THE LONG-SHINING WATERS
Danielle Sosin
Lake Superior in North America, which extends into both Canada and the United States, is arguably the largest freshwater lake in the world. For generations it has fascinated, frightened and served those who have visited its waters, among them Indians, explorers, trappers, hunters, missionaries …
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Reviewed by Kathleen Ambrogi
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DILEMMAS OF DEOKIE
Carol Sammy
Deokie Ramoutar is different from the other girls in her Trinidadian village. Nineteen years old, she is more sober and thoughtful than her giddy, frivolous friends and not really interested in boys. Instead, Deokie …
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Reviewed by Charlotte Simpson
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THE TOPLESS TOWER
Silvina Ocampo
Translated from the Spanish by James Womack
Little Leandro, nine, having displeased a gentleman visitor who may be the Devil, finds himself a prisoner in the tower which gives this story its title. He discovers a room set up with all the requisites a painter could need. He begins to paint.
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Reviewed by Tim Jones
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WITNESS THE NIGHT
Kishwar Desai
It is September 2007, and police in the Punjab region of India ask social worker Simran Singh for her help in talking to an uncommunicative fourteen-year-old girl. The girl, Durga, was found loosely tied up and…
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Reviewed by Joyce Nickel
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THE BOOK OF HAPPENSTANCE
Ingrid Winterbach
Translated from the Afrikaans by Dirk and Ingrid Winterbach
When reading this novel, the words meditate, ruminate, and reflect all come to mind—a contemplation of the meaning of our lives, on loss and how we can deal with it in an increasingly secularized and fragmented world where the traditional comforts of family, religion and the "old ways" are disappearing.
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Reviewed by Tad Deffler
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DOC: A NOVEL
Mary Doria Russell
Doc Holliday is known primarily as Hollywood and dime store novels have portrayed him: as a cold-blooded gunslinger, calculating at cards, and most often with a whiskey in one hand and a revolver in the other.
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Reviewed by Lisa Sanders
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DARK DESIRES AND THE OTHERS
Luisa Valenzuela
Translated by Susan E. Clark
Dark Desires and the Others is both an erotic memoir and a meditation on writing. Taken from Valenzuela's diaries written in New York between 1979 and 1982, it is a series of essays …
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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FIVE BELLS
Gail Jones
Circular Quay is the bus and train terminus for Sydney Harbour. The Quay is also where the ferries dock and is a busy place with its people, shops and buskers. From the Quay one can walk the concourse…
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Reviewed by Amanda Meale
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THE SELECTED STORIES OF MERCÈ RODOREDA
Mercè Rodoreda
Translated from the Catalan by Martha Tennent
When General Franco took power in Spain, he repressed all regional languages including Catalan, prompting the twenty-six year old Merce Rodoreda to go into exile, where she did not write for twenty years. Now a legendary Catalan writer…
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Reviewed by Andrew Stancek
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THE HOTTEST DISHES OF THE TARTAR CUISINE
Alina Bronsky
Translated from the German by Tim Mohr
Rosalinda Achmetowna is a woman who delights you on the written page but would horrify you should she appear on your doorstep, suitcase in hand. She rules her home and acquaintances with an iron hand, positive of both the fact that they are utterly useless and the corollary that she knows exactly what is needed to whip everyone into shape.
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Reviewed by Tad Deffler
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LIKE BEES TO HONEY
Caroline Smailes
In her latest novel Like Bees to Honey Smailes weaves a beautiful story of redemption and renews our way of seeing the world as she does so. The storyline follows Nina, a burdened and troubled woman, as she travels from her adopted home in Liverpool to her native hometown in Malta.
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Reviewed by Flavia Baralle
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AMERICA PACIFICA
Anna North
Anna North's young adult novel, America Pacifica, is a grungy, thrill-a-minute frappe of familiar dystopian elements—scuzzy landscape, crazy tyrants, social and environmental exploitation—garnished with …
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Reviewed by Jean Raber
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THE FOLDED EARTH
Anuradha Roy
This rich evocative novel takes you into the tranquil hills of Ranikhet, a little town set deep in the Himalayan Mountains, with Maya and a host of colorful hill people who become her family when she seeks refuge there in an attempt to get over the loss of her husband.
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Reviewed by Akeela Gaibie-Dawood
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BIG GIRL SMALL
Rachel DeWoskin
Judy Lohden is smart and talented; she has a scathing sense of humour and is just a little bit conceited. She is 16 years old, starting a new year in a new school, trying to find her place in the often vicious, often changing world that is high school.
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Reviewed by Judy Lim
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