So Much For That Winter

Title: So Much For That Winter (original title: Det var så den vinter) Writer: Dorthe Nors, translated by Misha Hoekstra Publishing House: Graywolf Press Date of Publication:  June 15th 2016  Rating: 5 stars ‘’Night has descended on Amager. Denmark is laid in darkness. The Sound flows softly. The planes take off and land. Minna awakens….

Our Wives Under the Sea

Title: Our Wives Under the Sea Writer: Julia Armfield Publishing House: Picador Date of Publication: March 3rd 2022 Rating: 5 stars ‘’The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness. Unstill, is the word Leah uses, tilting her head to the side…

Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs

Title: Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs Writer: Linda Olsson Publishing House: Penguin Date of Publication: August 26th 2005 Rating: 5 stars ”July 1942, Vastra Sangeby, Dalarna, Sweden When the sun dipped behind the wall of trees, we lay down and the white night swallowed us. It has been night ever since.” Two women find…

Burntcoat

Title: Burntcoat Writer: Sarah Hall Publishing House: Faber and Faber Ltd Date of Publication: October 7th 2021 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Those who tell stories survive.’’ ‘’Is it possible to be saved, like Scheherazade seducing the enemy with tales? Do stories make sense in a disordered world?’’ A tragic change inflicts the most important person in…

Autumn (Seasonal Quartet #1)

Title: Autumn (Seasonal Quartet #1) Writer: Ali Smith Publishing House: Penguin Date of Publication: August 31st 2017  (first published October 20th 2016) Rating: 5 stars ‘’It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. Again. That’s the thing about things. They fall apart, always have, always will, it’s in their nature.’’ ‘’How…

Κarate Chop

Title: Karate Chop (original title: Kantslag) Writer: Dorthe Nors (translated by Martin Aitken) Publishing House: Graywolf Press Date of Publication: February 4th 2014 (first published September 25th 2008) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Once in a while everyone wishes someone dead, though no one should ever kill.’’ Do You Know Jussi? : A girl on the brink…

The Mermaid of Black Conch

Title: The Mermaid of Black Conch Writer: Monique Roffey Publishing House: Peepal Tree Press Ltd Date of Publication: April 2nd 2020 Rating: 5 stars ‘’That morning David played her soft hymns he’d learnt as a boy, praising God. He sang holy songs for her, songs which brought tears to his eyes, and there they stayed,…

Strange Weather in Tokyo

Title: Strange Weather In Tokyo (original title: センセイの鞄) Writer: Hiromi Kawakami (translated by Allison Markin Powell) Publishing House: Granta Date of Publication: August 6th 2020 (first published 2001) Rating: 5 stars ‘’In the autumn there are dead leaves all over the place and in winter the bare branches are bleak and dreary.’’ A woman and…

Love and Other Thought Experiments

Title: Love and Other Thought Experiments Writer: Sophie Ward Publishing House: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Date of Publication: September 28th 2021 (first published February 6th 2020) Rating: 5 stars ‘’There is the physical knowledge of another person but can there be an understanding of what it is like to have their experience?’’ Eliza and Rachel…

There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories

Title: There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories Writer: Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (tr. by Anna Summers) Publishing House: Penguin Modern Classics Date of Publication:  January 31st 2013 (first published January 1st 2011) Rating: 5 stars ‘’She’ll wait for his long-distance call in a phone booth at the post office. For…

Shoko’s Smile

Title: Shoko’s Smile (original title: 쇼코의 미소) Writer: Choi Eunyoung (translated by Sung Ryu) Publishing House: John Murray Press Date of Publication: August 19th 2021 (first published July 7th 2016) Rating: 5 stars “I dig my hands into the cold sand and gaze at the black, shimmering sea. It feels like the edge of the…

Hurricane Season

Title: Hurricane Season (original title: Tempradas De Huracanes) Writer: Fernanda Melchor (translated by Sophie Hughes) Publishing House: Fitzcarraldo Editions Date of Publication:  February 19th 2020  (first published May 12th 2017) Rating: 3 stars ‘’They called her the Witch, the same as her mother; the Young Witch when she first started trading in curses and cures,…

Earthlings

Title: Earthlings (original title: 地球星人) Writer: Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori) Publishing House: Granta Date of Publication: September 29th 2020 (first published August 31st 2018) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Magical powers. I have to summon my magical powers. The power of darkness, the power of wind – any magical power will do, but I…

Human Terrain

Title:Human Terrain Writer: Emily Bullock Publishing House: Reflex Press Date of Publication: August 31st 2021 Rating: 5 stars “On the 18th of December 1989, when waves smashed Blackpool pier and leaves whipped against windows, she began to fight. In the upstairs bathroom, on a blue fish and smiling dolphin beach towel, the ambulance delayed under…

Lillian on Sunday

Title: Lillian On Sunday Writer: Lionel Walfish Publishing House: FriesenPress Date of Publication: July 30th 2021 Rating: 5 stars “October in Blenheim, Massachusetts brought with it, along with swirls of golden wind-blown leaves, a sense of eerie anticipation. A new academic year; teachers, new and old, freshman faces, and of course, the hazing. The town…

The Island of Missing Trees

Title:The Island Of Missing Trees Writer: Elif Shafak Publishing House: Viking Date of Publication: August 5th 2021  Rating: 5 stars “Once upon a memory, at the far end of the Mediterranean Sea, there lay an island so beautiful and blue that the many travellers, pilgrims, crusaders and merchants who fell in love with it either…

Things We Lost In the Fire

Title: Things We Lost In the Fire (original title: Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego) Writer: Mariana Enríquez (translated by Megan McDowell) Publishing House: Hogarth Press Date of Publication: February 21st 2017 (first published February 10th 2016) Rating: 5 stars ‘’The gaucho is good,’’ he said. ‘’But the other one isn’t.’’  He said it…

An Approach to Black

Title: An Approach to Black Writer: Emily Jeremiah Publishing House: Reflex Press Date of Publication: August 3rd 2021 Rating: 4 stars ‘’Dare I hope that I shall go outside again? Dare I hope that I shall live again, beyond this existence in this cell? Night – times I am pursued by visions and wake up…

Magma

Title: Magma (original title: Kvika) Writer: Þóra Hjörleifsdóttir (translated by Meg Matich) Publishing House: Grove Press Date of Publication:  July 13th 2021 (first published February 12th 2019) Rating: 5 stars ‘’An attractive man like me can’t be with a girl who’s slept with so many creeps.’’ A narcissistic parasite. A psychotic pervert. A psychological and physical…

This One Sky Day

Title: This One Sky Day Writer: Leone Ross Publishing House: Faber & Faber Date of Publication: April 15th 2021 Rating: 5 stars ‘’When people die alone, without proper burial rites, the carcass wandered for years, rudderless, rotting and shrinking. They had all seen these ghosts, rebuilding their bodies with bits of rubbish, hanging on, half-maddened….