The Luzhin Defense by Vladimir Nabokov

 

To Be a Man by Nicole Krauss

 

Dombey & Son by Charles Dickens

 

Persevered and finished this massive book.

Too much to recount. A good example of its richness is the wedding of Florence and Walter, late in the book: the memorable image of Toots running in and out of the church repeatedly, as he is overcome with emotion, and peeping in a different window from outside each time, so that the congregation eagerly awaits where next he will show up.

The Quick & the Dead by Joy Williams

 

Odd, compelling, disturbing book. You never know where Williams' character will go next, either physically or mentally.  A little wearying, too -- it could have gone on forever, or been half the length it was.

"For most inhabitants of modern industrialized nations," Alice said, "the principal contact with other species does take place at the dinner table."

"Their life had been their soul and had been extinguished with them."

This somewhat fit in with her more recent theory that the soul was something you acquired only after you were dead..."