Self-made Mumbai real estate mogul Dharmen Shah is determined to build his iconic structure, the Shanghai, a "super-luxury" residential skyscraper, named to reflect his admiration for "all the will power in the world" he associates with the rising global power of the Chinese. In order...
Months (maybe longer) have passed since I finished Aminatta Forna’s third and latest title, exquisitely narrated by British actor Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. I think I just didn't want to let it go by posting a review ...
A full decade has passed since Yann Martel won the coveted Booker Prize for his Life of Pi. I confess I had to force myself to finish that book when it first appeared; I admit to being befuddled to learn of its Booker win and the...
When the running gets tough (and long), I find my latest default stuck-in-the-ears choices to last me another 10, 20, 30 miles is something by Harlan Coben (because his Tell No One was my first pulp mystery ever and remains a favorite over a decade later) or Carl Hiaasen (because I get so...
As this is the penultimate volume in the 22-part series, I suppose I should have savored it ...
While I do enjoy a clever mystery now and then, I confess the real reason I randomly picked up the Vish Puri – "India's Most Private Investigator" series – is because I was so taken with the title for #3: The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken, which hit...
I don't know if this is linguistically correct, but I'm going with it: my recent discovery of indie comic-book legend Harvey Pekar is posthumous – that is, Pekar passed away two years ago (although I'm still kicking), and I'm just reading his work for the first...
In mid-April, the literary world reeled with the news that no fiction title was awarded a Pulitzer this year; such an omission from the annual mega-prize list hadn't happened in 35 years, since 1977. Many opinions, articles, shouts, and protests followed, but a May New...
The 2,500-page, 18th-century classic, Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, is regarded as China’s most important work of fiction. Pauline A. Chen (Peiling and the Chicken-Fried Christmas, for middle-grade readers) tackles the daunting task of adapting the revered original text, and her literary...
In a sentence, American Dervish is about a young boy's indoctrination into Islam – the religion he was born into, but from the practice of which his parents have lapsed (by choice) – and his eventual withdrawal from his fervent childhood devotion. By extension, the novel...
In spite of its heft (500+ pages, or 20.5 hours if you let the perfectly-paced John Lee read to you), not much really happens in The Museum of Innocence. I'm adding here the requisite spoiler alert, but I'm fairly certain that most readers will guess the outcome...
I've been working through numerous 'should-have-read-earlier'-titles lately, and Salman Rushdie's books always loom large as objects of fascination. After four attempts to read his The Enchantress of Florence (twice on the page, twice stuck in the ears narrated by Firdous Bamji whose recordings can make me choose a book...
This is a book I bought twice: first to stick in my ears on long runs (chillingly read by a Korean American triumvirate of Tim Kang, Josiah D. Lee, and James Kyson Lee), and when I couldn't soak in the story quickly enough, I ordered...
Oh, what a plethora of choices for accessing this swashbuckling series by the godfather of manga: you could go with the original 1960s manga series in Japanese, watch the 26-part anime from 1969 or the live-action film (available dubbed in English even!) from 2007, play the video...
Flesh, a turn-of-the-20th-century debut novel set mostly in Hanoi, begins and ends with gruesome beheadings. Bearing witness to both executions is Tài, a poor teenage village boy quickly forced into manhood. In an effort to reclaim his father’s severed head and finance an auspicious burial, Tài...
The body count quickly mounts in this engrossing sequel to the thrilling faux Victorian confessional novel, The Meaning of Night. Another well-deserved WOW is in order, even more so because careful readers will undoubtedly solve several (many, even?) of the whodunit-who's-really-who clues early on, but that...
If, like me, you're in the throes of Downton Abbey withdrawal, might I highly recommend the late Michael Cox's only two novels [sadly the noted expert on the Victorian ghost story passed away two years ago at just age 60]. Yes, the British monarchs are different...
"The authors have chosen anonymity for obvious political reasons." When you know something like that about a book – that lives were willing to be risked to get a story out – how could you possibly not read it? In the case of Zahra's Paradise, I...
Kanna, Otcho, and Manjome are all in the same room – you could say even on the same side. The final words from Manjome leave everyone speechless: "Please ...
On the kitchen wall is taped a large sign: "My name is Dr. Jennifer White. I am sixty-four years old. I have dementia. My son, Mark, is twenty-nine. My daughter, Fiona, twenty-four. A caregiver, Magdalena, lives with me." What else should you know without telling you...
