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Books: The Year’s Best

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TIME

FICTION Daniel Martin by John Fowles. With little of the narrative trickery that embellished The Magus, the author sends a Hollywood screenwriter on an engrossing psychological pilgrimage that undermines contemporary modish despair. Falconer by John Cheever. The loneliness of prison and memories is the theme of this deeply emotional novel. The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré. The further adventures of George Smiley, Britain’s unlikeliest superspy, as well as a pitiless dissection of contemporary moral dilemmas. The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth. In presenting yet another of his Jewish intellectual heroes wrestling with sex and guilt, Roth enhances his reputation as one of the most consistently readable authors now at work. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. In her third and best novel, the author weaves a complex fable of power and magic to portray a young black man’s reconciliation with his past.

NONFICTION Chinese Shadows by Simon Leys. A Belgian-born Sinologist argues persuasively that China, far from being a classless society, is a tyranny ruled by a privileged clique of bureaucrats and generals. Coming into the Country by John McPhee. Three lengthy bulletins on Alaska, handcrafted out of diligent reporting and a supple style, magically transform this vast, nearly unspoiled area into a state of mind. The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh edited by Michael Davie. One of the century’s great novelists discloses incidents in his life (among them the death of a child and a crucial stint as a public school teacher) that he put to brilliant use in his fiction. Dispatches by Michael Herr. Combat reports from Viet Nam, circa 1967, fused with afterthoughts ten years in the collecting, conspire to make the war and its aftermath unforgettable. The Feminization of American Culture by Ann Douglas. A provocative, tightly reasoned study that locates the roots of American mass consumerism among housewives and the liberal clergy of the 19th century.

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