Reviewed By
The First Day of Spring
Nancy Tucker
2021
A well-crafted debut novel that puts us inside the mind of a young single mother. Who happens to have murdered another child when she was eight. Puts the reader in mind of several famous cases, but deftly sidesteps any comparisons to exploitative, lurid, ripped-from-the-headlines pulp.
Tyll
Daniel Kehlmann
2021
translated fluidly from the German, Kehlmann’s novel will soon be getting its own series by the people behind Netflix’s Dark. Read it before then, and enjoy the intricately reconstructed world of Tyll Eulenspiegel, medieval German folk anti-hero.
The Girl on the Fridge
Etgar Keret
2008
Keret doing when Keret does best. Short, stinging, and occasionally absurd. But even at his most outlandish, there is always something undeniable human and humane in each of his stories. Equally to be recommended is his collection Fly Already.
Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp
Hermann Hesse
2012
For that friend of yours that can never quite settle down. You know the one.
Giving Up the Ghost : A Memoir
Hilary Mantel
2004
perhaps to be read in tandem with Elinor Cleghorn’s recent Unwell Women, as the most striking passages in this book deal with physical health and the mental toll caused by the disbelief in the illness and pain suffered by women.
The Death of Francis Bacon
Max Porter
2021
Abstract, disjointed, and moving in its depiction of ultimate loneliness.
Minor Detail
Adania Shibli
Translated by Elisabeth Jaquette
2020
An important — and timely — book from last summer, made all the more relevant by this spring’s violence in Israel and Palestine. One foot in the past and one foot in the present.
