One of the downsides of reading a lot is the feeling that, while you still enjoy most of what you read, some of it tends to sound familiar—as if you’ve read it before. Which is not unreasonable, as ‘how many truly distinct plots there are in fiction’ is a subject of debate even among critics. Still, it makes it that much more exciting when I come upon something wholly ... Read More...
The Secrets Between Us
By the end of Thrity Umrigar’s novel, The Space Between Us, Bhima had been fired from her job as Sera’s household servant, after being accused of stealing money from the family. For Bhima, living alone while trying to raise her granddaughter, Maya, in one of Mumbai’s many slums, this was a catastrophic event. She had worked for Sera for over two decades, relying on Sera’s ... Read More...
A Place for Us: A Novel
A Place for Us opens just before the beginning of an Indian family wedding in California. The bride, Hadia, is hoping that her brother, Amar, will show up. No one in the family has seen him for three years, but Hadia hopes their bond is strong enough to bring him back, despite the problems with their father that made him run away. Amar does attend—marking the wedding as both an ... Read More...
Us Against You by Fredrik Backman
There’s a loser in every relationship. We may not like to admit it, but one of us always gets a little more, and one of us gives up a little more readily. Given that I have very little interest in sports related fiction, it was no small feat on Fredrik Backman’s part that he made me care so much about hockey. But, in his novel, Beartown, I did. Mostly because it ... Read More...
The Map of Salt and Stars
Making maps is the fulcrum for Jennifer Joukhadar’s debut novel, The Map of Salt and Stars. Rawiya and Nour are young women who tell their stories side by side even though they are separated by almost a thousand years. Rawiya is a sixteen-year-old in ancient Ceuta who longs to see the world beyond her village so she leaves home in the guise of a young man and becomes an ... Read More...
Girls Burn Brighter
One of the reasons I love to read is that it offers me a chance to see places on the page (and in my mind) that I’m not likely to see in real life. Just as importantly it exposes me to experiences and lives utterly different from my own. Last month my first five-star book of the year was Song of a Captive Bird, a novel about an Iranian poet, and, while aspects of a ... Read More...
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- …
- 28
- Next Page »
