"On a continent of many songs, in a country shaped like the arm of a guitarrista, the rain drummed down on the town of Temuco [Chile]," the invitingly dreamy Dreamer begins. Neftalí Reyes, the eponymous dreamer, is most content to live in a world of stories,...
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 ...
At 91, Ptolemy Grey is "waiting to finally be a man." as he writes in his last letter, addressed to his young charge and heir Robyn. The novel begins backwards with an "Afterward" that summarizes the whole of Ptolemy's nine-decades-plus, but to understand why he's...
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...
Handpicked by Nobel Laureate Kenzaburō Ōe for his eponymous Ōe Prize in 2009, Nakamura – who has also previously garnered many of Japan’s other top awards (Noma Literary New Face Prize, the coveted Akutagawa Prize) – makes his Stateside debut-in-translation. Disguised as fast-paced, shock-fueled crime fiction,...
Ah, this day of mislaid Hallmark hearts ...
Nanfuka wants nothing more than to finish her education and become a nurse – the first in her village. While still a child herself, the teenager is suddenly forced to leave school and thrust into adult responsibilities when she is called home as her father...
Here's a dilemma: If you knew how much a book series might deteriorate by its final title, would you read all the way through to the bitter end? As contrary as I am, I probably would ...
Still a young teenager, Alinda knows only too well the potential horrors of war ...
I confess the main reason I finally plucked this debut novel (written by its author when he was just 23) from my never-shrinking 'to-read' pile was because I found the audible version is narrated by Indian American actor Firdous Bamji. After finishing Amitav Ghosh's The...
Take a careful look at this book cover ...
Ever since the fabulous audible version of No More Dead Dogs kept my then-backseated young 'uns highly entertained through many a traffic jam, Gordon Korman holds special favor on the contraptions that have taken over their now-teenage ears. [Pop, by the way, earned a double rave.] Oldster me is still laughing along...
Being in the throes of adolescence, my two teenagers have little they agree on ...
Doh! For some reason, I had no idea the other-worldly adventures of the Picasso/Chiaki dynamic duo [pocket-angel Chiaki directs the surviving Picasso towards doing good deeds for his fellow students] was a trilogy. I figured on a few more years of diving into secret sketches since...
Remember the title of Katherine Boo’s new book Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, because you will see it on upcoming nominee lists for the next round of Very Important Literary Prizes. That Boo won the Pulitzer in 2000,...
Allow me to start with two immediate thoughts about content and delivery. Content: Today's Mexican narcos, the Colombian cartels, the Afghan/Pakistani smuggling rings utterly pale in comparison to the British and American opium runners demanding access to 19th-century China. You might have studied the distant...
More and more, I've noticed book cover flaps yielding important tidbits (which makes me a bit concerned about such covers going astray, especially for picture books handled by so many little hands!). But worry aside, how fitting to find this on the front flap about...
"Dear Mr. Jean Paul Sartre, I know that you are dead and old and also a philosopher. So, on an obvious level, you and I do not have a lot in common." Thus begins 15-year-old Tina's class project for her English Honors elective on existential...
Can anyone really understand such a number: 5,400,000. The death of a single loved one can leave you staggering and lost ...
Few Nepali writers have thus far landed on western bookshelves, with only two exceptions who come immediately to mind – elegant Samrat Upadhyay (Arresting God in Kathmandu, The Royal Ghosts) and activist Manjushree Thapa (The Tutor of History, Seasons of Flight). So to find another Nepali author writing in English is a...
