The Thursday Murder Club: Richard Osman

Published by Penguin, 2020, 400 pages. If you’re looking for a light read with a bit of murder thrown in, then look no further. Richard Osman has written a delightful whodunit, set in an upscale retirement village in the UK. Septuagenarians Joyce, Elizabeth, Ibrahim and Ron live at Coopers Chase, a retirement village. They form …

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Black Water Lilies: Michel Bussi

Translated from French by Shaun WhitesidePublished by W&N, 2022, 144 pages. Original version published in 2011. Giverny: a beautiful, picturesque village in France, known for its most famous resident, the impressionist painter Claude Monet, who is famous for his paintings of water lilies. Artists and tourists flock to the village to see the beautiful gardens …

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Reading the World: An Interview with Ann Morgan

Photo: Aida Silvestri Ann Morgan is a writer based in the UK who has inspired readers by her project, A Year of Reading the World. In 2012, she read a book from every country in the world and blogged about it. Her blog highlights the richness and diversity of books, including those not originally published …

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Walking with Ghosts—A Memoir: Gabriel Byrne

Published by Picador, 2020, 224 pages. “How many times have I returned in my dreams to this hill. It is always summer as I look out over the gold and green fields, ditches foaming with hawthorn and lilac, river glinting under the sun like a blade. When I was young, I found sanctuary here and …

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The Shadow King: Maaza Mengiste

Published by Canongate Books, 2020, 448 pages. “The newspapers say that the [Italian] soldiers marched to Axum and took the city without a single shot being fired. … They claim that…Adua was finally, proudly, taken by the Italians on 5 October 1935 and the tiny, nondescript village welcomed the invaders with bowed heads and ululations. …

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