This highly acclaimed, award-winning 2016 novel is a provocative look at a fictional “small bomb” blast at an open air market in India in 1996 and the aftermath for the victims and the perpetrators. Karan Mahajan explores racism, religious intolerance, problems of assimilation, the notion of justice, and the work of activists — whether peaceful or terrorist — as his characters deal with their losses over the next seven years. The novel is full of surprises, especially when we see how similar the two sides […]
Detective Novel from Morocco, kind of a mixed bag
Whitefly is a short detective novel by Moroccan writer Abdelilah Hamdouchi. Hamdouchi writes crime fiction and has had success as a screen writer of police thrillers. This novel was first published in Arabic in 2000 and translated by Jonathan Smolin in 2016. It is a noir-ish story of bodies washed up on the shore in Tangier. Are the deaths related? And why does one of the bodies have gunshot wounds? Detective Khalid Ibrahim, aka Laafrit, must rely on his instincts and connections both in the […]
Holiday Book Exchange!
Thank you, Bonnie!! I’m looking forward to reading some poetry (for the first time in a long time) over the holidays. And a classic! Middlemarch! Thank you so much!
Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters
My Sister, the Serial Killer is the debut novel from Nigerian writer Oyinkan Braithwaite, and it packs a real punch! In under 300 pages, Braithwaite draws the reader into a fascinating story of Korede, our narrator, who finds herself repeatedly having to clean up her younger sister Ayoola’s messes. And those messes are the murders of her boyfriends, three and counting. The novel is something of a thriller, as we wait to see if Ayoola will kill again and if the sisters will escape the […]
Snubbed and Bingo #3!
cbr10bingo Snubbed Christophe Chaboute’s graphic novel adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick was nominated for a 2018 Eisner Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium. It lost to Damien Duffy and John Jennings’ adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Kindred. I’ve never had a great desire to conquer Moby Dick. It was never assigned in any of my high school or university literature classes, and frankly, the story of a crazy old sea captain trying to exact revenge on a white whale sounded weird. And then there’s […]
The Book Was Better (but the film was still excellent)
cbr10bingo The Book Was Better The novel Mudbound was a Pen America Literary Award winner and was turned into an award winning film starring Mary J. Blige. It’s a powerful and tragic story about land, love, friendship and racism in post-WWII Mississippi, told from multiple points of view. Both the novel and the film are excellent, but I must give the nod to the original novel as being better. The novel (and film) open with brothers Henry and Jamie McAllen burying their Pap while Henry’s […]
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