Tag: Fiction
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The Long Corner, by Alexander Maksik

What is art? Alexander Maksik’s new novel “The Long Corner” repeatedly asks this age-old question. The answer is usually short: sometimes it sounds like a slogan, sometimes like a statement of fact, sometimes like a provocative association with an inscription on the gate to Auschwitz. A young zealous Jewish journalist, Solomon Fields, moves from Los…
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Cult Classic, by Sloane Crosley
We probably all experienced the moment when reading a book we suddenly thought – this book should be made into a movie! This is precisely the discovery I made while reading “Cult Classic” by Sloane Crosley. Such a film would be “Inception” meets “When Harry meets Sally” with the exception that in the book, sure,…
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All the Lovers in the Night, by Mieko Kawakami
I’ve always had a weakness for misfits and loners in novels. Hence, no wonder, after a few pages of the book “All the Lovers in the Night” by Mieko Kawakami, I realized that I really liked the main character, Fuyoko Irie. She is a 34-year-old woman living alone in Tokyo, whose days are filled with…
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The Fruit Thief, by Peter Handke

From my old car trips across America, I remember that when I was driving, for example, across Utah or Montana, there was a period, shortly before sunset, when the landscape was becoming indescribably beautiful. In the golden light, the mountains and the road were bathed in the softness. I felt the uniqueness of that moment:…
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The Magician, by Colm Tóibín

I decided to read it when I learned that “The Magician” by Colm Tóibín was included in the New York Times Critics Top Books of 2021. In my youth, I was greatly influenced by “The Magic Mountain“ by Thomas Mann. Now I don’t even know why it happened, but at the time it was a…