This collection abounds with bad decisions, traumatic events, and ominous conclusions. In an introduction, British writer Stuart Evers observes that “the lives Meyer depicts are small ones; ones lived in the margins of society.” The story “I’m Still Here!” follows a boxer—“a Black Dutchman from Rotterdam with a mashed-up face”—as he endures existential doubt and […]
A group of hunter-gatherers is endangered by murderous timbermen in the Brazilian rainforest. Above the Arctic Circle, an old Inuit woman takes her skeptical, indolent “grandson” to a remote old village (from which oil companies uprooted them) to enact an obscure ritual. Both use ancestral memories to summon help from an advanced extraterrestrial civilization of […]
Harrold is a former butler to King Charles III and the United Kingdom’s “leading expert on etiquette,” according to the jacket description, but he makes a good impression and does well without a ghostwriter. The Crown plays a modest role in the lives of most Britons, but Harrold’s parents were genuine enthusiasts who enjoyed visiting […]
Born in 1934 during the Great Depression, the author remembers the first time he saw a television set. The thrill he had always enjoyed in movie theaters “was now available in people’s living rooms.” From that moment in the 1940s onward, Jankowski was hooked on TV. After graduating from Canisius College as an English major […]
In this heartwarming adventure story, McCarty takes readers on a modern-day romp in the woods of Boone, North Carolina. Ten-year-old Thomas has come with his family, who present white, to stay near Canaan Woods with Aunt Cecilia, a painter, in the home she and his mom grew up in. It’s a chance for Mom, who’s […]
On a family holiday in Kent, England, the meticulously organized August and her husband, Andrew, visit Shepherd Neame, Britain’s oldest brewery, for a tasting tour. August is suddenly transported to an alternate timeline when the historic beer, called Five Bees, was first brewed. Waking up naked and confused, August stumbles to a doorstep, guided by […]
It’s a frigid day in Cherry Hill Forest; powdery drifts blanket the ground, migrating geese honk overhead, and Emma and her mom, a social worker, stroll along a secluded trail. Emma stumbles upon a camping tent much like those she’s seen in other parks. A woman emerges, and the trio exchange niceties before Emma asks […]
Glicksman, an American English professor and jewelry importer before his death in 2021, recaps three decades of periodic sojourns in the Middle and Far East starting in 1971. The author usually traveled on his own, in threadbare circumstances. His destinations included Turkey, where he encountered “hashish of a legendary quality” that made “the air…thick and […]
An intertextual story of longing, fidelity, and the role of women in Japanese culture, the novel begins with 2-year-old Riko falling in love with Naruya. Though they eventually marry, it is an unhappy arrangement—she worships Naruya, but he is an unrepentant womanizer. With the help of former monk Mr. Takaoka (who shares the name of […]
Nineteen-year-old Amara Kalogridas’ life isn’t perfect: Her mother died nine years ago, after which her father struggled with alcohol abuse, but her family has pulled through. Now, Amara, her brother, Greg, her best friend, Sophie, and her archaeologist father are working on a dig in Tunisia, where they’re hoping to learn more about the rise […]