Svetlana's Reads and Views

      Name of Book: The Fury of the Gods  Author: John Gwynne  ISBN: 9780316539951 Publisher: Orbit Part of a Series: Bloodsworn Saga  Type of book: Fantasy, wars, battles, revenge, North fantasy, gods, NORSE mythology, secrets, politics, loyalty, dedication Year it was published: 2024  Summary: The Fury of the Gods is the earth-shattering final book in John Gwynne's bestselling Norse-inspired epic fantasy series, packed with myth, magic and bloody vengeance THE FINAL BATTLE FOR THE FATE OF VIGRIÐ APPROACHES Varg has overcome the trials of his past and become an accepted member of the Bloodsworn, but now he and his newfound comrades face their biggest challenge yet: slaying a dragon. Elvar is struggling to consolidate her power in Snakavik, where she faces threats from within and without. As she fights to assert her authority in readiness for the coming conflict, she faces a surely insurmountable task: reining in the ferocity of a wolf god. As Biorr an...

     Name of Book: I'll be strong for you Author: Nasim Marashi  (trans Poupeh Missaghi ISBN:978-1-66260-036-4 Publisher: Astra House  Type of book: Iran, 2010s? Summer and fall, decisions, depression, Tehran, friendship, marriage, choices, decisions, family, party  Year it was published: 2021 (2014)  Summary: This award-winning debut novel by Iranian journalist Nasim Marashi follows the lives of three young women in Tehran over the course of two seasons as they pursue their wildly different dreams even as they discover that it may mean breaking with the past and endangering their longstanding friendship. Three recent college graduates in Tehran struggle to find their footing in this award-winning debut by Iranian journalist Nasim Marashi. Roja, the most daring of the three, works in an architecture firm and is determined to leave Tehran for graduate school in Toulouse. Shabaneh, who is devoted to her disabled brother and works with Roja, is uncertain ...

      Name of Book: Early Sobrities  Author: Michael Deagler  ISBN: 9781662602245 Publisher: Astra House  Type of book: 2016, sobriety, Pope visit, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, time, roommates, living and work situations, millennial life, introspection  Year it was published: 2024  Summary: Don’t worry about what Dennis Monk did when he was drinking. He’s sober now, ready to rejoin the world of leases and paychecks, reciprocal friendships and healthy romances—if only the world would agree to take him back. When his working-stiff parents kick him out of their suburban home, mere months into his frangible sobriety, the 26-year-old spends his first dry summer couch surfing through South Philadelphia, struggling to find a place for himself in the throng of adulthood. Monk’s haphazard pilgrimage leads him through a city in flux: growing, gentrifying, haunted by its history and its unrealized potential. Everyone he knew from college seems to be doing bett...

    Name of Book: Happy Author: Celina Baljeet Basra  ISBN: 9781662602306 Publisher: Astra House  Type of book: "Disneyland park in India" migrants, Europe, 2010, dreams, shattered dreams, reality, Punjab, crossing over illegally  Year it was published: 2023 Summary: For fans of Vikas Swarup and Charles Yu, the story of a starry-eyed cinephile who leaves his rural village in Punjab to pursue his dreams—a formally daring debut novel set against the global migration crisis. In a rural village of Punjab, India, a moony young man crouches over his phone in a rapeseed field near his family’s cabbage farm. His name is Happy Singh Soni, and he’s watching YouTube clips of his favorite film, Bande à Part by Jean-Luc Godard. In fact, Happy is often compared to a young Sami Frey by the imaginary journalists that keep him company while he uses the outhouse. Pooing, as he says, “en plein air.” When he’s not sleeping among the cabbages and eating his mother’s sugary rotis, H...

Name of Book: The Translator  Author: Harriet Crawley  ISBN: 978-1-913394-83-7 Publisher:  Bitter Lemon Press  Type of book: Russia, translators, second chances, 2017, oligarch life, secrets, spying, United Kingdom Year it was published: 2023  Summary: The Sunday Best Thrillers of 2023. Financial Best Summer Thrillers of 2023.   “A classic thriller of the new Cold War.” Antony Beevor, author of  Stalingrad.   A highly topical  espionage novel  about a Russian plot to cut the undersea communication cables linking the US to the UK. Also, a passionate love story between two people determined to stop this cataclysmic act. Clive Franklin, a Russian language expert in the Foreign Office, is summoned unexpectedly to Moscow to act as translator for the British Prime Minister. His life is upended when he discovers that his former lover, Marina Volina, is the interpreter to the Russian President. Together they will try to stop the att...

    Name of Book: Dom Casmurro  Author: Machado de Assis (trans Margaret Jull Costa, Robin Patterson)   ISBN:978-1-324-09070-0 Publisher: Live right  Type of book: Rio de Janeiro Brazil, memories, seminary, wealth, love, secrets, 1857-1870s, friendship, marriage, happiness, jealousy, suspiciousness, adolescence, childhood sweetheart, promises, fictional memoirs  Year it was published: 2023 (1899)  Summary: Dom Casmurro is the nickname of Bento Santiago, who, old and alone, reveals his memories. A promise from his mother shaped his destiny as a priest, but Bento Santiago, in love, abandoned the seminary. He studies law and marries his great love, but jealousy and distrust grow. He suspects that he is not the biological father of the couple's son, Ezequiel, but rather his great friend Escobar. Characters: Main characters are Bento Santiago who is best described as naive and takes things at face value. He is a jealous man but also loyal and semi tale...