NONFICTION

BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

By Katherine Boo (Random House)

This is quite simply an astonishing tale of squatters living in a tiny slum in India’s largest city. While dismal, their lives — as garbage pickers and scrap sellers — are almost operatic as they wend their way through corruption and governmental indifference, even ill-will. The ending is no end at all, but at least they have their stories told. — Shashi Tharoor

HOUSE OF STONE: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East

By Anthony Shadid (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Shadid wrote this wonderful memoir of the year he devoted to restoring his great-grandfather’s home in southern Lebanon shortly before the author died, at 43, on assignment in Syria. By turns humorous and plangent, he evokes his Bedouin forebears and tries to reclaim his place in this disappeared world. — Philip Caputo

BILLY LYNN’S LONG HALFTIME WALK

By Ben Fountain (Ecco)

In this darkly comic gut-punch of a novel, the surviving members of Bravo Squad — whose bravery in Iraq has been replayed endlessly on Fox News — are at Texas Stadium to take part in a high-octane halftime performance. The only hearts and minds left to be won are those of ambivalent Americans back home, and the only way to win them is through pageantry, jingoism and self-congratulation. “Catch-22” updated for a new era. — Jeff Turrentine

BRING UP THE BODIES

By Hilary Mantel (Henry Holt)

Mantel follows up her Booker-winning “Wolf Hall” with a second Booker winner. This darkly magnificent sequel covers Thomas Cromwell’s brutal efforts to end the failing marriage between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Gruffly compassionate toward villains and victims alike, Mantel reveals their weaknesses and cruelties bundled up in a flawed humanity we share. — Wendy Smith

BROKEN HARBOR

By Tana French (Viking)

Set in Dublin after its economic collapse, “Broken Harbor” begins as a police procedural in an old working-class vacation spot that’s now a half-finished housing development. It then evolves into a suspenseful psychological thriller. With formidable intelligence, the story encompasses a family tragedy, the ugly side of police work and finally the sorrows of a generation. — Patrick Anderson

CANADA

By Richard Ford (Ecco)

A magnificent work of Montana gothic told by the son of two inept bank robbers. When his parents go to prison, young Dell is whisked across the border to a dark room in Saskatchewan to escape social service agents. But his new guardian is a spoiled, cowardly man dogged by fears of retribution. Ford has polished the plainspoken lines of this wise novel to an arresting sheen. “Canada” confirms his position as one of the finest stylists and most humane storytellers in America. — R.C.

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50 notable works of fiction

50 notable works of nonfiction

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