Both lyrical and bleak, this story captures the protagonist’s hopeless choices in the harsh and divisive world of Northern Ireland. The narrative voice has the flat affect of a person who is both shell shocked and cannot believe he is really capable of or deserving of love or even respect. Yet even with that flatness, that voice is still very moving. When Cal does find love, it is complicated by layers of seemingly unsolvable circumstances that leave the reader wondering and hoping to the last sentence …

“Sometimes in her presence he felt like Quasimodo – as if the ugliness of what he had done showed in his face. The brand in the middle of his forehead would never disappear and seemed to throb when she was near. Alone, now, he relaxed into his ugliness. To hell, why not? If he could not take her like Sleeping Beauty then he could ravish the things which surrounded her. His impotence was something he could smell and touch.”

Stephen McCauley crafts a sweet and impossible pas de deux between two characters, George and Nina, with sufficient warts and foibles to be believable. He surrounds them with a wry and witty cast of supporting characters and melds it all with charming, infectious, Friends-like dialogue (predating Friends by about 10 years). It’s interesting that Jennifer Aniston went on to portray Nina in the movie version of the book.

This is the 55th of a series of titles selected by writer Yann Martel to provide to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to encourage an appreciation of the arts and literature in particular in the PM, and to also help him with his stillness and thoughtfulness. Martel has regularly sent books from a wide range of literary traditions to Harper, and has devoted a Web site to the book list and his kind and considered covering letters with each volume. (See http://www.whatisstephenharperreading.com.)

While the subtitle suggests that this book examines creativity and artistry, it really focuses on how the giving of one’s creativity as a gift informs societies, cultures and economies. In a lot of respects, Hyde’s book predicted the current download/open source culture.

Gilead is poetically introspective, an elderly man’s meditation on how fatherhood came to him late in life, and how he regrets that he won’t likely see his young son to adulthood.

This book was the 48th of a series of titles selected by writer Yann Martel to provide to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to encourage an appreciation of the arts and literature in particular in the PM, and to also help him with his stillness and thoughtfulness. Martel has regularly sent books from a wide range of literary traditions to Harper, and has devoted a Web site to the book list and his kind and considered covering letters with each volume. For more on Martel’s noble venture, go to http://www.whatisstephenharperreading.com.

This sweet, low-key tale offers some of the loveliest illustrations for a children’s book that I’ve ever seen. The pictures capture the rumpled intimacy of a young child at absorbed play with her faithful dog. Illustrator Penny Dale has particularly captured the patient expressions of little Rosie’s loving Airedale Mr. B very well.

This common sense book walks the walk and talks the talk. As it promotes clear, instructional, active voice writing on the Web, coupled with clean, logical page layout and navigation, the book itself admirably follows its own advice. Author Ginny Redish provides plenty of good examples and before and after case studies to illustrate and drive home her points.

Ironically, Redish offers instances where “letting go of the words” actually means employing a few more words to make particular subject matter abundantly clear. She illustrates repeatedly how complementary choices in page layout, colour, typefaces and more also contribute to the overall effect, and allow people to locate and absorb key information. “Letting go of the words” often means simply letting go of your own perspective and knowledge of a subject when you put it online, and trying to adopt the perspectives of your potential Web audience, which is often very different.

This short story is an intriguing puzzle, letting the reader sort out what is fact and what is the feverish fiction of the narrator’s ailing mind. This beautiful edition is complemented perfectly by Tony Urquhart’s colourful but slightly macabre mixed media illustrations.

Dickens is always a rich literary feast. That richness is not always to every reader’s taste, of course. However, for those readers willing to devote the time and attention, Dickens returns the investment on many levels. Great Expectations is just such a challenging but rewarding reading experience.

The story is sprawling and circuitous, with many seeming detours in plot and character that eventually all converge and resolve, as Dickens always satisfyingly does for the most part. The cast of characters is broad and lively, almost to a fault, but Dickens has an unerring way of taking figures that initially appear to be caricatures or cartoonish and evolving them into intriguing, fully dimensional human beings. The ending is ambiguous, tinged with remorse but possibly some hope, and haunting in all the best senses. (The Penguin edition includes in its endnotes and appendices the original ending devised by Dickens, with a much clearer resolution of Pip’s and Estella’s relationship – but the more ambiguous one with which the book was published actually makes the book that much more powerful and memorable.)

David Lynch’s quirky, laconic yet somehow articulate style is well suited to a practical, accessible approach to meditation and spirituality and how they feed creativity. The insights into his creative process are intriguing and elucidating, and they also provide inspiration for one’s own.