Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil

This book is beautifully written; it requires the reader to relax into the narrative--looking for immediate answers and immediate clarity as to how everything fits in only frustrated me. I really enjoyed following the development of the characters and the sense of place (mostly Bombay in the 1970s, with a diversion into China)--the plot was secondary to me. Shortlisted for the 2012 Booker Prize.

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

This book is a beautiful meditation on art, memory, and forgiveness after great inhumanity. Judge Teoh, the narrator, returns to Yugiri, the Garden of Evening Mists, where she served an apprenticeship many years ago. As she sets down the paths her life has traveled, and attempts to bring the garden--the only Japanese garden in Malaysia--back to order, some of the mysteries of the past are unraveled and she is forced to reassess the choices she's made. I really enjoyed reading this book--it's beautiful and mysterious, and it really makes me appreciate how little of the history of Southeast Asia I know.

The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell

This book is about a Swedish judge who solves a mass murder that the police cannot because they are unwilling to look beyond the obvious solution. There's a lot of backstory to tie things together here, which I enjoyed, although I found the ultimate motivation of the murderer not entirely convincing. I thought the dynamics of betrayal were the most interesting part of the story.

The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe

This book was an enjoyable piece of historical fiction, with a speculative side. It starts as fairly straight historical fiction about a rich Boston family struggling to cope with the deaths of its mother and sister on the Titanic (a slightly implausible premise anyway because only four of the women in first class died; most made it to life boats). But as the story moves back towards the father's experiences shipping in China and forward to the other daughter's interests in spiritualism, it gradually becomes apparent that there's more going on than at first appeared. I found the twist disorienting, and while I liked the Salem connection (which seems, at least, to put this book in the same universe as The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane), I think I would have liked a bit more payoff on the Titanic angle.

Reamde by Neal Stephenson

This book is a long, exciting spy and technology thriller. It starts with a virus launched against users of T'Rain, a game designed to make certain types of money-laundering possible. But when the virus hits the wrong users, it quickly involves the main characters in the global war on terror. The book is fast paced and it skillfully balances a wide cast of characters. There's some weird chivalry on the part of some of the characters, but otherwise I really enjoyed reading this story.

The Black Dove by Steve Hockensmith

I enjoyed this murder mystery, although it depended heavily on the story of On the Wrong Track, the previous book in the series. The mystery plot was pretty good, although the series depends a bit heavily on slapstick style comedy for my tastes. I thought the ending was a bit out of nowhere, or at least that there weren't enough clues for the reader to have a fair shot.

Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik

This book became much more compelling in its final third (as an exploratory party in Australia finds a new method of Chinese shipping after all sorts of trouble). I appreciate that Novik is doing a lot to keep the books from becoming repetitive (Laurence and Temeraire's association with Britain is questioned, for one thing, and the locales keep changing), but because the plot started as a wild goose chase, it was hard to get into it until all the threads came together at the end. I will still read the next book when it comes out, but this series definitely started with its strongest book.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

In this book Marco Polo claims to describe the fantastic cities of Kubla Khan's empire to the Mogul emperor. Instead, it seems that he's always dancing around the memory of Venice, which overshadows these incredible (and constantly changing) cities. I really appreciated the book's work in thinking through what it means to know a city.

Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

In this book Laurence and Temeraire accompany a British diplomatic mission to China. This book has a lot of good adventure and intrigue, and I thought the handling of the politics of the situation, and the character of Hammond, the British envoy, were particularly deft. I look forward to reading the next book in this series.

1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered America by Gavin Menzies

This book purports to offer a revisionist history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Gavin Menzies (who served in the British navy) pulls together a variety of types of "evidence" that he claims prove that not only did the Chinese visit America before the Europeans, but that they circumnavigated the globe, establishing colonies and perfecting their navigational techniques. Menzies begins his book with the tale of the discovery of maps that purportedly offer correct details about the Americas and Africa before Europeans sailed there. The book is narrated in a style that follows Menzies discoveries--and then exclaims that this particular Chinese expedition is the only possible explanation for these discoveries. Light on footnotes and contemptuous of the academic establishment (excepting DNA testing and carbon-dating when they "prove" its conclusions), this book seeks to position itself as unveiling the truth academics have been hiding from the world for years. Unfortunately, Menzies's only area of expertise is navigational (he cannot read medieval Portuguese, Catalan, or Castilian--much less medieval Chinese), and he has a habit of establishing tantalizing possibilities and then assuming that they must be factual because they are possible.

The underlying message of the book is that the Chinese were far more civilized than the Europeans of that time (arguably true) and that they would have been better colonizers of the world than the Europeans (more dubious--especially since here Menzies enters the "what if" game). This message, and the book itself, tends to ignore the fact that people with their own cultures and civilizations were already living in the Americas and that they needed neither Chinese nor European colonization. Inviting people to re-evaluate European voyages of discovery is not a bad thing, but the fact that Menzies felt the need to re-write so much history in such a slipshod way to make that argument bodes ill for his ultimate belief in its power of persuasion.