Eclipse

After the death of his mother, a failed, aging actor named Alexander Cleave returns to the seaside town where he grew up and tries to come to terms with the disappointments of his life and with the people in it, including his estranged wife and his mentally disturbed daughter. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.

"As a study of self-absorption, ECLIPSE is psychologically acute, yet the narrator's inability to look beyond himself quickly becomes wearying. But Banville's prose is lovely, elegant without ever sliding into ostentation, and the pleasures it affords ultimately outweigh the novel's inherent difficulties (which are perhaps unavoidable, given the tale its author has chosen to tell)....[ECLIPSE] is odd, inward, circular and talky. It is also oddly rewarding, and finally its rewards outweigh its shortcomings." - Monte Swain (Washington Post, 2/15/01)

"What is unusual--defiantly, and therefore perhaps gloriously so...--about Banville's fiction is the prose itself: poetic, sensuous, revelatory. He appears to be in love with writing, not ashamed of it, not afraid of overdoing it, not cool at all." - O'kelly Isley (Times Literary Supplement, 3/8/01)

top literary genres books

Push - Sapphire +w Claireece Precious Jones is an overweight, illiterate black teenager pregnant...  read more

2.  Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen +w 3.  The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold +w 4.  Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister - Gregory Maguire +w 5.  Wicked - Gregory Maguire +w 6.  Dead to the World - Charlaine Harris +w 7.  The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky +w 8.  The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini +w 9.  Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk +w 10.  The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd +w

top action & thrillers books

The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown +w Thanks to the massive success of THE DA VINCI CODE, which sold around 80 million...  read more

2.  I, Alex Cross - James Patterson +w 3.  Perfect Match - Jodi Picoult +w 4.  The Scarpetta Factor - Patricia Cornwell +w 5.  Songs of the Humpback Whale - Jodi Picoult +w 6.  Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand +w 7.  Sock It to Me - Zane +w 8.  Stardust - Neil Gaiman +w 9.  Pursuit of Honor - Vince Flynn +w 10.  Life of Pi - Yann Martel +w