Summer house with swimming pool, by Herman Koch

Also heard him at the Writer's fest, really good.  What happened in this story is a big mystery to me.  If you need a tidy ending, do not read it.  The main character is a doctor.  His family go on vacation.  Events may or may not be related, but certainly someone dies, and its his fault.

A knight of the seven kingdoms: GRR Martin

I read this 3 novella set after I read the first installment, The hedge knight, some time ago.  It was a light fast paced adventure story of a young man trying to raise himself up to be a knight.  It was fun, and I did not want to get into the Game of Thrones, just because it is so big, but I wanted to read more Martin.  Now I did it and I don't have the need to read more.  There seems to be less violence, sex, and misogyny than the full set.

Walt, by Russell Wangersky

Walt is a very interesting character.  He is a custodian at a super market, reads people's shopping lists once they leave them behind or drop them, and then stalks them.  This is a cop story, but centered around Walt as the narrator.  I heard the author speak at the Writer's Fest.  I was intrigued by how each writer described the development of each character's as if they took on a life of their own.

I liked "Walt" but it may not suit everyone's pacing, or their moral centre.

Indian Killer, Sherman Alexie

I think Alexie is one of the best writers out there, but this is terrible.  I could not read it, even skipped ahead and it was just the same shallow diatribe against the state of the people in the modern world, how shitty things are, very polarized, not interesting.  1996 or there bouts, dated, not relevant.

All the light we cannot see, by Anthony Doer

This is my favourite book in quite some time, I really loved every sentence.  Doer is a master of word craft, metaphor, etc.  It intricately weaves WW11 lives together in a way that I did not want to guess or try to figure out because it was so obvious, -it is not obvious.  Touching, heartfelt, painstaking, -story telling in a beautiful style, but because its the war, very terrible.

Ready player one, by Ernst Cline

This is a very good read, fun and serious too.  It is especially intriguing for 80's kids who grew up with Atari and stuff like that, Back to the Future etc.  The premise is that a Steve Jobs type dude leaves all his fortune to the one player to crack his game and find the Easter Egg.  It gets pretty entertaining as the main character starts to unlock the clues and gets threatened and attacked in real life by his adversaries.

Erebos, by Ursula Poznanski

I really liked this fantasy book.  It is about a boy who loves to play video games, then gets involved in a secretive online game which seems to know what each player is doing in real life.  It gets creepy but the players can't stop.  They all get wrapped up in a murder mystery.

The knife of never letting go, by Patrick Ness

Ness is such a good writer.  This is the first of a 3 part series, and its fantastical and great.  Teen fic to be sure, but intelligent and creative.

The Trees of Calan Gray, by Danial Neil

I bought it on the ferry, so its a BC, or at least CanCon book.  Its a boy who is viciously abused by his father somewhere on the Canadian prairies.  His mom and him run away to the west coast and he is raised by his grandpa, things get better but he is still troubled by a lot of things in life.  I liked it but it was hard because the same old story about men being horrible.

15 Dogs by ANDRE ALEXIS

It took a while for me but started taking this little book more seriously as I read it through.  I liked it a lot and recommend it all the time, to my surprise.  When Jill pointed out that it had won the Giller, I laughed and said not this book! But the sticker is right on the the front so obvious.  It is all philosophical and curious, unique.