It's a bit early in the year for my first five, but this combination of science fiction and meditation on religion is glorious and heartrending and made me very grateful that the baby is learning to take longer naps these days. I loved it. I loved everyone in it, I loved the way the book handled religion and God and majesty and despair and...seriously. So good.
Also, there were Jews! Which is admittedly unexpected in a book mostly about Jesuits, but it works and we are not stereotypes, but people. That was one of the best parts. Religion was handled with grace and taken seriously as a way that people grapple with the ineffable.