Late Summer Bookshelf
More great reads!
SMALL WORLDS by Caleb Azumah Nelson. Tender, poetic, and devastating reflections on family, home, love, and belonging. Such vivid description of the people who inhabit Ghanaian spaces in London and beyond.
BIRNHAM WOOD by Eleanor Catton. Radical agro-environmentalists, a knighted retiree, and a billionaire with a secret agenda all cross paths in New Zealand in this long totally entertaining read.
THE LOST WIFE by Susanna Moore. Based on the true story of a Minnesota Territory settler who is captured with her children during the Sioux Uprising of 1862. Stark and haunting in both style and content. Some absolutely gorgeous language.
ALL-NIGHT PHARMACY by Ruth Madievsky. Toxic sisterhood, substance abuse, mystics, hospital administration. This one lingered with me.
RIPE by Sarah Rose Enter. A black hole hovers near a young woman as she struggles to make meaning of her life at a soul-sucking Bay Area tech company .Come for the takedown of tech culture, stay of the narrator’s inner life as she unravels.
SHUBEIK LUBEIK by Deena Mohammed. Beautifully rendered Egyptian graphic novel set in in an alternate world where wishes are a real, extractable, regulated resource. It follows three premium-grade wishes sold from one old man’s kiosk. (And it reads right to left, back to front, as it was first published in Arabic.)
CURSED BREAD by Sophie Mackintosh. A moody portrait of an unlikely and twisted friendship between a baker’s wife and an American ambassador’s wife in a small French town after WWII. DON’T READ THE FLAP COPY ON THE BOOK as it gives away the ending in the first sentence?!
FAIR PLAY by Tove Jansson. An absolutely delightful, slim little collection of stories following two artists and their love for each other and their work. I felt inspired and uplifted for days after reading! I am in such awe that she can create such great work for both children and adults alike.
WATCH US DANCE by Leila Slimani. Second book in a trilogy based on her family history, this one takes place after Moroccan independence from the French in the 60s as the characters—like the country at large—struggle with reconciling their dreams with their reality, their traditions with their modern ambitions. The wide cast of characters gives you a very satisfying variety of experiences to follow.