Published by Simon & Schuster / Penguin, 2013, 368 pages. Don Tillman, a geneticist at an Australian university, is not only intelligent and good-looking but a decent cook to boot. He decides that he needs a wife, which you would think shouldn’t be hard. But Don’s manner tends to put women off. He tends to …
The Man Who Loved Dogs: Leonardo Padura
Translated from Spanish by Anna KushnerPublished by Bitter Lemon Press / Farrar Strauss & Giroux, 2014, 592 pages. Original version published in 2009. “If the social dream and economic utopia supporting it had become corrupt to the core, what remained of the greatest experiment man had ever dreamed of?” It is easy to forget today …
Life’s sentences
Published by Picador, 2015, 60 pages.Review by Usha Raman I have several books of poetry on my shelf...and now, on my Kindle. I leaf (or swipe) through them in the spaces between fiction, when I am recovering from an intense or troubling story or when the weather puts me in the mood for contemplation rather …
The Long Way Home: Louise Penny
Published by Minotaur Books / Thorndike Press, 2014, 400 pages. “There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There's power enough in Heaven to cure a sin-sick soul.” On the surface, this seems like a regular whodunit. But it is more than that—a story about losing and finding yourself, about art and …
A Parrot in the Pepper Tree: Chris Stewart
Published by Sort of Books, 2003, 240 pages. Many of us dream of giving up the rat race and living the simple life in a community far removed from the hustle of cities. These remain dreams for most of us, but not for Chris Stewart and his wife Ana. In 1988, they moved to Alpujarras …
All the Light We Cannot See: Anthony Doerr
Published by Scribner / Fourth Estate, 2014, 531 pages.Review by Thomas Peak and Susanne Gjønnes Set during the darkness of World War II, All the Light We Cannot See is a powerful and emotional novel. It follows a young boy and a girl caught up on each side of the whirlwind of Nazism and war. …
Saying goodbye to an iconic bookshop: Imran Ali Khan
The Strand Book Stall in Mumbai has been an icon for readers. Books of all sorts piled everywhere, where readers were encouraged to browse and get into conversations with like-minded people. It was one of my favourite places: a trip to Bombay (as it was called then) was incomplete unless I had been to Strand. …
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Catching Thunder—The True Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase: Eskil Engdal and Kjetil Sæter
Translated from Norwegian by Diane Oatley.Published by Zed Books, 2018, 400 pages.Review by Susanne Karine Gjønnes This true-life crime novel, Catching Thunder: The Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase, is the dramatic account of Sea Shepherd’s 110-day long international pursuit of the pirate fishing vessel Thunder. Sea Shepherd is a group of activists committed …
Aya of Yop City: written by Marguerite Abouet, drawn by Clément Oubrerie
Translated from French by Drawn & QuarterlyPublished by Jonathan Cape, 2009, 128 pages. Original version published in 2005. The three young women in Aya of Yop City, the first in a series of graphic novels, have boys, parties, marriage and future careers on their mind. They rebel against their parents, pick unsuitable boyfriends and try …
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Of Human Freedom: Epictetus
Translated from Greek by Robert DobbinPublished by Penguin, 2010, 112 pages. The original Discourses of Epictetus were written down in 108 AD.Review by Thomas Peak This magical little book comes from a time and place far, far away. It is adapted from the Discourses written by Epictetus, an emancipated Greek slave living in the Roman …
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