How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman

This book requires patience: it's written in a Scots dialect and in a stream-of-consciousness style that takes you inside the head of Sammy, an ex-con on a string of terrible luck. He wakes up after a bender to find that he's now blind and has been arrested, and then, after his release faces the disappearance of his girlfriend, the police, who question him about his participation in a crime they won't reveal, and the horrors of the welfare state and its bureaucracy as he tries to register his disability. This is definitely a book you have to adjust your way of thinking to understand--its lyricism is tied to its unfamiliar (and at times coarse) dialect, the action (such as there is) can be obscured by the stream-of-consciousness style, and Sammy is not the most appealing protagonist at first glance. But after getting to know Sammy, his resilience in the face of adversity shines through. Winner of the 1994 Booker Prize.

The Law is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons by Colin Dayan

This book examines the ways that the law has been used to manipulate the boundaries of the human--especially in the case of enslaved persons and prisoners. Dayan posits that forms such as zombies, ghosts, and dogs appear in literature and culture in response to the ways that the law can be deployed to take away someone's humanity. The book covers a broad time period (dealing with cases in US law from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first) and it combines sources and techniques from a variety of fields, including the law, history, and literature, to end in a stunning indictment of legal systems that take away people's humanity and an exposé of how the cruelest forms of punishment may be written off as administrative conveniences. All in all, a persuasive and useful monograph, and a model for a radical, engaged form of criticism.

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 Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

In this book Hannah Arendt looks at the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th Century as embodied by the two most prominent instances of it: Nazi Germany and the USSR under Stalin. Arendt traces this rise first through anti-Semitism, which began in the 19th Century, and then through imperialism to totalitarianism itself. This book is dense, comprehensive, and well argued. In addition to a lot of historical evidence, Arendt demonstrates why totalitarianism is so dangerous, and how the Nazis and Stalinist Russia used prison camps, secret police, propaganda, and conspiracy theories to dehumanize their populations.

The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett

This book finds Rincewind making his way through FourEcks (EcksEcksEcksEcks), a continent that looks a whole lot like Australia, while on the other side of the Disc, the wizards who sent him there are trying to figure out how to get him back (as the University librarian, who was turned into an ape some time ago, has gone unstable in his shape, and the wizards need to know his name to perform magic on him--a name which only Rincewind has a chance of knowing). But in their search for a geographer to help them find XXXX, they step through a window that takes them to a different place and time, where  they encounter a small god, who keeps banging his head against evolution. This was not one of my favorite Discworld novels (though in all fairness, Pratchett's take on academics is pretty funny)--I think it's because Rincewind has just never clicked with me as a character. But there were definitely some pretty funny moments along the way.

Affinity by Sarah Waters

I enjoyed this book, though I found the ending completely surprising. It really examines the way that people related to each other and why people help each other. I found Margaret's family hideous, but I was left wondering whether her choices didn't contribute to her misery. I enjoyed the twist at the end, but if this book were a mystery, I would think the author had left a bit too much out for the reader to be able to make a fair conclusion.