BOOKLOVES

On an early night in the canyon, a river guide sits by the fire and tells the guests about a white trumpet-shaped bloom that opens after dark. It grows in the wash. It is beautiful. Processed correctly, it will take a person’s capacity to refuse and leave everything else intact, so that the victim is […]

A nuanced meditation on grief, displacement, and the enduring aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster Mitch Wieland’s The Ghosts of Okuma offers one of this year’s most striking portraits of familial grief and the physical and psychological labor required to reimagine life after the most profound loss. What begins as a father and son’s investigation […]

Real life tragedy is combined with a classic plot in this poignant probe into the human condition. More so than most, India is characterized by the contrast of extremes. In Dreams of Orphans, author Vinay Kolhatkar juxtaposes the dark realities of child trafficking with the glamor of Bollywood to provide the setting for an extravagant, […]

Somewhere past midnight in Immortal Rose by Alexandra Bracken, in the kitchen of a fashionable London townhouse, a man widely believed to be a heartless rake gets down on one knee on the tile and begins to sing. The audience is a small spaniel with pink bows on her ears who refuses, on principle, to […]

Somewhere in the middle of Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead, a professional killer with a job to do in New York takes an afternoon off and rides the sightseeing boat around Manhattan. He finds the harbour air cleansing. He is disappointed to learn that the Statue of Liberty is shut for repairs, her raised arm […]

A candid, emotionally intelligent book about the double-edged sword of ambition What sets The Art of Losing to a Y-14 apart from many sports memoirs is the author’s dual perspective—writing not only as an elite athlete but also as a practicing psychiatrist. This distinctive perspective adds refreshing depth to Radu’s analysis of the psychological costs […]

Gritty and real, Pier 45 is a rollicking ride across generations and demographics. During a time when AIDS wards are flooded with patients and a nation stands horrified and seemingly unwilling to help or to understand, places like Wilde House offer homeless AIDS victims shelter and help. This is where we find Seth, the novel’s […]

On certain evenings the furniture salesman at the centre of Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead walks up to Riverside Drive, stops across the street from a building he likes, and picks a window. Fourth floor or higher, so the view clears the trees of the park. He furnishes the rooms in his head, decides on […]