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Heart-work; Short Stories

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    Title of the book: Heart-work; short stories Author: Roberta Silman  Publisher: Campden Hill Books Publishing Date: 2024 (short stores 1977-2024) ISBN: 979-8-9859260-2-6 Summary: IN THIS SECOND COMPELLING COLLECTION of stories Roberta Silman explores the intricacies of love, the infinite surprises that exist within families, and the yearning for guidance that can result in great leaps of the imagination on the part of her passionate and resilient characters. As she did in her first prize-winning collection, Blood Relations, Silman has created a group of unforgettable people who have something to tell us about how to negotiate the often dangerous shoals of daily life. Silman’s understanding of the bonds that create fierce loyalties, her ability to see into her characters’ minds in uncanny ways, and her grasp of the loneliness that is part of the human condition are revealed in these stories, which have appeared in The Atlantic, McCall’s, The Virginia Quarterly Review, ...
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Book Review of Hot Stage by Anita Nair

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    Name of Book: Hot Stage Author: Anita Nair ISBN: 978-1-913394-96-7 Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press  Part of a Series: Inspector Gowda series  Type of book: India, December of 2012, right politics, Bangalore, religion, drinking bars,  territory, juggling balls, mystery, death, illegal fights, undercover work  Year it was published: 2024 Summary: The third in the Inspector Gowda series, set in Bangalore, India. Borei Gowda is a splendidly grumpy, hard-drinking, deeply flawed policeman whose chaotic home life includes an absent wife, an estranged son and an enigmatic mistress. When elderly Professor Mudgood is found dead in his Bangalore house one winter morning, it is considered a natural death; after all, he was 82 years old, but Gowda isn’t so sure. All the evidence points to a political murder since the professor was a fervent critic of right-wing forces in India. But the more Gowda delves into the details, the more convinced he becomes that the professo...
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Book Review of Chain of Custody by Anita Nair

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    Name of Book: Chain of Custody Author: Anita Nair  ISBN: 978-1-908524-74-4 Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press  Part of a Series: Inspector Gowda series (prequel A CUT LIKE WOUND, sequel HOT STAGE)  Type of book: India, child trafficking, kidnapping, police officers, politics, mysteries, balancing act, 2011? Bangalore, lovers, daily life, heartbreak  Year it was published: 2016 Summary: Bangalore's Inspector Gowda is back in another nail-biting thriller. What does thirteen-year-old Nandita's disappearance have to do with the murder of a well-known lawyer in a gated community? Gowda is soon embroiled in the investigation of a child-trafficking racket. Negotiating insensitive laws, indifferent officials, and uncooperative witnesses, he is in a race against time to rescue Nandita from one of the most depraved criminal rings he has ever encountered. Anita Nair lives in Bangalore and is an internationally acclaimed author and playwright. Her novel Ladies Coupe is ...
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Book Review of The Trials of Empire by Richard Swan

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    Name of Book: The Trials of Empire Author: Richard Swan ISBN: 978-0-316-36198-9 Publisher: Orbit Part of a Series: Empire of the Wolf Type of book: Fantasy, dark, grim, law, religion, wars, exploring the world, mystery, religion vs secular laws, magic  Year it was published: 2024 Summary: The third novel in an epic fantasy trilogy, which follows the tale of Sir Konrad Vonvalt, an Emperor’s Justice – a detective, judge and executioner all in one. THE TIME OF JUDGEMENT IS AT HAND The Empire of the Wolf is on its knees, but there's life in the great beast yet. To save it, Sir Konrad Vonvalt and Helena must look beyond its borders for allies - to the wolfmen of the southern plains, and the pagan clans in the north. But old grievances run deep, and both factions would benefit from the fall of Sova. Even these allies might not be enough. Their enemy, the zealot Bartholomew Claver, wields infernal powers bestowed on him by a mysterious demonic patron. If Vonvalt and Helena a...
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Miss Kim knows and other stories

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  Title of the book: Miss Kim Knows and other stories  Author: Cho Nam Joo (trans Jamie Chung)  Publisher: Live right  Publishing Date: 2024 ISBN: 978-1-324-09531-6 Summary: From the international best-selling author of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, a collection exploring the intimacies of contemporary Korean womanhood. A woman is born. A woman is filmed in public without consent. A woman suffers domestic violence. A woman is gaslit. A woman is discriminated against at work. A woman grows old. A woman becomes famous. A woman is hated, and loved, and then hated again. Written in Cho Nam-joo’s signature razor-sharp prose, Miss Kim Knows follows eight women, ranging from preteens to octogenarians, as they confront how gender shapes and orders their lives. In “Under the Plum Tree,” Mallyeo feels existential as she bears witness to her sister’s final days; in “Dear Hyunnam Oppa,” a college graduate musters the courage to leave her partner; and in “Grown-Up Girl,” a mother final...
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Book review of Quincas Borba by Machado de Assis (trans Margaret Jull Costa, Robin Patterson)

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    Name of Book: QUINCAS Borbas  Author: Machado De Assis (trans Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Peterson)   ISBN: 978-1-324-09068-7 Publisher: Live right  Type of book: Brazil, satire, wealth, social class, 1860s-1870s, finances, mental health, Rio De Janeiro, dog, philosophy, parable  Year it was published: 1891 (2024)  Summary: A vibrant new translation of Machado de Assis’s classic novel about a young man flush with newfound wealth, who promptly gets swindled. Hailed in his lifetime as Brazil’s greatest writer, Machado de Assis (1839–1908) has found a new generation of readers through a series of critically acclaimed translations by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson. Now, the duo returns to breathe new life into the irreverent, ambitious, and darkly funny Quincas Borba . Originally published in 1891, the novel begins with the death of its titular character, a mad philosopher infamous for spouting pessimistic theories of Humanitism. Borba ...
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Book review of Kim Jiyoung, born 1982 by Cho Nam -Joo (trans Jamie Chang)

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    Name of Book: Kim Jiyoung, born 1982 Author: Cho Nam-Joo (trans Jamie Chang) ISBN: 978-1-63149-867-1 Publisher: Live right  Type of book: South Korea 1982-2016, girlhood, womanhood, motherhood, working life, marriage, societal expectations and failures, economy, finances, demands, survival  Year it was published: 2016 (2021)  Summary: A fierce international bestseller that launched Korea’s new feminist movement, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 follows one woman’s psychic deterioration in the face of rigid misogyny. Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that person. In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A thirtysomething-year-old “millennial everywoman,” she has recently left her white-collar desk job—in order to care for her newborn daughter full-time—as so many Korean women are expected to do. But she quickly begins to exhibit strange symptoms that alarm her husband, parents, and in-laws: Jiyoung imper...
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