90. Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan

David Anderton is a Catholic priest who although Scottish born, was educated at Oxford and is now viewed as more English than Scottish to his parishioners. With his mother aging, he requests a transfer to a Scottish parish and ends up in rural Dalgarnock. There he is seen as being different than the other priests they have had, and he freely admits that he enjoys the finer things in life such as wine and good food. He also befriends two young troublemakers, Mark and Lisa, who steal, drink, and do drugs. After a night of drinking and taking drugs with Mark, Father David leans over and kisses Mark, who then turns the priest in to authorities. As the town and the Catholic Church turns against David, he must decide if he should admit to falling in love with the young boy or retire and let the Church handle the matter in court.

Although this deals with a priest kissing a teenage boy, this is not a book about pedophile priests. Instead, it is about a man who must struggle with his religion and his desires as a man. Full of beautiful language and descriptions of the small Protestant town angry with their Catholic priest, this is a surprising sleeper of a book. It also deals with current issues such as how the British view their involvement in the Iraq War, and what it means to be Scottish or English these days. O’Hagan ultimately writes about a person’s desire to love and be loved, whether it be physically or in a religious sense.