From Barbara Alfano:
A masterpiece of irony about assumed identities.
From Yoko Inoue:
Science fiction about psychotherapy (with some theory on psychiatric research and Western history about development of the psychology studies included in some chapters!) using a dream monitoring and intervention system. Those who have seen the amazing 2006 animation film Paprika by Satoshi Kon (DVD Animation 4077) must read this novel.
From Benjamin Anastas:
I can't say enough about Zachary Lazar's novel I Pity the Poor Immigrant. It follows the Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky to Israel and turns him into a figure from the Old Testament.
From Benjamin Anastas:
Martin Stannard's biography of Muriel Spark is much better than the usual literary biography, in part because Spark's later life took on all the qualities of a Muriel Spark novel. I've also been re-reading her novels in preparation for a class next term: The Girls of Slender Means, The Ballad of Peckham Rye and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie remain my favorites, but you really can't go wrong with any of them.
From Benjamin Anastas:
The short stories in Rivka Galchen's new collection American Innovations are all "secretly in conversation" with literature from the canon (poems by Keats and Wallace Stevens, stories by Gogol and Borges); they'll amaze you.
From Robin Kemkes:
A romance between a Georgian and an Azeri set in Baku during the First World War and the Russian Revolution.