Confession time -- I spent most of last week watching the Harris-Walz rallies and some of the Olympics. So there is not a review this week. But back to the books. Links are to The Literate Lizard, online bookstore of Readers and Book Lovers nonfiction expert Debtorsprison, and blurbs are from the publishers. Whether from this list or featured titles at the library or a random title from your own TBR list, here's to you finding the right book for you at the right time.
Peggy by Rebecca Godfrey, with Leslie Jamison
Rebecca Godfrey’s Peggy is a blazingly fresh interpretation of a woman who defies every expectation to become an original. The daughter of two Jewish dynasties, Peggy (Guggenheim)finds her cloistered life turned upside down at fourteen, when her beloved father perishes on the Titanic. His death prompts Peggy to seek a life of passion and personal freedom and, above all, to believe in the transformative power of art.
The Axeman's Carnival by Catherine Chidgey
Tama is just a helpless chick when he is rescued by Marnie, and this is where his story might have ended. “If it keeps me awake,” says Marnie’s husband Rob, a farmer, “I’ll have to wring its neck.” But with Tama come new possibilities for the couple’s future. Tama can speak, and his fame is growing. Outside, in the pines, his father warns him of the wickedness wrought by humans. Indoors, Marnie confides in him about her violent marriage. The more Tama sees, the more the animal and the human worlds—and all the precarity, darkness and hope within them—bleed into one another.
Mina's Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa
From the award-winning, psychologically astute author of The Memory Police, a hypnotic, introspective novel about an affluent Japanese family navigating buried secrets, and their young house guest who uncovers them.
The Registry of Forgotten Objects: Stories by Miles Harvey
Short stories that use inanimate objects and how humans relate to them to examine grief, environmental disaster, and other themes of contemporary life.
The Utopian Generation by Pepetela
A seminal novel of African decolonization available for the first time in English translation.
Lisbon 1961. Aware that the secret police are watching them, four young Angolans discuss their plans for a utopian homeland free from Portuguese rule. When war breaks out, they flee to France and must decide whether they will return home to join the fight. Two remain in exile and two return to Angola to become guerilla fighters, barely escaping capture over the course of the brutal fourteen-year war. Reunited in the capital of Luanda, the old friends face independence with their confidence shaken and struggle to build a new society free of the corruption and violence of colonial rule.
Highway Thirteen: Stories by Fiona McFarlane
A gripping, enigmatic collection of linked short stories about the reverberations of a serial killer’s crimes in the lives of everyday people.
The Avian Hourglass by Lindsey Drager
The birds have disappeared. The stars are no longer visible. The Crisis is growing worse. In a town as isolated as a snowglobe, a woman who dreams of becoming a radio astronomer struggles to raise the triplets she gave birth to as a gestational surrogate, whose parents were killed in a car accident. Surrounded by characters who wear wings, memorize etymologies, and build gigantic bird nests, and bound to this town in which young adults must decide between two binary worldviews—either YES or NO—the woman is haunted by the old fable of the Girl in Glass Vessel, a cautionary tale about prying back the façade of one’s world.
Memento Mori by Eunice Hong
Did Eurydice want to return from the underworld? Did anybody ask?
The Hypocrite : A Novel by Jo Hamya
From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a novel set between the London stage and Sicily, about a daughter who turns her novelist father’s fall from grace into a play, and a father who increasingly fears his precocious daughter’s voice.
Silken Gazelles by Jokha Alharthi
From Man Booker International Prize-winning author of Celestial Bodies and Bitter Orange Tree, a new novel about two Omani women whose unbreakable connection is forged as nursing sisters—a bond considered akin to that of a birth sibling.
Medusa of the Roses by Navid Sinaki
Sex, vengeance, and betrayal in modern day Tehran—Navid Sinaki’s bold and cinematic debut is a queer literary noir following Anjir, a morbid romantic and petty thief whose boyfriend disappears just as they’re planning to leave their hometown for good.
Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv by Andrey Kurkov
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize, a Murakami-esque ode to the revered cultural capital of western Ukraine, filled with a charming cast of eccentrics who together make up the beating heart of the city.
The Fertile Earth by Ruthvika Rao
An unforgettable story of love and resistance surrounding two young people born across social lines, set against a tumultuous political landscape in India.
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