Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025, 246 pages This is the story of three young Tanzanians: Karim, Fauzia and Badar, and their relationship with each other. Karim’s mother Raya lives in Zanzibar and is forced into marrying a much older man by her parents. When she walks out of her marriage, she leaves Karim with her …
Tag: book-review
Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?: Jeanette Winterson
Published by Vintage / Jonathan Cape, 2011, 230 pages When she was 25, Jeanette Winterson wrote Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a fictionalized account of growing up as an adopted child in a Pentecostal community and coming out as a lesbian. This book, written when she was 50, tells the same story, but this …
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The Girl with Seven Names—Escape from North Korea: Lee Hyeon-seo (with David Jones)
Published by William Collins, 2015, 304 pages This is an extraordinary story about a young North Korean woman who managed to get out of the country. Lee Hyeon-seo was born in Hyesan, a North Korean town near the Chinese border. Her father was in the military, and the family was comfortably off, partly because her …
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Telling Me My Stories—Fragments of a Himalayan Childhood: Kunzang Choden
Published by Bloomsbury, 2025, 273 pages “As I walk through each room, I immediately become immersed in reminiscences of my parents, my brothers, relatives, visitors and attendants, their lives and mine, their stories and the stories of those who lived here before us. Lives from the past can be invoked in each room and through …
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Narrow Dog to Carcassonne: Terry Darlington
Published by Bantam Press / Random House, 2005, 352 pages “We could bore ourselves to death, drink ourselves to death, or have a bit of an adventure.” A retired couple, Terry and Monica Darlington take their whippet, Jim, and their narrowboat, meant for canals, across the Channel into France. This is a travel book whose …
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In the Hide—How the Natural World Saved My Life: Gordon Buchanan
Written with Will MillardPublished by Witness Books, 2025, 312 pages “When I was young, if you had granted me one wish, I probably would have chosen to be invisible. If I was invisible, I rationalized, then I could get as close as possible to the earth’s most elusive creatures. Moreover, I could comfortably evade all …
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James: Percival Everett
Published by Random House / Mantle / Picador, 2024, 303 pages “My name is James. I wish I could tell my story with a sense of history as much as industry. I was sold when I was born and then sold again. ... I can tell you that I am a man who is cognizant …
Stepping through the Looking Glass: A Journey through Speculative Fiction
Photo: SH Design via AdobeStock “‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, / ‘To talk of many things: / Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — / Of cabbages — and kings — / And why the sea is boiling hot — / And whether pigs have wings.’”—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass “Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding …
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The Haunting Season—Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights
Authors: Bridget Collins, Laura Purcell, Elizabeth Macneal, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Jess Kidd, Natasha Pulley, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, and Andrew Michael HurleyPublished by Sphere, 2021, 293 pages There is something about December that seems to call for ghost stories. So I have picked a collection of eight ghostly tales written by contemporary writers. The stories are …
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Classic Horror Stories
Edited by David Stuart DaviesPublished by Macmillan, 2024, 310 pages There is something about reading a well-written horror story: the chills that run down your spine, the fear, and the feeling of being in the story while sitting at a comfortable distance from any actual danger. This collection is guaranteed to make you shiver, with …
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