“A House Among the Trees” is a story of the fictional Morty Lear. Morty Lear is a famous author of children’s stories, best known perhaps for his novel “Colorquake”. Colorquake is a story about Ivo, whose “mother kept a perfect house, a house among the trees.” Ivo is “utterly beguiling”, an artist, a painter of
Exit West – by Mohsin Hamid
“We are all migrants through time.” Exit West is a story of migration, refugees and change, told through the experiences of an unmarried couple, Nadia and Saeed.
Saeed and Nadia meet while taking an evening class on corporate identity and product branding in an unidentified middle east city at an unidentified place of education. Nadia
Do Not Say We Have Nothing – by Madeleine Thien
“Do Not Say We Have Nothing” is an epic history of China, beginning in 1872 and ending in 2016. The story is told by Jiang Li-ling (Marie Jiang) as she discovers her family history through the violence and tragedy of the cultural revolution.
After her father commits suicide in 1989, Marie Jiang lives alone with
Homegoing – by Yaa Gyasi
Homegoing is a three century long saga of slavery, violence, discrimination, struggle and eventually some progress, beginning and ending in Ghana, with interludes in America.
The story starts in 1760 in a Fante village touched by a destructive fire. Fire, its strength and its violence, is an ongoing theme in the book. Effia, a child
Lincoln in the Bardo – by George Saunders
“’bardo’ (noun) (in Tibetan Buddhism) a state of existence between death and rebirth, varying in length according to a person’s conduct in life, and manner of, or age at, death.” English Oxford Living Dictionaries.
“Lincoln in the Bardo” is simply an extraordinary work of fiction, unlike anything else I have read. The novel starts out
Between Them – by Richard Ford
Richard Ford is one of America’s great writers. He has a way of answering the question “what is the meaning of life?” in the most direct way possible–by writing about living. “Between Them” is two separate memoirs, one of his mother and one of his father, written 30 years apart. In the memoirs, Ford describes
The Spy – by Paulo Coelho
Mata Hari was executed by firing squad in Paris on October 15, 1917, accused of being a spy, a double agent for Germany and France during World War I. “The Spy” is a fictionalized account of her story. The story is told from two perspectives: first from Mata Hari’s perspective, in the form of a
The Schooldays of Jesus – by J.M. Coetzee
“What is it that we lack when we lack nothing, when we are sufficient unto ourselves? What is it that we miss when we are not in love?” “The Schooldays of Jesus”, J. M. Coetzee’s allegorical tale, raises many metaphysical questions.
David is six years old and is newly arrived in fictional Estrella with his
I Married A Communist – by Philip Roth
I decided to take a little trip back in time, to a novel published in 1998 by one of my favorite authors, Philip Roth. Maybe I needed a sense of stability in these seeming uncertain times, or maybe I wanted to ensure that I chose a book that would be worth reading. In any event,
Judas – by Amos Oz
“Here is a story from the winter days of the end of 1959 and 1960. It is a story of error and desire, of unrequited love, and of a religious question that remains unresolved.” This novel’s first two sentences set the tone for the balance of the story, and the error, desire, love and religious