Check it out

Identifying a literary work as a classic in its own time is dicey

business, since by definition a classic has already endured the test of

time. Yet critics routinely take leaps of faith when they name

contemporary classics in “Magill’s Literary Annual” -- the source of

Newport Beach Public Library’s newest collection of Timeless Treasures.

Called “Looking Back on the ‘90s,” the retrospective of the past decade

features numerous works that offer a glimpse of other cultures, including

“Consider This, Senora,” Harriet Doerr’s elegantly rendered story about

American expatriates experiencing love, loss and renewal in a remote

Mexican village.

In her second enchanting novel, the author of “Stones for Ibarra” peers

into the souls of Sue, an artist reaching for perspective; Bud, running

from the IRS; Frances, writer of a romantic travel guide; and Ursula, a

widow who wants to regain “the brilliant patchwork of her ... past.”

A syncopated beat inspires the prose of “Texaco,” a fictional history of

the Caribbean underclass in the century-and-a-half since the abolition of

slavery. Through narrator Marie-Sophie, a daughter of slaves, Patrick

Chamoiseau chronicles 150 years on Martinique, starting with

Marie-Sophie’s beloved father’s birth on a sugar plantation and ending

with her founding Texaco, a shanty town built on the grounds of an island

oil refinery.

For readers who go for baroque, Iain Pears serves up a murder mystery

powered as much by ideas as by suspects, autopsies and smoking guns in

“An Instance of the Fingerpost.” Set in Oxford, England, in 1663, the

intricate plot centers around a university professor’s murder -- an

incident that provides a fulcrum for an exploration of truth, Restoration

politics and 17th century mores.

American social fabric is the stuff of which Jane Smiley’s “The All-True

Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton” is woven. Set in Kansas in the

mid-1850s, the action involves the bitter split between abolitionist and

pro-slavery factions that turns Kansas Territory into a battleground of

the Civil War to come.

“Dewey Defeats Truman,” a famous headline of 1948, is also the title of

Thomas Mallon’s gently comic novel about a love triangle involving an

up-and-coming Republican, a disheveled Democratic and an aspiring

novelist. While evoking the feel of a bygone era, the story makes clever

use of historical research and smoothly interweaves public and private

events.

When history becomes too heavy and you’re ready for a funny, moving and

readable romp through the devastation of divorce, check out “Nothing But

Blue Skies,” Thomas McGuane’s spirited novel about the male psyche under

stress. On center stage is Frank Copenhaver, an errant yet debonair loser

who finds himself in a tailspin of yearning, bad investments, and old

grudges when his wife suddenly leaves him.

* CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public

Library. This week’s column is by Melissa Adams, in collaboration with

Sara Barnicle.