2011 books
28) Amélie Nothomb, Sulphuric Acid, 2005
Previous experiences reading Nothomb have left me a little jaded by her constant plunder of her own past for works that have amounted to some rather average autobiographical fiction. I had no such problem here, however; you could watch all the reality TV the world has ever made and never encounter anything quite like this scenario: a near-future reality TV concentration camp, complete with the deaths of inmates chosen by the audience, and all the inevitable (and hypocritical) moral outrage this would engender among French society. This book caused a bit of a real-life stir in France, too, among people who had difficulty seeing it as satire, and Nothomb was invited onto French television to explain it all. Subject matter notwithstanding, for me this was by far the most enjoyable of her books, showing that when she stretches herself imaginatively she can also create something meaningful and lasting.