“A person can lose everything in an instant. A fortune, a family, the sun. I’ve had to learn this lesson twice in my life.” “The coroner gave me the only picture that I have of Mama, a print of her body in the ditch.” “I guess, the way I see it, you could tell theContinue reading “THE ANTIDOTE – Karen Russell”
Tag Archives: Fiction
THE UNBROKEN COAST – Nalini Jones
Nalini Jones’s debut novel, The Unbroken Coast (Knopf – expected 8/12/2025), is a story of intertwined lives, found families, regrets, and triumphs. Set in and around a Mumbai fishing village, the novel follows a prominent retired professor who is struggling with his memories, and a young Koli girl from the fishing village whose family isContinue reading “THE UNBROKEN COAST – Nalini Jones”
NESTING – Roisín O’Donnell
“Nights like this, she knows this is real, she’s not imagining it. The fear is bright, animal, sure. Pure blue at the heart of a flame.” “But right now, there’s no space for stories.” Rounding out my Booker predictions for the weekend is Roisín O’Donnell’s debut novel, Nesting (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2025 –Continue reading “NESTING – Roisín O’Donnell”
OUR EVENINGS – Alan Hollinghurst
“I lay there for agonized hours as the miracle of being in bed at him was nibbled away by the heat and the hangover and the longing.” This year, I decided to get “a jump” on potential Booker books, and Alan Hollinghurst’s (a previous Booker winner) new novel, Our Evenings (Random House 2024) was aContinue reading “OUR EVENINGS – Alan Hollinghurst”
WIZARD OF THE CROW – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
“Nyawĩra and Kamĩtĩ drifted from group to group till they came to a crowd around a storyteller with a single-stringed violin.” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o passed away on May 28, 2025. I didn’t know until recently, but perhaps that’s why Wizard of the Crow ( 2006 Random House) called out from my shelves of the unread.Continue reading “WIZARD OF THE CROW – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o”
TWIST – Colum McCann
“We are all shards in the smash-up.” “Everything gets fixed, and we all stay broken.” As y’all know, I read the Booker longlist every year. Sometimes, I try to get a jump on things by reading eligible books that smell Bookery. (If you follow the Booker Prize, you’ll know what that means.) The buzz aroundContinue reading “TWIST – Colum McCann”
ANY TROPE BUT YOU – Victoria Lavine
I wanted a cute, candy read. A Hallmark movie in book form. Set in the remote wilderness of Alaska with a romance author from California and the hunky lumberjack son of the proprietor of the resort she’s staying at? That sounds like a delicious candy book. And Victoria Lavine’s Any Trope But You (Atria 2025)Continue reading “ANY TROPE BUT YOU – Victoria Lavine”
MY FRIENDS – FREDRIK BACKMAN
“Twenty-five years later he still wishes for the same thing, that he was fourteen years old and that the world was full of broken clocks. “As seventeen-year-olds they would sleep next to each other almost every night in the foster home, with ice cream stains on their clothes and each other’s laughter in their lungs,Continue reading “MY FRIENDS – FREDRIK BACKMAN”
TOUGH LUCK – Sandra Dallas
When I read John Larison’s Whiskey When We’re Dry, I called it Lonesome Dove meets Calamity Jane. I loved everything about it. When I saw he’d blurbed Sandra Dallas’s Tough Luck (St. Martin’s Press 2025), which is marketed as a homage to True Grit, the new release was immediately placed on my radar. (A hugeContinue reading “TOUGH LUCK – Sandra Dallas”
HAPPY LAND – Dolen Perkins-Valdez
I’ve been sitting on this review for a bit, trying to figure out how best to condense my thoughts into a relatively small space. (I’ve also been toying with the possibility of changing how I review/react, but that’s really neither here nor there.) As per usual, it’ll likely just be bookish babbling, but I encourageContinue reading “HAPPY LAND – Dolen Perkins-Valdez”
A Girl Named Tommi 