*STARRED REVIEW Swedish author Fredrik Backman’s novels tackle serious subjects – isolated aging in A Man Called Ove, death and responsibility in My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry, abandonment in Britt-Marie Was Here, dementia in And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer...
*STARRED REVIEW Kimberly Farr, who gracefully, achingly gave voice to the eponymous protagonist in Elizabeth Strout’s My Name Is Lucy Barton, returns here as Lucy but adds to her repertoire Lucy’s family, neighbors, and long-ago acquaintances who call Amgash, IL, home. When Lucy’s mother unexpectedly arrived...
*STARRED REVIEW Kevin Kwan’s third volume continues to expose – albeit with plenty of schadenfreudian humor – the outrageous excesses and over-the-top machinations that began with his debut, Crazy Rich Asians (currently in highly anticipated celluloid production). Lydia Look, who voiced book two, China Rich Girlfriend,...
A Refugee's Journey from Afghanistan by Helen Mason A Refugee's Journey from the Democratic Republic of the Congo by Ellen Rodger A Refugee's Journey from Iraq by Ellen Rodger A Refugee's Journey from Syria by Helen Mason Working with members of the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University in Toronto,...
"[D]ecidedly catholic" tastes aside, The Manga Critic is oh so right: I DOOOOOOOOOOOO "religiously" review every issue of this toothsome series! How could I ever ignore such delicious delights, I tell you! So what's the latest for our favorite Tokyo lovebirds? While Shiro takes his parents...
Ready to get graphic? If you’re new to the genre, might I suggest you go directly to the godfather of manga, the late Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989). Astro Boy ring a bell? Speed Racer? Kimba the White Lion? “There’s a reason why the Japanese call [him] the God of Comics,”...
Favorite Manga Series, Part I: 20th Century Boys through Ultraman Graphic titles are big news. Even if you’re not a pop-culture connoisseur, you can’t have missed the graphic titles regularly popping up on bestseller lists—not to mention their various incarnations on film and even the stage! When...
In thrice voicing Linda Wallheim, the Mormon bishop’s murder-solving wife, Kirsten Potter has settled comfortably into a quixotic emotional range that can move from stiff politeness to philosophical musing to overwrought shrillness without much warning. Confronted with a third dead body – “How does this always...
Mysteries and thrillers make up a sizable portion of the Japanese literary market. Thanks to the international success of Keigo Higashino, Natsuo Kirino, and Miyuki Miyabe – and, just as importantly, their translators – contemporary Japanese crime fiction proliferates on Western shelves. Below is a list...
Oh, how I've missed my favorite Tokyo lovebirds! Not to mention the chance to salivate over their too-toothsome meals. If only they'd invite me over! If you're just tuning in to this tasty domestic drama, make sure to click here to catch up. Shiro's already well-stocked...
Sixteen years ago, a pregnant woman walking the hospital halls found a lottery ticket on the floor. The ticket proved quite the winner, enabling the new mother – and her three co-parents – to "buy a big house to fill with lots more kids, and...
Well holy, moly! How did a dozen years fly by so quickly?! San Francisco indie press Immedium’s 12-part Tales from the Chinese Zodiac, written by founding publisher and author Oliver Chin, comes full circle with a final, rousing cock-a-doodle-dooooo!! Mama and Papa welcome Ray to their flock, earning his name...
*STARRED REVIEW In the fourth – and most entertaining – of the updated-by-famous-contemporary-authors "Hogarth Shakespeare" series (which also includes Jeannette Winterson's The Gap of Time, Howard Jacobson's Shylock Is My Name, and Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl), The Tempest gets reset to an Ontario theater festival and a correctional...
"I wanted to write about girls and monsters, which has been a theme of mine from almost the start of my career — girls and giant monsters, and the supernatural," bestselling author Marjorie Liu told The Hollywood Reporter in a 2015 interview. "I wanted to...
Still reeling from her mother's sudden death, Wylie – already fighting debilitating anxiety – has become even more self-isolating. When her former best friend's mother shows up desperately seeking her daughter Cassie, Wylie doesn't confess that the two have barely seen each other since Cassie...
*STARRED REVIEW Guy Lockard has assumed the mantle of narrator-of-choice for Jason Reynolds’s fiction: Ghost (2016 National Book Award finalist) is Lockard's third Reynolds title, following As Brave as You and Rashad's chapters in All American Boys. Here, as seventh grader Castle "Ghost" Crenshaw, Lockard performs...
The third installment of the Hogarth Shakespeare series transfers the 16th-century comedy The Taming of the Shew, set in Padua, Italy, to a contemporary Baltimore neighborhood, otherwise known as beloved Pulitzer-Prized Anne Tyler-territory. The Bard's obdurate, would-be lovers Katherina and Petruchio become Kate Battista, a...
Warning first: This is NOT NOT NOT for kids. For us old folks, however ...
Already the star of an ongoing, bestselling series in Japan (on both page and screen), Det. Reiko Himekawa makes her English-translation debut, outsmarting her arrogant male colleagues by listening to the dead. At 29, Reiko is young to be a lieutenant in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police's...
