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WINTER SONATA
Dorothy Edwards
Dorothy Edwards apparently gave Winter Sonata a musical title because her love of music influenced the structure of the story, but I found myself thinking of the novel as a winter tapestry. Detailed descriptions of colours, patterns …
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Reviewed by Chris Mills
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THE SNOW CHILD
Eowyn Ivey
Eowyn Ivey's debut novel is stunning. She has created a small world within the wilds of her native Alaska and peopled it with characters that feel as real as the neighbors next door. Full of the everyday drama of the human experience, the story of …
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Reviewed by Lisa Sanders
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DEATHLESS
Catherynne M. Valente
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many classical music composers, especially from Eastern European countries, incorporated the folk tunes of their native countries into their symphonies—in fact, some of these composers…
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Reviewed by Tim Jones
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FANTASTIC WOMEN: 18 TALES OF THE SURREAL AND THE SUBLIME FROM TIN HOUSE
Edited by Rob Spillman
This ambitious anthology from the publishers of Tin House magazine brings together a collection of unusual stories from some of the most imaginative women writing in the United States today.
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Reviewed by Joyce Nickel
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IN RED
Magdalena Tulli
Translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston
Magdalena Tulli's In Red (W czerwieni 1998) uncovers the pattern of life in the Polish town of Stitchings: it is a pattern that recurs three times within the first half of the twentieth century.
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Reviewed by Jane A. Jones
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SARAH THORNHILL
Kate Grenville
Sarah Thornhill is the sequel to Grenville's widely-acclaimed novel The Secret River, which told the story of freed convict William Thornhill making a home on the Hawkesbury River in the newly- settled colony of Australia….
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Reviewed by Amanda Meale
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UNDERGROUND TIME
Delphine de Vigan
Translated from the French by George Miller
Amidst a buzzing Paris, we find two individuals at odds with their surrounds. In spite of the steady hubbub around them, each is enveloped in a web of loneliness and sorrow that threatens to annihilate them. The woman and man routinely echo one another's inner worlds. Yet they have never met.
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Reviewed by Akeela Gaibie Dawood
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THE COCAINE SALESMAN
Conny Braam
Translated from the Dutch by Jonathan Reeder
The literary landscape of World War I is so rich that it is easy to assume that there is little new left to say. However, The Cocaine Salesman's unique perspective on the conflict and its aftermath gives a startlingly fresh view on a dark period in European history.
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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BYE BYE BABYLON: BEIRUT 1975-1979
Lamia Ziadé
Lamia Ziadé's Bye Bye Babylon, an illustrated memoir, takes us back to the spring of 1975, on a day when her family returned from a lunch in the country to find that in the space of a few hours a civil war had begun.
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Reviewed by Charlotte Simpson
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SEND ME WORK: STORIES
Katherine Karlin
You know you're not sexist. Far from it. But when you hear that Katherine Karlin's short story collection Send Me Work is about women at work, you imagine secretaries dealing with male bosses, encountering romance with coworkers, perhaps a woman lawyer or doctor, but for sure all of them wearing heels. Why don't you think of women working in coveralls and boots…
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Reviewed by Kathleen Ambrogi
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THE LEPER COMPOUND
Paula Nangle
In The Leper Compound, Paula Nangle draws from her childhood spent in southern Africa and her experiences as a psychiatric nurse to craft this insightful debut novel about pre- and postcolonial Zimbabwe and South Africa. The story traces a European girl's…
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Reviewed by Darryl Morris
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THE HIGHEST FRONTIER
Joan Slonczewski
If you are a fan of the science in science fiction, then you will love this new book by award winning author Joan Slonczewski. From biology and chemistry to politics and theology, she has used scientific principles to build a world that is not only believable, but also quite compelling.
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Reviewed by Judy Lim
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THE GOOD MUSLIM
Tahmima Anam
This brilliant novel about the Bangladeshi independence movement, its aftermath, and the subsequent Islamic movement is one of my ten favorite novels of 2011.
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Reviewed by Darryl Morris
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PRIVATE PROPERTY
Paule Constant
Translated from the French by France Grenaudier-Klijn and Margot Miller
Tiffany Murano is an outsider. Her parents, French expats in Africa, have sent her to an all-girls boarding school in France. The Catholic boarding school, the Convent of the Slaughterhouse Ladies, is a place devoid of love; Tiffany does not fit in with the other girls…
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Reviewed by Caitlin Fehir
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MISSING MATISSE
Jan Rehner
Switching between the worlds of France before and during the Second World War and present day Canada and France, Missing Matisse is a gripping, whirlwind-like novel about a lost Matisse painting.
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Reviewed by Ceri Evans
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NINE OF RUSSIA'S FOREMOST WOMAN WRITERS
Edited by GLAS
Translated from the Russian
If this anthology of recent writing by these nine Russian authors has a theme, it's the variety of approaches a modern writer can take. No use wishing for a different title than the simple one chosen by the editors; the stories are as various as Russia.
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Reviewed by Michael Matthew
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NEXT STOP: SEJER ISLAND
Andrea Heiberg
In Next Stop: Sejer Island, Andrea Heiberg has assembled an endearing cast of characters engaged in the everyday life of their small Danish island. There are eight short stories in this slim volume…
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Reviewed by Maggie Oldendorf
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LONELY WOMAN
Takako Takahashi
Translated from the Japanese by Maryellen Toman Mori
Lonely Woman is a beautiful but bleak collection of five interwoven stories, each focusing on a different woman living in urban Tokyo. It is a breathtaking look at loneliness and isolation, and the fate of women in a society that chooses to ignore their individuality.
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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ALL YOURS
Claudia Piñeiro
Translated from the Spanish by Miranda France
On the surface, Claudia Piñeiro's All Yours seems like a familiar story—a loving wife, Inés, discovers her husband is cheating on her, and vows revenge. Despite a plot that could have been pulled from any number of novels, Piñeiro's book is anything but ordinary.
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Reviewed by Caitlin Fehir
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