Meg Smith
Seabiscuit
by Laura Hillenbrand
I cried when I read Black Beauty, and again at the end of Old Yeller. Now Seabiscuit tops my list of moving, affecting animal literature. The story is brilliantly told. We meet a group of characters straight out of central casting: the self-made successful owner with the young beautiful wife; the proud, dedicated trainer who speaks only to his horses; the young jockeys, who sacrifice health and security to ride for a pittance whatever mounts they can; and of course Seabiscuit himself, a gangly champion that hungered for food, sleep, and racing, in that order. Hillenbrand sets the racing scene of the late 30s with great flair, then builds the tension leading to Seabiscuit’s dramatic match race with War Admiral in 1938, and his comeback attempt at Santa Anita in 1940. I neither knew nor cared about horse racing before I read this book. Now, I’ve decided to name my new black car “Seabiscuit,” after this memorable, speedy personality.

Jay Gesin
The 2001 Pushcart Prize XXV Best of the Small Presses
by Bill Henderson
Bill Henderson, the founder and editor of the Pushcart Prize, works with dozens of other talented people each year to produce this collection of the best fiction, poetry, and essays published in small presses. Early discoveries include Raymond Carver, Paul Auster, Seamus Heaney, Louise Erdrich, Charles Baxter, Andre Dubus, and John Irving. The 25th anniversary edition is a monster. Over 600 pages of 74 works from 54 presses. There's a short story by Salvatore Scibona that still astounds me. Even the introduction by Henderson is a fascinating look at the history of the Pushcart and the writers involved. A necessary book for anyone who loves contemporary literature.

Gavin Grant
The Man With Maybe Half-A-Dozen Faces
by Ray Vukcevich
There's a more than fair chance that anyone who enjoyed Douglas Adams' 'Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective' books will enjoy this first mystery caper novel starring a multiple-personality private investigator. A beautiful woman walks into private eye Skylight Howells's office with a tale of murder and intrigue. From this standard-issue beginning events spin almost out of control, but never quite. Computer program documentalists (those poor people given the job of writing software manuals) are being murdered and it is up to Skylight -- and his other 'faces' -- to find out why. From the premise I thought it would be a difficult and complicated book, but even as the point of view jumps from character to character, the narrative is actually easy to follow and more than worth it. Looking for a mystery, a laugh, a little intellectual challenge? Here it is all in one neat package.

John Son
Wide Sargasso Sea
by Jean Rhys
Originally published in 1966, when Rhys was 70, Wide Sargasso Sea tells the haunting, feverish, erotic story of Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress who grew up on a decaying plantation in Jamaica. When she comes of age, Antoinette is married off to an unnamed Englishman, who takes her away to his home in England. There, she soon finds herself trapped in a psychologically violent marriage, in a country whose unfamiliarity only intensifies her solitude, and slowly finds herself dissolving helplessly into madness. Left with no choice, her husband confines her to the attic of his house. When you finally learn that Antoinette's husband is in fact the Mr. Rochester of Jane Eyre, it suddenly becomes clear that Antoinette is actually Bertha, the myterious madwoman in the attic of Charlotte Brontë's unintentional sequel, published before this prequel. Much of the novel takes place in the West Indies, and Rhys engulfs you in its lush, vegetal fecundity, where "the paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched." Passionate, unforgettable, and enigmatic, the novel's emotional intensity will stick with you like the memory of a week-long fever.