The Adult Reading Round Table (ARRT) was founded in 1984 to develop readers' advisory skills for Chicago-area librarians. Three influential decades later, ARRT is still going strong. In keeping with this column's tradition of asking librarians to discuss their top reads ot the year, members of ARRT's steering committee share their favorite titles of 2014. From the opening pages of Rene Den-feld's debut, THE ENCHANTED (Harper. ISBN 9780062285508. S25.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062285522), two things become clear: first, this is not an easy stoiy, and second, the author's richly imaginative approach makes it nearly impossible to put down. The "enchanted" of the title are death row inmates in a damp and decrepit prison in which an investigator is searching for information to lessen a condemned man's sentence. The action unfolds through the eyes of an unnamed convict whose past is so horrific that he has retreated into a fantastical world of his own making. His perspective and observations of other prisoners and outsiders blur the boundaries between darkness and beauty, truth and invention.
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