Benjamin Taylor's Novel Named Among Year's Best by L.A. Times

Well earned congratulations to Benjamin Taylor. The editors of the Los Angeles Times revealed their favorite titles of 2008, among them his remarkable second novel, The Book of Getting Even, about a young gay Southerner's attachments - erotic, fevered, platonic - to a sterling family of Eastern European intellectuals. The New Yorker said, "Taylor captures their quests for identity in pitch-perfect dialogue and lengthy meditative passages; his elegant plotting feels at once deliberate and improvised."

Overall, the LAT list has the most interesting choices of any roundup so far, despite vexing omissions like Olive Kitteridge and The Story of a Marriage. It's particularly gratifying to see Miriam Toews' The Flying Troutmans included, especially after the NYTBR's wrongheaded review. Their nonfiction list has Honor Moore's memoir about her father's decades-long secret gay life while leading the Episcopal church of New York, The Bishop's Daughter.