Category: Recent Reads

Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

Purchase a copy for yourself here! Black Leopard Red Wolf is the most recent novel from Jamaican author Marlon James, and the follow up to his Man Booker Prize-winning 2014 novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings. James has stated that this novel is the first in his Dark Star trilogy, which will be a… Continue reading Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Purchase a copy for yourself here! Bernadine Evaristo’s eighth work of fiction, Girl, Woman, Other, earned her the Booker Prize for Fiction in 2019, marking the first instance in which the prize has ever been awarded to a black woman. The novel centers on the experiences of twelve black women in Britain, all of whom… Continue reading Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan

Purchase a copy for yourself here! The Great Pretender is Susannah Cahalan’s recent follow up to her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brain on Fire, which chronicled her journey with sudden onset paranoia and psychosis that initially got her diagnosed as bipolar and then schizophrenic, but was eventually discovered to be a product of a… Continue reading The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Purchase a copy for yourself here! Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police, originally published in Japan in 1994, has become available to the English speaking world by way of Stephen Snyder’s recent translation. This novel is a richly textured indictment of authoritarianism and anphilosophical meditation on the nature of memory. Through simple allegorical device, Ogawa creates… Continue reading The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Salt Slow by Julia Armfield

Purchase a copy for yourself here! Salt Slow is the debut story collection from Julia Armfield, one that blends nature and magical realism with dazzling results. The stories are chiefly concerned with the bodies of young women, and explore both autonomy and human connection. Amongst Armfield’s collection of curiosities is a woman whose girlfriend returns… Continue reading Salt Slow by Julia Armfield

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman

Purchase a copy for yourself here! Ducks, Newburyport is the most recent novel from Lucy Ellman, and one of the strangest literary experiences I’ve had in recent years. The novel is 1,020 pages of a single sentence inner monologue, punctuated with commas and the introductory phrase, “the fact that”. The narrator is an Ohio housewife,… Continue reading Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman

What is Missing by Michael Frank

Purchase a copy for yourself here! What is Missing is the first novel from Michael Frank, whose debut memoir, The Mighty Franks, was released in 2017 to wide critical acclaim. The novel centers around three characters whose lives first intersect in Italy, when the recently widowed translator, Costanza, meets a son and father duo that… Continue reading What is Missing by Michael Frank

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Purchase a copy for yourself here! Kiley Reid’s debut novel, Such a Fun Age, is concerned with the rise of “woke” culture, a self obsessive tendency of privileged white liberals to perform progressive ideals of racial and gender equality. The novel is told from the perspectives of two women, one of whom is Alix, a… Continue reading Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

If You Want to Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais

Purchase a copy for yourself here! If You Want to Make God Laugh is Bianca Marais’ sophomore novel, and it is an exploration of three South African women negotiating motherhood and trauma, whose lives interact in a variety of explosive ways. The novel begins with Zodwa, a seventeen year old girl living in an impoverished… Continue reading If You Want to Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais