About the Book: It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between tutoring twelve-year-old Mieko in an apartment in an abandoned hotel and lying on the floor at her grandparents: daydreaming, playing Tetris, and listening to the sounds from the street above. The heat rises; the days slip by. The plan is … Continue reading Book Review: The Pachinko Parlour by Elisa Shua Dusapin (trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins)
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Book Review: Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin (trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins)
About the Book: Winner of the Prix Robert Walser — a beautiful, unexpected novel from a debut French-Korean author. It’s winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous, beyond the beach guns point out from … Continue reading Book Review: Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin (trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins)
Book Review: The Golden Book by Kate Ryan
About the Book: It’s the 1980s, and in their small coastal town, Ali and her best friend, Jessie, are on the cusp. With ‘The Golden Book’, a journal of incantation and risk taking as their record, they begin to chafe at the restrictions put on them by teachers, parents, each other. Then Jessie suffers a … Continue reading Book Review: The Golden Book by Kate Ryan
Book Review: Repentance by Alison Gibbs
Repentance... About the Book: It’s the summer of 1976, and the winds of change are blowing through the small town of Repentance on the edge of the Great Dividing Range. The old families farmed cattle and cut timber, but the new settlers, the hippies, have a different perspective on the natural order and humankind’s place … Continue reading Book Review: Repentance by Alison Gibbs
Book Review: The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida by Clarissa Goenawan
The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida… About the Book: A bewitching novel set in contemporary Japan about the mysterious suicide of a young woman. Miwako Sumida is dead. Now those closest to her try to piece together the fragments of her life. Ryusei, who has always loved her, follows Miwako’s trail to a remote Japanese … Continue reading Book Review: The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida by Clarissa Goenawan
Book Review: Fathoms: the world in the whale by Rebecca Giggs
Fathoms... About the Book: When Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beach in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales might shed light on the condition of our seas. How do whales experience environmental change? Has our connection to these fabled animals been transformed by technology? What future … Continue reading Book Review: Fathoms: the world in the whale by Rebecca Giggs
Book Review: Elly by Maike Wetzel
Elly (Translated from German by Lyn Marven) About the Book: A missing child is a nightmare for any family. But what happens when they come back? Eleven-year-old Elly is missing. After an extensive police search she is presumed dead, and her family must learn to live with a gaping hole in their lives. Then, four … Continue reading Book Review: Elly by Maike Wetzel
Book Review: The Blessed Rita by Tommy Wieringa (translated by Sam Garrett)
The Blessed Rita... About the Book: ‘He had seen more and more people from the East in recent years. Mostly gypsies, people said. Bulgarians, Romanians — you could tell by the plates on the vans and the trailers. The Poles had been around for some time already. Burglaries, thefts. The blessings of the new Europe.’ … Continue reading Book Review: The Blessed Rita by Tommy Wieringa (translated by Sam Garrett)
Book Review: All Our Relations by Tanya Talaga
All Our Relations Indigenous trauma in the shadow of colonialism... About the Book: The world’s Indigenous communities are fighting to live and dying too young. In this vital and incisive work, Tanya Talaga explores intergenerational trauma and the alarming rise of youth suicide. From Northern Ontario to Nunavut, Norway, Brazil, Australia, and the United States, … Continue reading Book Review: All Our Relations by Tanya Talaga
Book Review: Greenwood by Michael Christie
Greenwood... About the Book: 2038. On a remote island off the Pacific coast of British Columbia stands the Greenwood Arboreal Cathedral, one of the world’s last forests. Wealthy tourists flock from all corners of the dust-choked globe to see the spectacle and remember what once was. But even as they breathe in the fresh air … Continue reading Book Review: Greenwood by Michael Christie
Theresa Smith Writes 