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The New York Times - 100 Notable Books of 2012 (Click here to see the complete list) Published: November 27, 2012 "The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review." Here are a handful of titles: GATHERING OF WATERS by Bernice L. McFadden (Akashic) Three generations of black women confront floods and murder in Mississippi. HOME by Toni Morrison (Knopf) A black Korean War veteran, discharged from an integrated Army into a segregated homeland, makes a reluctant journey back to Georgia in a novel engaged with themes that have long haunted Morrison. NW by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press) The lives of two friends who grew up in a northwest London housing project diverge, illuminating questions of race, class, sexual identity and personal choice, in Smith’s energetic modernist novel. SALVAGE THE BONES by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury) A pregnant 15-year-old and her family await Hurricane Katrina in this lushly written novel. THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER by Junot Díaz (Riverhead) The stories in this collection are about love, but they’re also about the undertow of family history and cultural mores, presented in Díaz’s exciting, irresistible and entertaining prose. AMERICAN TAPESTRY: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama by Rachel L. Swarns (Amistad) A Times reporter’s deeply researched chronicle of several generations of Mrs. Obama’s family. THE GREY ALBUM: On the Blackness of Blackness by Kevin Young. (Graywolf) A poet’s lively account of the central place of the trickster figure in black American culture could have been called “How Blacks Invented America.” THE BLACK COUNT: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss. (Crown) The first Alexandre Dumas, a mixed-race general of the French Revolution, is the subject of this imaginative biography. THE ONE: The Life and Music of James Brown by RJ Smith (Gotham) Smith argues that Brown was the most significant modern American musician in terms of style, messaging, rhythm and originality. (Click here to see the complete list)