Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch

In this book PC Grant goes underground when a US Senator's son is found stabbed in the back in the Baker Street tube station. Aaronovitch does a great job developing his characters--his stories have real consequences, and these consequences play out in real ways. The landscape of the stories is also rich: you really feel like you're in London. There are a number of Lord of the Rings references, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The faceless man (the big bad introduced in the last book) is still hovering, but I think that adds to the series's appeal. If you're a fan of Harry Dresden, these books should appeal to you.

Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

This book finds PC Grant solving the mysterious deaths of jazz musicians during or just after gigs. It took a while for me to figure out where the plot was headed--the book didn't necessarily cohere as well as the first one, but in the end it was worth it. I particularly liked the way that the story added a big bad: an ethically challenged magician who went rogue sometime after World War II and is apparently training others in his nefarious ways. I'm looking forward to seeing where this series is going.

The Conjure Stories by Charles W. Chesnutt

These stories are told in a frame narrative: a white couple, John and Annie, move from Ohio to North Carolina in an attempt to improve her health and to make money farming. When they arrive in the South, they find their plantation is home to Uncle Julius, an African American who was born into slavery and who tells a series of stories about life before the Civil War. Although Uncle Julius may seem like an Uncle Remus figure, John quickly realizes that Julius's stories have a point: he tells the stories as a way of attempting to manipulate John and Annie. While John sees the smaller point, he lacks the emotional intelligence to see the larger ones: Julius's stories expose that although slavery is over, many of the same inequalities still persist in the South. The stories are folktales in which conjure features heavily: many have enslaved and white characters seeking redress for wrongs through magical means (metamorphoses into animals, trees, and other people are common). This conjure (which echoes the Latin for with the law) metaphorically demonstrates what slavery did legally and what Jim Crow statutes did quasi-legally: they turned people into things and established color lines which it might mean death to cross. Julius's stories invite John and the reader to transgress and cross these lines, to imagine what life is like outside of ourselves. While John has difficulty seeing this offer, much of the hope in the stories is that the reader can do what John cannot.

The Gathering by Anne Enright

This book is a study in grief and loss: after Liam Hagerty's suicide, his remaining family gathers for his wake, and his sister Veronica tries to sort out her complicated feelings for her brother, her husband, and her children as she tries to make sense of why Liam died. Long-buried family secrets come to light as Veronica teases out how the past created the present she's now living in. Elegiacally and patiently this book slowly unwraps years of family trauma. Booker prize winner, 2007.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

This book is a modern tour-de-force. Toru Okada, who has recently quit his unsatisfying office job, finds himself drawn into a series of mysteries when the family cat disappears. But this disappearance leads to more mysteries: Toru's wife leaves him, and he finds himself drawn into a story that started during World War II. To solve the mysteries, Toru must learn to take the occult seriously and face dangers in a dream world. I really enjoyed this book, which weaves its alternate realities together in a convincing and beautiful way. Most of all, I think, this book is about family and how much of who we are is determined by our circumstances and how much by our will.

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

This book tells the story of Hajime, whose happy family life is disrupted when a woman he loved in childhood comes back into his life. The story is fascinating, and in some senses, only covered in its contours: there's a lot of Shimamoto's history and circumstances that's simply left unexplained. The book is far more interested in the emotional impact of her interactions with Hajime than in telling her story.

Scourge by Jeff Grubb

This book is about characters who are on the margins of the Star Wars universe--a Jedi archivist who enters field service when his former apprentice is killed, some smugglers, and a Hutt crime syndicate. I enjoyed the story, which included a fair amount of double-crossing and some action, and I liked the new characters, but it's no Zahn novel either.