptic tale jumps back and forth through the life of young Jimmy who grows into solitary, doomed Snowman. It starts grimly enough, with the world divided into the gated, guarded, isolated Compounds of the elite, and the desolate, chaotic Pleeblands. As Jimmy grows, the world lurches more an more into an ecological disaster. He befriends a cynical genius named Crake, and finally meets Oryx, the object of his childhood fantasies, just as the final catastrophe befalls the human race. The origins of that catastrophe, and how it relates to Crake, Oryx, and the strange people who survive, makes for an enthralling, heartbreaking story.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (Aimee Bender)

I loved this strange, compelling story. At the age of nine, Rose discovers that when she eats she can tell the innermost secrets of the people who made the food. Over the years this ability torments her, as she discovers things about her family she wished she didn't know and finds eating anything not made by machine a trial. With her, we discover even deeper family secrets, from her grandparents, through her parents, to her brother. The brother's part of the story was especially meaningful to me; I have a son with Asperger's Syndrome who relates poorly to people and spends most of his time in front of a computer, so Joseph's ordeal almost tore me apart. The air of magic blended perfectly with the reality of how Rose worked out her own successful life. Undeniably tragic, the story held a core of empathy and caring that pulled me in. Highly recommended.

Djibouti (Elmore Leonard)

A thriller centered on an American woman making a documentary about Somali pirates, who gets ties up in an al Quaeda plot to blow up a ship loaded with liquified natural gas. One man in particular, an African American who turns to Islam and terrorism in prison because it gives him a chance to shoot people and blow things up, becomes her nemesis, and the last part of the book is about trying to find him before he manages to find her and kill her. The dialogue is excellent and the characters real and intriguing, but I couldn't really get into a sense of danger. Perhaps this is because I read it as an e-book, on a tiny screen. I still don't know how this affects my response to a story.

Dead Until Dark (Charlaine Harris)

I only read this because it was the first ebook I got on the waiting list for at the library, and I'm still into this new technology. I did actually finish it, but I never would have if it weren't such a cool techy thing. It's basically a romance novel with vampires. The heroine is pretty tough and smart - it's certainly 1000 times better than Twilight! - but it's all about trying to find true love, and sex scenes. The plot was short on logic, and there was no support for the various magical abilities people have. But Bubba was a nice touch.

The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday (Alexander McCall Smith)

This quiet, charming book describes the inner life of a thoughtful, caring Scottish woman, a philosopher and new mother, in a loving relationship with the baby's father. There are a couple of minor mysteries, but no real detection as such. It was peacefully enjoyable. The big news about this is that it was the first book I checked out of the library electronically and read entirely on my iPod Touch. I always said I would get a book reader when I could get library books on it, and now I don't need to buy a reader - my existing device will do it. The technology certainly isn't fully mature yet (there aren't enough titles or copies, so there's a waiting list for almost everything, and no good way to search the list), but it's still quite a milestone.