Read our review of A Tabby-cat’s Tale by Han Dong. A Tabby-cat’s Tale Synopsis Tabby isn’t an ordinary house-cat. Though he’s the most beautiful, captivating animal to grace the rooftops of Nanjing, Tabby is also prone to unpredictable outbursts of clawing…
Angel Synopsis: Angel, a new novel by the author of King of Tuzla and Yugoslav Requiem. Many people have plenty of reasons to run away but very few actually do it. Tijmen Klein Gildekamp is a jobbing writer living in…
Family Heirlooms Synopsis: “Zulmira’s fiction escapes the divisions among genres and constructs one of those hybrid and rational beings in whom one recognizes the consistency of modernity.” —Roberto Schwarz Maria Bráulia Munhoz thought settling down with a well-off husband in a…
Dead Stars Synopsis: An unnamed couple sits in a café, waiting for the city offices to open so they can finalize their divorce papers. The wife opens the local newspaper to a shocking photo of a classmate from her university days…
The Thief Synopsis The Thief is a seasoned pickpocket. Anonymous in his tailored suit, he weaves in and out of Tokyo crowds, stealing wallets from strangers so smoothly sometimes he doesn’t even remember the snatch. Most people are just a blur…
The Diving Pool Synopsis: Beautiful, twisted and brilliant – discover Yoko Ogawa. A lonely teenage girl falls in love with her foster-brother as she watches him leap from a high diving board into a pool – sparking an unspoken infatuation that…
The Trial Synopsis: The terrifying tale of Joseph K, a respectable functionary in a bank, who is suddenly arrested and must defend his innocence against a charge about which he can get no information. A nightmare vision of the excesses of…
The Combover Synopsis: Arduino Gherarducci is the latest in the family line of bald men with ornate combovers. Some combed their hair from one side of the head to the other, some weaved the remnants of their hair together in the…
The Book of Words Synopsis: A child is found standing on the street, with an empty bucket in her hand, and no memory of her name, her family or her past. Elsewhere, a girl grows up surrounded by familiar faces –…
The Greenland Breach Synopsis: A stylish, fast-paced spy thriller about the intrigue, economic warfare and struggles for natural resources promised by global warming. The Arctic ice caps are breaking up. Europe and the East Coast of the Unites States brace for…
I Stole the Rain Synopsis: A trio of unforgettable stories from the superstitious Italian province of Campania In Campania fizzy drinks are delivered by cart, old women sell gold to a furtive clientele, and the tobacconist’s daughter is a prize…
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller Synopsis : You go into a bookshop and buy If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. You like it. But alas there is a printer’s error in your copy. You take it…
Harlequin’s Costume Synopsis: The year is 1871. Prince von Ahrensburg, Austria’s military attaché to St. Petersburg, has been killed in his own bed. The murder threatens diplomatic consequences for Russia so dire that they could alter the course of history….
Another Sun Synopsis The sun-drenched Caribbean island of Guadeloupe is technically part of France, subject to French law and loyal to the French Republic. But in 1980, the scars of colonialism are still fresh, and ethnic tensions and political unrest seethe…
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon has that special something that transforms bestsellers into modern classics, incl. quotes.
With the publication of Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, the literary world realized that Banana Yoshimoto was a young writer of enduring talent whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of contemporary Japanese…
