Southeast Asia Archives - The Gilmore Guide to Books

What Could Be Saved

Catherine — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 05:59:20 +0000

The word “normal” ceases to exist in families who lose a child. Either they re-form together into a new unit or they separate. After 8-year-old Philip disappears in What Could Be Saved, the Preston family is the latter. They shatter, with the four remaining members—father, Robert; mother, Genevieve; daughters, Beatrice, and Laura, leaving Thailand to […]

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The Majesties: A Novel

Catherine — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 04:37:09 +0000

Sometimes novels that begin with a bang end with a fizzle. That’s not the case with The Majesties, which opens with Gwen, the main narrator, lying in a coma. After being poisoned by her sister, Estella, along with their entire extended family and closest friends. At a lavish banquet honoring their grandfather. Gwen is the […]

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If I Had Your Face

Catherine — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 04:25:47 +0000

I would live your life so much better than you if I had your face. Last week, I visited historical Korea when I read Pachinko. I learned so much about the country, but once again, fiction is taking me into an aspect of Korea I had no idea existed. I know about the South […]

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Pachinko: A Novel

Catherine — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 04:10:24 +0000

Historical fiction seems to be the safest bet for my reading right now. Novels that put me in another place, in a different century or even a different decade, all seem to work at distracting my scrabbling brain. Most recently, I fell into the world of Korea from the 1930s to the 1980s in Min […]

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Mothers’ Week: The Island of Sea Women

Catherine — Mon, 06 May 2019 07:41:36 +0000

This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day so this week my reviews are focused on three books with very different perspectives on motherhood. Each offered something important in its own way and reminded me how, like so much of what women do, it is impossible to fit the role of mother into one finite slot. […]

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Winter 2019 Books I’m Ready to Read

Catherine — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 08:23:49 +0000

Week one back in the real world! How is everyone holding up after the holidays? Once again, I had a quiet time of it which was welcome considering what lies ahead in 2019. Nothing bad, just change. What hasn’t changed is that I’m ready to get back to review reading. I enjoyed my time off […]

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Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami

Catherine — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 08:41:17 +0000

Where to begin about Killing Commendatore? This chunkster of a book is about a portrait artist who breaks with his current life after his wife leaves him. He moves into a remote home that allows him a quiet life away from his work. Until, he discovers a hidden painting in the attic and a man […]

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It’s Monday, April 3rd: What Are You Reading?

Catherine — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 07:02:32 +0000

Another month, another Monday. I’m happy to report that we are going to be exploding into bloom any minute now in Seattle. Certain trees are already flowering but the narcissus, tulips and irises have all made their way towards the sun (when it spears) and look to be ready to explode. In the same […]

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Green Island: A Novel

Catherine — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 08:19:20 +0000

Past, present, and future too swirl together, distinguishable but not delineated by any sort of grammar beyond the one our hearts impose. The narrator in Green Island is born on the night in 1947 when the tension between the factions in Taiwan explode into civil violence. Her father, a doctor, in attending a […]

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Hunters in the Dark

Catherine — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 08:34:21 +0000

Lawrence Osborne was a travel journalist and currently lives in Bangkok, but his latest novel Hunters in the Dark is not one that will inspire readers to head to Southeast Asia. Instead, it has a Heart of Darkness feel—where the language spoken by the natives is not one that can ever be learned by foreigners and […]

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