Tag: Fiction
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“Birnam Wood” by Eleanor Catton
Did you think that gardening was a peaceful activity? After reading “Birnam Wood,” Eleanor Catton’s latest novel, you will surely change your mind. Birnam Wood is a clandestine gardening collective with a great idea: the group cultivates unused strips of land, abandoned construction sites, and such to grow vegetables. They are young, sharing their idealistic…
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“The Vegan” by Andrew Lipstein
“The Vegan” by Andrew Lipstein starts with a slightly Woody Allen vibe of a Manhattan apartment party where Hershel Caine and his beautiful wife Franny invited another influential couple and a friend, Birdie, to, hopefully, establish good social connections. Hershel is a thirty-eight-year-old hedge fund manager leading a happy, stable life, and the future looks…
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“You Know Her” by Meagan Jennett
Sophie Braam lives in a small town somewhere in Virginia. This is the place where during winter, men mostly go to the bars and get drunk; in summer, there are tailgating parties revolving around beer and having a good time. For many men, having a good time means they can harass and insult women. Sophie…
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“Stravanging Strange” by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
For a reader, there is nothing better than discovering a new, great writer. I hadn’t heard about Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (1887-1950) until I got a short book, “Stravanging Strange,” which consists of three stories, his notes, and excerpts from his wife, Anna Bovshek’s memoir. It was the perfect material to ignite my interest in this unique…
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“Ghost Music” by An Yu
One day, a package of rare mushrooms is delivered to the doorsteps of the Beijing apartment where Song Yan lives with her husband. The sender is unknown, but the mushrooms came from Yunnan province, and Song Yan’s visiting mother-in-law immediately decides to cook them. They were his son’s favorites when he was a boy and…
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“Hestia Strikes a Match” by Christine Grillo
Hestia Harris uses mainly two apps on her smartphone: one is checking for terrorist threats in the area, and the other is … a dating app. It’s 2023, and the United States is in the middle of a civil war. The country was divided; some states were pro-Union, while others separated and called themselves the…
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“The Medici Murders” by David Hewson
Venice is one of my favorite cities worldwide, so I jumped right into the story when I learned about the new Venetian mystery novel. The author, David Hewson, notes that in Italian, the word “storia” indicates both history and a story. Fittingly, the novel’s main plot is a story of murder in Venice, but in…
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“48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister” by Joyce Carol Oates
My friend once told me that she doesn’t trust beautiful people because they have it so much easier. Georgene, the young heroine of “48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister,” by Joyce Carol Oates, talks about her sister: “Her beauty, that was unjust. For all beauty is unjust.” Then she goes further: she hates…
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“Foster” by Claire Keegan
A short gourmet comparison: I’d rather have one exquisite chocolate or a bag of cheap, sugary candies. Undoubtedly enjoying superb chocolate doesn’t last as long as the seemingly endless chewing of sweets, yet the quality of the experience is incomparable. This is the case with Claire Keegan’s short novel “Foster.” It’s easy to finish it…
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“The Buried Giant” by Kazuo Ishiguro
I’ll start this review like a fairy tale: once, in the land of far away, lived an elderly couple, Axl and Beatrice, who decided to go on a quest to reunite with their son. On their way, they met ogres, pixies, and a she-dragon. They walked with a great warrior, Wistan, and a young boy…
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