Tinkers by Paul Harding

This book was a New York Times bestseller and it won the Pulitzer Prize. I think the reason it has been acclaimed so highly is that the main character is a dying man, and death is a popular subject these days.

Tinkers is the story of a father and son. Often I did not know which of these men was speaking and I had to watch for clues. Occasionally a grandfather, too, gets into the action. The writing is nonspecific and lyrical, like reading poetry.

At times the writing style begins to flow nicely and this happens in short patches in which a brief story-within-a-story is being told. The harsh climate of New England is described very well.

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

In the odd Fang family, the two children, Annie and Buster, are called "Child A" and "Child B" by their parents. The children are used in scenarios the parents dream up to create strangeness and bring chaos to people around them -- and they are in the habit of calling this "performance art." They actually receive art grants to think up how to disrupt people's lives, using their own children as props. I was not going to finish reading this book, but about half way through it turned into a sort of detective thriller, and I was hooked.

The important question the author explores is whether or not art is more important than children and families. Does art exist in a world of its own, with its own rules, and is art more important than anything else? 

This book made it to the New York Times bestsellers list.