Ten years is a long time to wait, but well worth it in this case. Nicola Griffith’s Hild is one of my favorite historical novels ever, as my review in this newsletter from a while back will show. That book brought its eponymous protagonist into early adulthood, and Griffith is at last carrying her story forward through maturity in …
This is a book I wouldn’t have picked up if it hadn’t been a gift. But now I’m very glad that I did. Fifth-grader Kazu sees a strange ghost-girl in the middle of the night and the next morning at school he sees her again. Except this time she’s his classmate, and everyone acts as …
Authored by a teacher/librarian, This Is a Story imparts to the smallest page-turners, in a gentle, entertaining way, what a wondrous and deeply human experience it is to open a book and establish a connection to the big world around them. It’s a lovely read (or read-aloud) but for me, it’s Lauren Castillo’s illustrations that make …
In the fall of 2022 we lost one of the world’s leading men of letters, Spain’s Javier Marías. We shared the news with sadness on our blog, but included a hopeful tidbit: that we’d see one more novel from him. Here we are in the spring of 2023, and here it is. Retired spy Tomás Nevinson is lured …
This spring has been one of the chilliest in decades, which might be why my thoughts have been turning toward the Arctic Circle. More likely, though, it’s because of the paperback re-release of Nobody Gets Out Alive, a debut book of fiction from Alaska native Leigh Newman. A collection of dazzling, courageous stories about women …
From Madison Books, Seattle, WA: [April is] National Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which makes this an especially fitting time for us to host author Alle C. Hall. She [was with us Sunday April 16] to read from and discuss her new novel, As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. The …
A staid academic’s life in the English department is shaken by the appearance of a charismatic younger law professor in this new Seattle-set novel by the author of How to Raise a Feminist Son. The characters separately traverse emotional, professional, and political minefields, guided by protocols of power, gender, and race (he’s white, she’s Pakistani) …
For more than a hundred years, Apple Island off the coast of Maine has existed in two states. To its residents, immigrants and the descendants of the enslaved, it’s a haven for a self-supporting community of hardworking, close-knit families. To the mainlanders who deign to notice it at all, it’s a poor and squalid place …
Now this is a crowd-pleaser. A novel set in contemporary India featuring political corruption, intricate family dynamics, and crimes violent and clandestine, it’s highly literate yet built for speed—it might best be considered as a Godfather for the 21st century. It’s won praise from both Booker Prize-winners such as Marlon James and blockbuster thriller writers including …
We’re only weeks past the announcement of the most recent Booker Prize, something Percival Everett coulda (shoulda?) won for The Trees, and he already has a stellar new novel for us. Dr. No is a serious romp, if such a thing can be imagined (and by Everett it can). A spoof of Ian Fleming-style thrillers …
