European Archives - BookDragon

Top 10 Audiobooks of 2022 [in School Library Journal]

29 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, European, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Iranian American, Lists, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Persian American, Repost, Thai American, Young Adult Readers

Culled from the 200-plus titles with November 2021 to October 2022 publication dates I’ve reviewed or judged, this is SLJ’s list of top 10 audiobooks. Two picture books, a family history in verse, remade fairy tales, an intertwined podcast, and a haven’t-ever-heard-that-before double recording are...

The Winners by Fredrik Backman, translated by Neil Smith [in Booklist]

28 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Fredrik Backman writes with a signature rhythm: a little here, a bit more there, something of this person then that person, a tease about what will happen, warnings about what can’t. The result is a resonant symphony enhanced by the stupendous Marin Ireland, who...

Esther’s Notebooks by Riad Sattouf, translated by Sam Taylor [in Booklist]

11 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Riad Sattouf, renowned for his Arab of the Future autobiographical series, is just as famous in France for Esther’s Notebooks, which began as a weekly newspaper comic spotlighting the observations and experiences of a friend’s daughter. The comics’ popularity inspired best-selling books and an...

When Everything Turned Blue by Alessandro Baronciani, translated by Carla Roncalli di Montorio [in Booklist]

03 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Italian, Nonethnic-specific, Translation, Uncategorized, Young Adult Readers

Marco, Chiara remembers of her close friend, “was not afraid ...

Hakim’s Odyssey, Book 3: From Macedonia to France by Fabien Toulmé, translated by Hannah Chute [in Booklist]

29 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW French comics creator Fabien Toulmé’s stupendous trilogy concludes Hakim’s epic three-year odyssey from war-torn Syria to finally reaching safety in France. Hannah Chute returns to deftly translate the third volume. To remind audiences of previous events – though reading in order is a gratifying must...

Always Never by Jordi Lafebre, translated by Montana Kane [in Booklist]

25 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW That this story starts with “CHAPTER 20” will likely make readers pause to wonder if an earlier volume might have been missed. But worry not, and read on. A half-dozen pages later shows “CHAPTER 19,” revealing the narrative is moving in reverse. For 37 years,...

The Pachinko Parlor by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins [in Shelf Awareness]

07 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, French, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Winter in Sokcho, the extraordinary first novel, gorgeously translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, by French Korean author Elisa Shua Dusapin, won the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The two reunite for The Pachinko Parlor, in which Dusapin's remarkably intricate and lean prose reveals...

Cinder & Glass by Melissa de la Cruz [in School Library Journal]

20 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Audio, European, Fiction, Filipina/o American, French, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz remarkably has two 2022 Cinderella adaptations: The Stolen Slippers, introducing not-evil stepsisters, and this, in which “Cendrillon” is a Lady in King Louis XIV’s Versailles Court. So much of de la Cruz’s exceptional retelling – with even a nod to...

Planes by Peter Baker [in Booklist]

26 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Italian, Moroccan, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Palestinian American Lameece Issaq expertly ciphers debut-novelist Peter C. Baker’s quartet with equal conviction beyond geographies, genders, and backgrounds. In Rome, Amira – born Maria, now a convert to Islam – works in a shop and returns to an empty apartment because her immigrant husband...

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li [in Booklist]

25 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, European, Fiction, French, Repost

Yiyun Li’s fiction since her son’s tragic suicide seems to have catapulted her away from the Asian roots that define her earlier award-winning fiction. Her latest begins on a pastoral farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where Agnès, known as the “French bride,” lives with her husband...

The Missing Word by Concita De Gregorio, translated by Clarissa Botsford

04 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Italian, Repost, Translation

Widower, widow. Uxoricide. Orphan. Patricide. Infanticide. And yet missing from that harrowing vocabulary is a word for “parents who lose children. Who don’t murder them, but lose them.” Irina becomes that kind of grieving parent when her 6-year-old daughters vanish. She’s recently separated from husband Mathias,...

A Rebel in Auschwitz: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Fought the Nazis from Inside the Camp by Jack Fairweather [in School Library Journal]

22 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Biography, European, Jewish, Nonfiction, Polish, Repost, Young Adult Readers

What’s immediately striking here is the casting of a woman to narrate: the titular rebel is the Polish hero – a man – Witold Pilecki. So, too, is the author, Jack Fairweather, who adapted his 2019 award-winning The Volunteer. The reasons for choosing a female...

The Racers: How an Outcast Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Challenged Hitler’s Best by Neal Bascomb [in School Library Journal]

10 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, European, French, German, Jewish, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

History alchemized through the Neal Bascomb lens – Russian battleship Potemkin, WWI prison camp, Nazi Germany – is a guaranteed thrill-ride; his latest takes readers into the speediest cars of the 1930s. Adapting Faster for younger audiences, Bascomb details a prominent Nazi upset played out...

The Pass by Espé, translated by J.T. Mahany [in Booklist]

06 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

French comics creator Espé made his spectacular translated debut with The Parakeet (2021), inspired by his childhood with a mother battling mental illness. He continues his autobiographical exploration via his stand-in, Bastien, who’s now the parent of two. Louis’ birth should have been joyous for Camille and...

6,000 Miles to Freedom: Two Boys and Their Flight from the Taliban by Stéphane Marchetti, illustrated by Cyrille Pomès, translated by Hannah Chute [in Shelf Awareness]

24 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Afghan, European, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The title 6,000 Miles to Freedom: Two Boys and Their Flight from the Taliban is an apt distillation of the stunning graphic odyssey it entails. Author/director Stéphane Marchetti adapts the striking narrative from his 2017 documentary with Thomas Dandois, Les enfants de la jungle, illuminating the...

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys [in Booklist]

22 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Eastern European, European, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Edoardo Ballerini is that rare talent who instantly, effortlessly transports listeners into a story. His agile adaptability further enhances Ruta Sepetys’ (The Fountains of Silence, 2019) latest historical fiction as he expertly performs characters’ specific details, empathically channels emotions, and deftly reveals a narrative rife...

Mister Lightbulb by Wojtek Wawszczyk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones [in Booklist]

15 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Polish, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Award-winning animator Wojtek Wawszczyk’s graphic debut, which won the Polish Comics Association’s 2019 Best Graphic Novel award, is available now for English-language readers thanks to this translation by the lauded Antonia Lloyd-Jones. A decade-plus in the making, this epic bildungsroman superbly imbues the surreal...

Walk Me to the Corner by Anneli Furmark, translated by Hanna Strömberg [in Shelf Awareness]

01 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Swedish, Translation

In Walk Me to the Corner, Swedish painter and comic artist Anneli Furmark explores the transformative joy and heartbreaking consequences of unexpectedly falling in love in middle age. "What would you choose?," a group of women friends discuss during dinner. "To be fine all the time...

The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Adriana Hunter [in Booklist]

11 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, French, Repost, Translation

Exceptional narrator Dominic Hoffman adroitly assumes the internationally mega-bestselling, 2020 Prix Goncourt-winning, Anglophoned latest from prodigious French author Hervé Le Tellier. Hoffman begins as professional assassin Blake, then becomes frustrated author Victor, film editor Lucie, and David, who is about to be diagnosed with terminal...

Booklist Backlist: Tales of Dementia [in Booklist]

02 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, European, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Jewish, Lists, Malaysian American, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Palestinian American, Repost, Spanish, Translation

Gerda Saunders, who wrote Memory’s Last Breath (2017), an exquisitely bittersweet record chronicling her experiences with dementia, is one of my most beloved friends. We have books in common, in that we find great solace and escape in the (well-)written word. Inspired by our last visit...

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