Before you read a single word, you'll surely find yourself marveling at the breathtaking wonder of the artwork here. The word 'exquisite' hardly does the painstakingly detailed panels justice ...
My recent mini-Ethiopian self-study (from the heartwarming No Biking in the House Without a Helmet to the shattering Beneath the Lion's Gaze to the wondrous Cutting for Stone) continues with an older title written for younger readers about the saving power of friendship – as well as redemptive...
In her small native village, young Wuditu – and the rest of her family – are called falasha, a derogatory term reserved for Jewish people. Their own name for themselves is Beta Israel, meaning 'the house of Israel.' In spite of a centuries-long history grounded in Ethiopia,...
Truth: if not for Sunil Malhotra, I would never have finished Abraham Verghese's bestselling first novel, Cutting for Stone. Immediately opened upon receipt more than two years ago, for some reason, my bookmark never moved beyond the first few chapters ...
Here's the initial scene: an orange fox chases a grey rabbit, both heading toward an almost-washed out wooden bridge perched over a fast-moving river swollen from heavy rains. The rabbit sees the bridge as an escape route, while the fox is convinced he's about to get...
"In Khardji [Yemen], the village where I was born, women are not taught how to make choices," Nujood Ali explains. Her mother married her father at age 16 without protest, and said nothing when her husband brought home another wife four years later. "It was...
Without a doubt, this is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s best work to date. While her debut, Purple Hibiscus, was engrossing, and her short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck, included stand-out gems, both titles pale to the exceptional Yellow Sun. Gentle, innocent Ugwu enters the home of...
The village of Hargigo in the tiny African country of Eritrea was once a landscape of dust and deprivation ...
Born and raised in a small Pennsylvania town, the only connection 14-year-old Grace has to her Cambodian heritage are her mother and her grandmother. While these three generations of women clearly need and love one another, they are uncertain as to how to truly know each...
Warning: NO NO NO! This is NOT to share with your kiddies, at least not until they're much older ...
For young Aneel, having his grandparents come live with him is like having built-in playmates, not to mention "...
Had I not been so enthralled with Room, I don't know if I would have discovered Emma Donoghue's many other titles, but I've definitely been enjoying reading newly discovered authors' works backwards. Take a look at the cover and you can probably guess what Landing is about....
I won't lie: at almost 600 pages (or almost 21 hours if you choose the audible option), Siddhartha Mukherjee's 2011 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction is a Commitment (yes, capitalization intended!). But commitment can come with vast rewards and, in this case, get ready for a massive infusion of...
Nitori Shuichi and his older sister Maho are starting at a new school. Before he's even entered his fifth-grade classroom, Nitori has already been mistaken for a girl. He is indeed a beautiful boy ...
So this is why Julia Glass won the 2002 National Book Award. Nine Junes later, I'm catching up! As I started out disappointed having read her third title first (I See You Everywhere), I admit to letting out one contented long sigh with this one. Glass'...
True confession: Intuition is not my favorite Allegra Goodman title (I remain most partial to Kaaterskill Falls and recently enjoyed The Cookbook Collector). That said, Intuition proved to be a highly useful tool as I happened to read it just before I picked up 2011 nonfiction Pulitzer Prize...
Talk about a surprisingly fortuitous bonus: If you get the audible version of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, included in the deal is Junot Díaz's debut title, Drown, a collection of 10 mostly-related short stories. That both Díaz titles are read with such fluency...
Here are a few new things I learned from Junot Díaz's 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winner that many of you already read long ago ...
With 20-plus books published in Taiwan and China, writer/painter Mu finally makes his English debut with a collection of 13 stories he chose from three previous titles. The result is, in a word, uneven. Standouts outshine the less than memorable, perhaps making the latter seem that...
I admit it: more than a few pages now have drying leftover droplets. Elizabeth Partridge, whose last title was the multi-award-winning Marching for Freedom, sure knows how to make a jaded old reader go sniff, sniff. On the last day of seventh grade, best friends Tracy and Stargazer...
