Belles-Lettres: Brilliant, Blue-Ribbon Books 2013

Biggest Surprise of the Year -  I Loved This Book! 

So Big by Edna Ferber; published in 1924

Top Three Non-Fiction Books That Were Entire Educations in Themselves: 

At Home by Bill Bryson; How to Live, Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell; The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey

Top Three Fiction Books (not mysteries): 

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster; Equilateral by Ken Kalfus; Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.

Author Most Read: 

Donald Westlake - Six of his Dortmunder capers

Most Delightful Reread: 

Counting My Chickens... by The Duchess of Devonshire

Brothers I Would Most Like to Meet: 

Reggie and Nigel Heath of The Baker Street Letters, The Brothers of Baker Street, and The Baker Street Translation by Michael Robertson

Best Foreign Location: 

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen and West With the Night by Beryl Markham

Most Laugh-Out-Loud Dysfunctional Family: 

The Spellman Files and The Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz

Dreamiest Tale: 

The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys

Best Road Trip: 

The Lost Continent - Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson

Mystery Writer I Am So Glad I Found: 

Peter Lovesey - The Last Detective, Diamond Solitaire, The Summons, and Bloodhounds. 

As If I Needed More Reasons Not To Go On A Cruise: 

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace.

Proof That The South Shall Rise Again: 

Mama Makes Up Her Mind by Bailey White.

Authors I Have Met and Their Books I Read This Year: 

Duffy Brown (Killer in Crinolines), William Zinsser (The Writer Who Stayed), and George S. McGovern (Abraham Lincoln)

Equilateral by Ken Kalfus

The central character in Equilateral (2013) is a simple triangle. But what occupies its equidistant points? Man, woman, love? Corporate profits, scientific research, political dominion? Truth, fantasy, hope?

The story takes place in 1894 and concerns the building of an equilateral triangle in Egypt's Western Desert. A triangle of huge dimensions - 330 miles on each side with deep trenches five miles wide - that is being carved out of the sands and when finished will be filled with petrol and set afire as a communication with beings on Mars. 

The author, Ken Kalfus, has constructed this story that stars the brilliant astronomer Sanford Thayer whose idea of building the triangle is based on his own observations and belief that there is intelligent life on the Red Planet. Aiding him in the enormous project are his personal secretary and fellow adventurer Miss Keaton; the project engineer Ballard; and, the British head of the Board of Governors made up of representatives from every participating nation, Sir Harry.

There is also the Arab girl, Bint, who is combination nursemaid, servant, and is an object of Thayer's, if not affections, at least his attentions. 

There are troubles galore in the race to build the The Equilateral stemming from stifling heat, fevers, conspiracies, lazy workers, sabotage, failures to communicate, and outright mutinies. 

But there are also the fancies and aspirations "for the good of humanity" that lie behind the project that keep the vision inching forward.

I liked this dreamy, 200-page novel that looks at the wonders of the night sky while keeping its feet firmly planted in the shifting sands of the African desert.