BOOKLOVES

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 […]

A sweet story with big dreams, little paws, and one determined dachshund doctor Sometimes, the most qualified doctor in our lives is the one with four paws and an endless supply of determination. Lauria Kerr’s Paging Doctor Solomon is a hilarious, heartwarming anthropomorphic animal fantasy novel about a miniature dachshund with an enormous dream. Solomon […]

A moving story of friendship and devotion in the wake of a life-changing traumatic injury Robert Dyer’s poignant debut, A Small Memory delivers on a quietly powerful premise—that a friendship tested by tragedy can emerge as one of the truest forms of love. Set in Ohio in 1975, A Small Memory follows Mike Youngstown, an […]

For six months a retired teacher in Maryland tells everyone she meets that her son-in-law is in a Paris hospital recovering from a bad batch of bouillabaisse. She repeats it to neighbours, to her daughter’s bridesmaids, to a book group, to people who were at the wedding and want to know when he will be […]

A nine-year-old girl crouches in a lilac hedge on the night of the Hunter’s Moon, freezing, waiting to find out whether the thing everybody in town leaves cakes and coins for actually exists. Her family has swept the front steps, lit a candle, arranged the offerings on a plate and gone to bed with the […]

A frightened boy in a Rouen hospital house is told a story by the servant who raises him, about a bird whose feathers are made of light and whose name nobody can quite explain. He spends the next fifty years catching glimpses of it, at the edge of fields, above the Nile, in a Paris […]