“A window opens, and I hear the cranes gathering to fly south.” “At dinner one day, I snapped and asked what the hell the point of life was if I was too old for a dog.” If you’ve ever had to say goodbye when death is not a thief but a friend who comes inContinue reading “WHEN THE CRANES FLY SOUTH – Lisa Ridzén”
Tag Archives: Fiction
THE SOUTH – Tash Aw
Booker 101 Quick & Dirty Monday! THE SOUTH: Tash AwFarrar, Straus and Giroux : 27 May 2025 (US) (unless otherwise noted, I’m reading the US edition)4th Estate (Harper Imprint): 13 February 2025 (UK)Page Count: 280 First line: Two boys walk through the scant shade of an orchard, far from the house where they are staying.Continue reading “THE SOUTH – Tash Aw”
MISINTERPRETATION – Ledia Xhoga
Booker 101 Quick & Dirty Monday! MISINTERPRETATION: Ledia XhogaTin House : 3 September 2024 (US) (unless otherwise noted, I’m reading the US edition)Daunt Books: 6 May 2025 (UK)Page Count: 287 First line: I was fifteen minutes late and his phone number was out of service. Blurbed by: Jennifer Croft – (With the author Olga Tokarczuk,Continue reading “MISINTERPRETATION – Ledia Xhoga”
LOVE FORMS – Claire Adam
“I’m recalling this as best I can, you understand. The truth is that I only remember impressions – images, sounds, feelings.” (9) Claire Adam’s Love Forms started out strong – a first-person narrative with a lyricism to the storytelling that I enjoyed. It didn’t last. On page 11, she writes: “In the darkness, the fallenContinue reading “LOVE FORMS – Claire Adam”
PEOPLE LIKE US – Jason Mott
“Even love has been known to decimate.” “Yes sir, yes ma’am, my daughter’s birth made everyone in that room into better storytellers.” “Fuck the red, the white, and the goddamned blue. Fuck it all. I need air. And fuck anybody that wants me to stay in a place that does nothing but suffocate me. IContinue reading “PEOPLE LIKE US – Jason Mott”
FLESH – David Szalay
“The first daffodils arrive in a hostile world.” (162) If Camus’s The Stranger had a baby with Melville’s Bartleby, you’d get Szalay’s Istvan. Unlike Bartleby, who prefers not to, Istvan’s response is “okay.” He goes through life letting things happen to him, around him, with him. The novel opens with a bang – a 42-year-oldContinue reading “FLESH – David Szalay”
SLANTING TOWARDS THE SEA – Lidija Hilje
Current installment of Tommi Reads the World – we’re still in the C’s!!! Country: CroatiaTitle: Slanting Towards the SeaAuthor: Lidija HilgeLanguage: EnglishTranslator: N/APublisher: Simon & Schuster 2025 “Back home, all things slant towards the sea.” “I can’t remember the last time someone said I had potential. But the thing about potential is that it doesn’t goContinue reading “SLANTING TOWARDS THE SEA – Lidija Hilje”
THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG – Leila Mottley
“Momma raised me right till she refused to raise me at all.” “They wanted us to be anything but what we were.” “’Cause hundreds of years ago, some pirate ship sunk and spilled treasures all over the bottom of our sea and now the water shines emerald green for us and if that don’t makeContinue reading “THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG – Leila Mottley”
FLASHLIGHT – Susan Choi
“In one hand he holds a flashlight which is not necessary, in the other hand he holds Louisa’s hand which is also not necessary.” (3) “Up and down with their flashlights: one carries the flashlight, the other carries the gun.” (378) Susan Choi’s Flashlight (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2025) is next up in the BookerContinue reading “FLASHLIGHT – Susan Choi”
THE ORIGINAL – Nell Stevens
“Everything done for the second time is a copy of when it was done for the first time, and an attempt to bring back something lost.” Nell Stevens The Original (W.W. Norton & Company 2025) is a delicious, queer historical fiction, laced in a Victorian gothic tradition that rendered it un-put-down-able. As a young girl,Continue reading “THE ORIGINAL – Nell Stevens”
A Girl Named Tommi 