Published by Penguin, 2022, 512 pages. Two girls grow up together in 1920s British Malaya: Ella, the daughter of the English owner of a tin mine and his Malayan wife, and Noor, the daughter of the family’s cook. The girls are inseparable, even though Ella’s mother does not seem to approve. The girls swear a …
Author: suroor alikhan
I have always been an avid reader. I read across genres and try and find books by writers from countries around the world. One of the things I love is talking to fellow readers about books!
Swiss Watching—Inside the Land of Milk and Money: Diccon Bewes
Published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2018, 352 pages. What does Switzerland mean to most people? Cows, chocolate, banking, cheese and mountains—these were some of the responses Diccon Bewes got when he put the question to 100 non-Swiss people. Yes, Switzerland is all these things but there is so much more to this country. In his …
Continue reading Swiss Watching—Inside the Land of Milk and Money: Diccon Bewes
Discretion: Faïza Guène
Translated from French by Sarah ArdizzonePublished by Saqi, 2022, 240 pages. Original version published in 2020. What is it like to uproot yourself from all that is familiar and move to a place that is alien in every way? A different culture, a different language and a different landscape? How do you live in a …
L’Inconnue de la Seine: Guillaume Musso
Published by Calmann-Levy, 2022, 512 pages. A young woman is fished out of the Seine, very nearly dead. She has no identification on her person, so the police do a DNA test to see if they can find out who she is. The results are startling: according to the test, the mysterious woman is the …
The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories: Susan Hill
Published by Profile Books, 2016, 288 pages. An act of charity that goes horribly wrong, a travelling bag that when opened leads to a man’s death, a ghostly boy that only his friend can see, a mysterious co-worker with a strange smell, and a misguided attempt to raise the dead. These are the five stories …
Continue reading The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories: Susan Hill
The Dry: Jane Harper
Published by Flatiron Books and Abacus, 2017, 416 pages. Kiewarra, a town in the Australian Outback. The land is bone dry: the rains have failed again, and farmers are struggling to survive, as is everyone else. Many of the shops are boarded up. Karen Hadler and her six-year-old son Billy are found shot in their …
Oh William!: Elizabeth Strout
Published by Penguin Random House, 2021, 288 pages. “Because I’m a novelist, I have to write this almost like a novel, but it is true—as true as I can make it. And I want to say—oh, it is difficult to know what to say! But when I report something about William it is because he …
A Raisin in the Sun: Lorraine Hansberry
Published by Signet, Vintage and Berkley Books, 1959, 144 pages. “What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry upLike a raisin in the sun?”–Langston Hughes This is a powerful play about an African-American family trying to realize their dreams in spite of the odds stacked against them. At the centre of the play is the …
Following Unusual Paths: Interview with Nick Hunt
Nick Hunt is an author from the UK. His books include Outlandish; Where the Wild Winds Are; Walking the Woods and the Water; The Parakeeting of London; and Loss Soup and Other Stories. His debut novel Red Smoking Mirror will be published in July 2023. Walking the Woods and the Water and Where the Wild …
Continue reading Following Unusual Paths: Interview with Nick Hunt
My Secret Brexit Diary—A Glorious Illusion: Michel Barnier
Translated from French by Robin MackayPublished by Polity Press, 2021, 450 pages. Original version published in 2021. In a nation-wide referendum on 23 June 2016, the British voted, by a slim majority, to leave the European Union. The process of leaving the EU was long-drawn-out and complicated. Like many people outside the UK, I developed …
Continue reading My Secret Brexit Diary—A Glorious Illusion: Michel Barnier
Talking About Books 