International fiction
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
All I needed to know about Li’s book before deciding I absolutely had to read it, was that it was a heist novel centred on Chinese diaspora stealing back looted Chinese art from Western museums. I doubt anyone needs much…
When We Fell Apart by Soon Wiley
When We FellApart is abeautifully writtenmystery, character studyand examination of bothAmerican and Koreanculture. Min, a man inhis late twenties, isvisited by a detectivewho tells him Yu-jin, his girlfriend, is dead.Min works for Samsung in Korea and hascome to Seoul for…
Either/Or by Elif Batuman
Full disclosure: Elif Batuman’s debut novel, The Idiot, is in my top five favourite books of all time. It takes place in 1995 and follows Selin, a Turkish American woman during her freshman year at Harvard. Intellectual, and possibly…
The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers
Two men, friendship and crop circles. British writer Benjamin Myers’ (The Offing, The Gallows Pole) strange and beautiful novel The Perfect Golden Circle sets us down among the wheat fields of Wiltshire, England in 1989. Crop circles…
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi
Snobs be warned. Author Akwaeke Emezi has stated in no uncertain terms that their third novel for adults, You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, is a romance, so if the thought of bold declarations of feelings…
Ghost Lover by Lisa Taddeo
Closing the cover on the final page of Lisa Taddeo’s razor-sharp collection of short stories, Ghost Lover, I was reminded of a line from the Joy Williams song, ‘What a Good Woman Does’: ‘Everyone’s wounded, nobody’s won …’ It’s…
Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
Nightcrawling is the highly anticipated and impressive debut novel by Leila Mottley, the 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. Deeply affected by true events in her hometown of Oakland, California, in 2015, Mottley felt a strong need to give a voice…
Ruth and Pen by Emilie Pine
There isn’t much to physically connect Ruth and Pen beyond a few chance encounters that unfold one pivotal October day as they go about their lives in Dublin (much like another famous book set in that city, their story takes…
People Person by Candice Carty-Williams
Imagine your wayward, largely absent father showing up one fine day offering to take you and your younger brother for ice cream. Along the way, you stop at various unknown houses to collect three complete strangers, all just a few…
The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-Mo
Hornclaw is a 65-year-old contract killer; still lethal but considering retirement. While she may not get an invite to my fantasy dinner party for my favourite literary characters (forpractical reasons), I would miss her presence. She is by far the…
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