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The Heart’s Invisible Furies

November 7, 2017

heart

  Cyril Avery’s birth was not a propitious one. He came into the world onto the floor of a tiny apartment, next to the unconscious body of his mother’s roommate, with the roommate’s lover lying dead on the stairs below. It was Ireland in 1945 and the roommate and the lover were also teens, but they were men and as such had been hunted down by one’s father. From this ... Read More...

16 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, childhood, coming-of-age, Hogarth, Ireland, literary, social issues

Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo

September 5, 2017

stay

Stay With Me begins in the middle, which is when, after four years of marriage but no children Akin is being pushed by his mother to take another wife. He loves Yejide, but to not have children is incomprehensible in their society and a source of anguish to his wife. When he does give in it is as little as possible, with a woman who he does not allow to live with them and whom ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Africa, contemporary life, cultural, debut, Knopf, literary

Great Summer Reading: The Windfall

June 26, 2017

windfall

The first month of summer is wrapping up so before things get too far along I have a week’s worth of great books to share. Each one makes for perfect summer reading!   It is every entrepreneur’s dream to have their creation sell for a boatload of money. For Mr. Jha the dream comes true when his website is bought for $20 million—the kind of money that changes lives. ... Read More...

9 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, Crown, cultural, debut, family, India, wealth

Salt Houses: A Novel

May 15, 2017

salt

There are plenty of times when fiction ventures into territory that is unfamiliar—in fact, that’s one of the reasons I love it so much. But Salt Houses, the debut novel from Hala Alyan is about a subject that I almost can’t wrap my mind around. The fact of having been driven out, by force or war, from not just your home, but virtually every country where you’ve settled. For ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, family saga, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Middle East, war

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

April 7, 2017

tea

  I have always enjoyed Lisa See’s novels for their intimate portrayals of women in China at various points in its history. The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane is her latest and, once again, See brings to life the stories about people and places about which I knew nothing. The novel is set in the 1980s in the Yunnan province, an area known for its tea. Li-Yan’s family, like ... Read More...

8 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: China, cultural, family, Scribner, social issues

The Lucky Ones: A Novel

March 20, 2017

lucky ones

  Covering a span from the early 1990s to present day, The Lucky Ones is a novel about Colombia that is as densely dark as that country’s rainforests. Like those forests the novel is home to a wide array of creatures ranging from the innocent to the dangerous; those that hide in the underbrush and those that can adapt quickly to the changing landscape. Who the lucky ones ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, debut, literary, Random House, social issues, South America

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