The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

A gut-wrenching story of Hungarian people during WWII, Julie Orringer's novel is thick with detail about how the oncoming and ongoing war affected the lives of young Hungarians trying to pursue professions in a very uncertain environment. Mostly it is told from the point of view of Andras Levi who at age 18 leaves Hungary to study architecture in Paris. His family is Jewish; and, with the hindsight of history, the reader feels the threat of changing laws and attitudes and the impending Nazi doom. Much of the story centers around Budapest as Hungarian Jews in foreign countries are forced by arbitrary visa expirations to return to their native countries. What Andras experiences during the war and how much of his family is able to survive keeps the reader glued to the story. Good book set in an interesting place and time.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

In 1799 a Dutchman named Jacob de Zoet sailed to Japan as a clerk for the Dutch East Indies Company. His job was to straighten out the messy accounts left by predecessors and in the course of this work he uncovers corruption and fraud; he also makes and loses money, and he falls in love with a medical student who gets whisked off to be held prisoner in a nunnery. Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas, is an excellent writer who packs lots of meaning into few words. Sometimes his style feels cryptic; other times he runs two conversations at once so you have to look at every other sentence to make sense of each. Good novel, but not easy reading.

The Barn Dance by James F. Twyman

There are people who consider James Twyman a huckster and New Age cultist, but whatever you think of the man, he has written a thought-provoking book. The Barn Dance posits that there are a few places in the world where the veil between heaven and earth is lifted and the living can make contact with the dead. In his introduction, Twyman writes that he is publishing his story as a novel, but to him it is absolutely a true story. He meets his dead wife at a barn dance and proceeds to learn lessons about his life that his soul has not yet absorbed. I have lots of quibbles with his theology but enjoyed his book, anyway. It is a fast easy read.

Godric by Frederick Buechner

If you like medieval language and religiosity, you'll love this novel about St. Godric. The rhythm of Beuchner's sentences, the use of archaic English, the subtle rhyming and assonances combine to evoke the feeling of a medieval ballad. The story is true to its historical roots, tracking what is known about St. Godric (c.1065-1170). Overall there is more of the earthly than of religion, but Godric's desire for absolution and redemption colors everything. His religion is standard medieval Christianity, and although he is a hermit, he doesn't seem at all a mystic; his is an intense but conventional approach to religion.

The Golden Frog by Michael Mamas

I was very excited about this novel at first, seeing it as the thinking man's "Shack." But towards the end it falls into that boring ploy of lecturing by having one character give lessons to another -- in this case, on connecting to God, the Universe, Oneness, the Force, the unified field, etc. It is an attempt to explain in fiction what it is to have a mystical experience and how to do it. While I'm skeptical about the possible success of this kind of attempt, I did learn a few things of interest. For instance, the Surya method: "The key to proper meditation is that it's natural and effortless. Many meditation techniques try to force the mind to be still. That's all wrong. Proper meditation allows the mind and body to unravel naturally." You are supposed to relax into your true nature, an approach I believe is much better than disciplining yourself into quietness.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

In Addis Ababa twin boys are born. Their imagined lives form the basis for Verghese's 658 page novel in which he weaves plots and subplots around the twins' life in the mission hospital where they grow up. One twin is smart, studious, and conventional; the other is smart, a tinkerer, and unconventional. In spite of their differences and the painful conflicts they experience, the twins are bound in love throughout their lives. Verghese is a doctor, and medicine is a central focal point in his novel; there are many operating room scenes and interesting descriptions of diseases and treatments. Cutting for Stone is well written and interesting enough to pull the reader through all of its many, many pages.

The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty

A fat guy sets off to bicycle across the country letting the trip help him come to terms with the impact his mentally ill sister has had on his life while also keeping him rooted in a relationship to the girl next door. McLarty gives us interesting characters in an interesting story, but there is something profoundly annoying about this book. Perhaps the author is bilking the reader for too much sympathy; perhaps it's the scrambled time sequence. I don't recommend it.