1950s Irish charm
This is a novel which is as comforting to read as having a mug of hot tea and a chocolate digestive biscuit on a rainy day. In an age where so many novels are edgy, disquieting, challenging, clever, deliberately discomfiting,...
Lisa
Eight Arms and Loads of Charm
As soon as I realised an octopus was a narrator of this novel, I simply had to read it. However, it needs to be noted that the octopus is only one of several narrators, and has the least amount of...
Speaking troubles
Angie Kim’s second novel, after her first, Miracle Creek, follows much the same format, style, and even texture, as her first. This is not a criticism, however, because both novels are well done, well written, well planned. Her second, Happiness Falls,...
Singapore Ma’ams and Filipino Maids
The blurb intrigued me, being the story of 3 Filipino domestic workers in Singapore, part of the almost 40% strong migrant workforce in Singapore. Angel, Cora, and Donita become friends, and we are give their very different backgrounds and stories,...
Translation – facilitor of peace? And/or an act of betrayal?
Amusingly, Kuang feels the need to begin this 540+ page novel with an author’s note on her representation of Oxford university. Accurately, she says, The trouble with writing an Oxford novel is that anyone who has spent time at Oxford...
Treaties made “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run”. And then abrogated.
I have read a couple of other Erdrich novels, and so far, this one was the most accessible to me. Not that any of the others were less well written, but this one made access easiest for the non-initiated American...
Grief, loss and squash
It is always a pleasure to make the acquaintance of a debut South Asian woman writer, so I was very pleased to give this novel, which had been shortlisted for the 2023 Booker, a try. It begins with 11 year...
Parallel Threads
This is one of those novels that are told in parallel timelines, with one in the mid 1850s, of the potato famine in Ireland, and the other is the current day timeline in New York. The protagonist of the mid-1850s...
Una Vida Entera
Right from the first, I was totally charmed by this book, and also right from the first, I realised what a slim volume I was holding in my hands, and despaired that it is just not going to last very...
With the blessings of Janus
This is one of those novels which features a protagonist designed to be unlikeable. From the outset, June (Junie, Juniper) Song Hayward is openly envious of her friend and colleague, Athena Liu. The two girls knew each other in Yale,...
Romance among The Night Owls
Because this is by Curtis Sittenfeld, I didn’t even ask what the book was about, I just dived right in when I got my hands on it. 70 pages in, I was starting to ask myself if I should just...
A massive literary accomplishment
There will be many like me who cannot help but compare Lee’s writing with Ishiguro’s; there is such precision, decorum, formality, and elegance which characterises the style and pace of both. A Gesture Life is a joy to read, a...
Politics and social oppression
This novel has left me thinking that in India, principles/morals are a luxury seemingly few can afford. The story illustrates how the political system in India works, mostly at ground level, how favours are exchanged, how preferential treatment is given...
It is impossible to tell the truth here and live
The prologue: A man, who had gone to fight for his homeland in some senseless war and came back with his legs truncated, “in reality, only half a man” is pulling himself along a train station platform, pitiably begging but...
Mycelium: “a way of life that challenges our animal imaginations”
On one hand, I am a little hesitant to review this book because I feel very unqualified to even discuss let alone review a book on fungi; on the other hand, the title already pretty much tells you everything you...
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