Translated from Russian by George BirdPublished by Vintage Books, 2003, 228 pages. Original version published in 1996. Victor lives in Kyiv with his pet penguin, Misha, whom he acquired when the local zoo was giving away animals they could no longer feed. Viktor makes a living writing obituaries (obelisks) for the newspaper Capital News. His …
Category: Fiction
The Shining: Stephen King
Published by Hodder & Stoughton, and Anchor, 1977, 497 pages. “Now his ears were open and he could hear them again, the gathering, ghosts or spirits or maybe the hotel itself, a dreadful funhouse where all the sideshows ended in death... It was a living sound, but not voices, not breath. ... [T]o Danny it …
The Forgotten Promise: Paula Greenlees
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 …
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 …
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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 …
The Peculiarities: David Liss
Published by Tachyon Publications, 2021, 336 pages. London, the turn of the 20th century. A pervasive fog covers the city, and strange things are happening, known as “the Peculiarities”. Women are giving birth to litters of rabbits, people are transforming into trees and animals, and vicious, not-quite-human Elegants are prowling the streets. The Peculiarities also …
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