On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon is a beautiful novel by Kaye Gibbons. It tells the story of Emma Garnet, looking back on her life of Southern privilege, growing up on a plantation with an over beaing and cruel father, a loving mother and the slaves that raised her. Later, she escapes her father when she marries a doctor and works by his side tending to wounded soldiers throughout the Civil War. It is reminiscent of Marilynne Robinson’s wonderful…
The Grace Keepers is the debut novel by Kirsty Logan, a young Scottish author. This is truly an otherworldy novel that transports the reader to the misty islands of Scotland where the world is divided between “landlockers” those who live on the mainland, and “damplings” those who live on boats on the sea. It tells the story of Callanish, a young woman who lives a lonely existence tending to burials in the sea, and North, a young woman who lives…
Jhumpa Lahiri is one of my favorite writers and The Lowland doesn’t disappoint. It is the story of two brothers, very close in age, yet very different, growing up in Calcutta in the 60’s. Their paths diverge as one joins a revolutionary movement in India, and the other moves to Rhode Island to study oceanography. This is a compelling family saga, steeped in history and spanning decades and continents; Lahiri at the height of her abilities. A recommended read.
Together Tea by Marjan Kamali is a book as comforting and sweet as Persian tea sucked through a cube of sugar held between the teeth. It tells the story of a displaced Iranian family living in America after escaping the revolution. The men in the family seem to have adjusted to life in the States, but for Darya and her daughter Mina, home still means Iran. A well written enjoyable read, bursting with Persian culture.
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, is an incredible book by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Katherine Boo. Although non-fiction, it reads like a novel and the story will captivate you. Boo spent years researching Annawadi, a Mumbai slum built up right next to the luxury resorts surrounding the airport. While India is experiencing massive economic growth and its rich and middle class are getting richer, it’s poor are still stuck in dire poverty and…
I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani is a novel that explores the strange and dangerous world of Nigerian email scams. In a poor country overrun by corruption, sometimes a University degree is not enough to ensure a good job and money to feed your family. Kingsley, the protagonist of the story, finds this out the hard way as his girlfriend leaves him and his father’s hospital bills are more than the family can afford….
We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride is a novel set in Las Vegas. It tells the story of 8 year old Bashkim, a brave Albanian boy living with his immigrant parents and baby sister, Luis, a wounded young Mexican-American veteran just back from Iraq, and Avis, a 53 year old woman who has lived in Vegas her whole life and just finds out her husband is leaving her. McBride draws us in as each of their stories unfold…
Brick Lane by Monica Ali is a novel about Bangladeshi immigrant families living in London. Nazneen, married to a man twenty years older and living in London, leaves her small village in Bangladesh and leaves behind everything she knows for a new life that she doesn’t understand. She speaks very little English, and hardly leaves the apartment, yet somehow, slowly she begins an internal journey that is even greater than the external journey she has already made. Her sister stays…
Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier is a book about a young girl named Reason living with her mother in the Australian outback, hiding from her wicked Grandmother in Sydney who is supposedly a witch. When Reason’s mother has a nervous breakdown and is sent to a mental institution, Reason is forced to go live with her Grandmother. From the moment she arrives, she tries to reconcile the stories her mother told her all her life with the clean beautiful…
The Hypnotists Love Story by Liane Moriarty is a novel about a clinical hypnotherapist in Sydney, Australia, who falls in love then finds out her boyfriend is being stalked by his ex-girlfriend. At the beginning, she is more intrigued than frightened, until things begin to get creepy. Moriarty is one of my favorite writers, she makes you empathize and care about all her characters, in this case even the stalker. She shows that nothing is black and white; she examines…