She goes by Sadie Smith from Priest Valley, California but that is not her real name and Priest Valley has a population of zero. She worked undercover for the government, was fired and now spies for a private agency whose personnel and whereabouts are unknown. She’s clever, a good liar and drinks a bit too much. He latest assignment is to infiltrate a commune in rural France that is against the French government’s megabasins. The government’s plan is to divert the local water supply into huge basins that will aid large agricultural corporations.

While the plot of Creation Lake doesn’t sound exciting, as told by Sadie it is. She is smart, perceptive and amoral. Creation Lake is long listed this year for The Man Booker Prize and The National Book Award, and, I believe, it’s because of Rachel Kushner’s rendering of Sadie Smith.

I was asked by a friend to list my favorites of the New York Times List. Here they are-not in order of preference.

Nonfiction

Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

Random Family by Adrian Nicole Blanc

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Fiction

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Atonement by Ian McEwan-although I thought The Child in Time was better

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth-I thought American Pastoral was better

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

Avery, Bonnie, Nicky and Lucky are the Blue sisters. It is a year after Nicky’s death. Avery is a successful lawyer in London, Bonnie is a noted prize fighter and Lucky is a fairly famous fashion model. On paper it all seems like they are leading very satisfying lives, but in reality each of them is desperately trying to come to terms with who they are and why Nicky is no longer with them. Despite their pain and flaws, they love each other almost unconditionally.

Coco Mellors’ second novel is an okay read, but not one I would recommend. The sisters’ woes-drugs, alcohol, shoplifting, unrequited love-got a bit tedious and tiresome. I rarely say this, but Blue Sisters would have been a better read if it was a hundred pages shorter.

Kate Atkinson is back again with another Jackson Brodie mystery. This time Detective Brodie is asked to find a stolen painting that may or may not be valuable. Brodie is suspicious of the dying owner’s caregiver as well as her two children who hired him. His search for the painting and the thief leads Brodie to another art theft that was never solved and a cast of amusing characters, including a vicar who doesn’t believe in God, a veteran who lost his leg in Afghanistan and a quirky family who is forced turn their huge estate into a hotel.

I was so ready for Kate Atkinson to write another novel where Jackson Brodie is the main character. Like most of her others, Death at the Sign of the Rook is clever, humorous and very British. Atkinson fans will not be disappointed.

Jess and Storey are on their yearly camping trip in Northern Maine. But this year is different. While hunting in a rural part of Maine, they come upon a blown up bridge and a town devastated by fire. As they continue to hike, they find other towns burnt to the ground, death everywhere and not a living human being in sight. Jess’s wife has just left him. Storey has a wife and two daughters in New Hampshire, and he can’t stop wondering if they have met the same fate as the corpses he encounters.

This is a novel that is exciting, frightening and well written. Burn keeps its readers guessing almost until the last page. Burn is a story of friendship, survival, but it is also a cautionary tale.

It is 1972 and twelve year old Tomoko leaves her mother to temporarily live with her aunt and family in a village near the mountains. Unlike Tomoko, her relatives are wealthy; her uncle inherited a popular soft drink company. Tomoko becomes close with this eccentric family, but especially with her brilliant, asthmatic cousin, Mina.

I didn’t realize until I had finished this novel that Yoko Ogawa had also written The Housekeeper and the Professor – a work I greatly admire. I enjoyed Mina’s Matchbox just as much. Written from Tomoko’s point of view, her year with these relatives is told in simple prose, yet her observations are perceptive, insightful and heart felt. Her telling is emotional without being dramatic. I must read more of Yoko Ogawa’s books.

The setting is the present in Crosby, Maine. A number of Strout’s characters from previous novels come and go in Tell Me Everything. Olive Kitteridge is in assisted living, Lucy Barton is still living with her ex husband, William, and Bob Burgess is married to Margaret, the minister. These characters and others form the loose plot of the novel as well as a mysterious murder.

Elizabeth Strout is not for everyone, but I enjoy her seemingly effortless writing style, and her ordinary, mostly goodhearted characters. If you enjoyed most of Strout’s other novels, you will want to read Tell Me Everything.

Another classic. Mostly told in the form of diaries written by most of the main characters, Dracula tells of the vampire’s travels from his castle in Transylvania to neighborhoods in London and the six brave individuals who try to put an end to his horrific deeds.

Although I knew the outline of the Dracula tale, I didn’t know any of the particulars. And though I’m not really a fan of horror stories, I found Dracula entertaining, innovating and exciting. Bram Stoker is able to keep his readers in suspense until the very last page.

In August of 1975, Barbara Van Laar is missing from the overnight camp that her wealthy New York family owns. Coincidentally, fourteen years ago her older brother, Peter Van Laar IV(nicknamed Bear) went missing on the same property and his body has never been recovered. Is it a coincidence? Is it the same perpetrator? Going back and forth in time from the 1950’s to 1975, The God of the Woods keeps its readers guessing who is responsible for the two disappearances and what is his/her motivation.

For me this the ideal airplane read. It is a page turner-a mystery that is more than a mystery. The God of the Woods has a lot of characters, and it often switches from past to present, so it does require a fair amount of concentration.

It is pre World War II on a small island off the coast of Wales. Two unusual things have occurred: a beached whale dies on the island and two ethnographers arrive to study the people whose family have survived there for centuries. Manod, an eighteen year old girl who lives with her father, a lobster fisherman, and her younger sister, is asked to act as the scientist’s interpreter since most of the inhabitants only speak a form of Welsh.

I did not get into Whale Fall until the ethnographers, Edward and Joan, arrive on the island. Then this novel really took off. This slim work has a lot to say about family, nature, isolation and the unreliability of the social sciences.