The Scars of Slavery
~ Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan ~ George Washington Black is the full name of our protagonist – though he is often called Wash by friends – who was born in 1818 in Barbados, a slave, and the son of a...
Tenacious women
~ Traps, by Mackenzie Bezos ~ I must admit I picked up this novel because of the author’s last name. So let’s get that elephant out of the way first. The author married Jeff Bezos, who then went on to...
Virtuoso Storytelling
~ The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett ~ This is a classically excellent family saga. I always look immensely forward to any new Patchett novel, and this was no disappointment. The Dutch House of the title is a lavish and...
Cancer Scientist Blues
~ Jim Allison: Breakthrough ~ The backlash against scientific evidence and skepticism about data-driven consensus has reached alarming proportions, the most obvious instances being the anti-vaccination movement and the refusal to accept climate change. Into this atmosphere comes a wonderful...
Family Ties
~ Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, by Anne Tyler ~ Anne Tyler’s writing often depicts relationships, particularly familial relationships, and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is another wonderful novel in this vein. The novel begins with Pearl, who at about...
Yangban and Ssangnom
~ Free Food for Millionaires, by Min Jin Lee ~ The novel begins with 22 year old protagonist Casey Han, who has just graduated from Princeton, coming home to Queens, where her Korean immigrant family have always lived, for a...
Competitive Parenting
~ The Gifted School, by Bruce Holsinger ~ Pointed and clever, The Gifted School has a delightfully snarky opening quote: There is something so tantalizing about having a gifted child that some parents will go to almost any lengths to...
Minarets on the Village Green
~ This Green and Pleasant Land, by Ayisha Malik ~ This novel is kept extremely lighthearted despite taking on some weighty issues in UK society (such as English identity, the rise of Islamophobia, village mentality, discrimination, hate crime, etc.) The...
Sepia
~ Photograph, directed by Ritesh Batra ~ Ritesh Batra’s Photograph is an extremely delicate film. Set in bustling Mumbai, it has periods of complete stillness, and develops slowly, more like a photograph of yore than anything in today’s frenetic social-media...
Quiet Desperation
~ We, the Survivors. By Tash Aw ~ We, The Survivors, is Tash Aw’s fourth novel, and his most accomplished by far. This work of fiction comes very close to being a little masterpiece. Its writing voice is assured, fluent,...
Inspector Singh goes to London
~ A Frightfully English Execution, by Shamini Flint ~ It’s tempting to describe Shamini Flint’s Inspector Singh novels as ‘cosy mysteries’. They feature an appealingly crusty detective, and are full of sly humour. Despite their lack of pretentiousness, though, they...
A quaint, cardboard village
~ How to Find Love in a Bookshop, by Veronica Henry ~ What a wonderful title. What a lovely front cover. What a lack-lustre read. Henry’s novel sets up Nightingale Bookshop as the centrepiece, but actually, it is nothing more...
Less could have been More
~ The Clockmaker’s Daughter, by Kate Morton ~ Dense novels with a haunted house at the center are Kate Morton’s niche, and The Clockmaker’s Daughter fits neatly into her genre. But there comes a point where sheer density can drag...
Deep lochs, shallow characters
~ At the Water’s Edge, by Sara Gruen ~ This period romance novel, set in the 2nd World War, features a young protagonist called Maddie, newly married, of the upper crust set in Philadelphia. She does little except enjoy herself...
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