The third of what is now billed as the Norumbegan Quartet, this sequel to Game of Sunken Places (2004) and Suburb Beyond the Stars (2010) gives new meaning to the term "introspective."

Bent on tracking down the elven Norumbegans in order to save Vermont from an invasion of dream-sucking Thusser, Brian, Gregory and the mechanical troll Kalgrash pass through an interdimensional curtain—to find themselves inside an organic alien body. Read full book review >

Readers need to be sure, when entering M.T. Anderson & Kurt Cyrus-land, they've securely fastened their disbelief to some high and sturdy hook, because as soon as they crack the binding, they will be assaulted by more looniness than any regular person could imagine. Read full book review >

The lads who played and won the deadly Game of Sunken Places (2004) discover that the powerful alien Thusser are back to conquer Earth—and this time they're Cheating. Read full book review >

Metafiction at its most weirdly satisfying. Read full book review >

In the sequel to The Pox Party (2006), Octavian Nothing escapes the College of Lucidity and flees to British-controlled Boston, where he will swear fealty "to whoever offers emancipation with the greatest celerity." Read full book review >

A historical novel of prodigious scope, power and insight, set against the backdrop of the Revolutionary War. Read full book review >

Lost in the labyrinth of metafiction, this sequel to Whales on Stilts (2005) continues its send-up of everything from chick-lit to the Hardy Boys, from books that address the reader to books once popular, but now shelf-sitters. Read full book review >

A solitary idyll is disturbed by easy entertainment in this gorgeous, complex fable. Read full book review >

To commemorate well-documented old sightings of huge sea serpents gamboling off the New England coast, Ibatoulline paints richly detailed scenes of wide seas and narrow shores, of small boats, monstrous writhing coils and astonished onlookers—to which Anderson pairs an old man's reminiscence in verse: "The serpent was twirling, just chasing its tail, / And showed all intention of staying. / 'Is it back in the deep?' 'Is it eating our sheep?' / 'I think,' I said, 'that the serpent is playing.' " Young monster lovers will share the wonder of this never-solved mystery, and applaud when a company of sea-hunter's strenuous efforts to kill the monster yield only a large mackerel. Read full book review >

Anderson's mind is a very strange place, and this almost indescribable wackiness is further proof. Read full book review >

When wise-cracking Gregory and brainy Brian go to Vermont to visit Gregory's "strange . . . [p]robably insane" Uncle Max, they "couldn't know what an adventure it would be." Read full book review >

The author of Handel, Who Knew What He Liked (2001) profiles another musical original: Erik Satie, surrealist composer and all-round oddball, a capricious, temperamental rule-breaker whose works reflect the dreamlike quality of his eccentric life. Read full book review >

Readers don't need to know anything about the composer to enjoy this lively biography, but it is hard to imagine anyone reading these pages who wouldn't want to run right out to hear the "Water Music" or a snatch of the "Messiah." Read full book review >

Savaging young love, male adolescence, and—with tender attention to detail and wildly funny results—the fast food business, Anderson (Thirsty, 1997) pits a teenage doormat against a larger, smarter, nastier rival. Read full book review >

In a first novel for which the word offbeat could have been coined, a modern Massachusetts teenager is swept into a plot of cosmic proportions as adolescence dishes up an unpleasant personal revelation—he's on the cusp of becoming a vampire. In Chris's familiar world of high school, bickering parents, and secret crushes, the vampires have always been an acknowledged but distant reality, on the nightly news when their victims are found or when they are summarily executed by police. Read full book review >