Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__ {{Frontpage|author= Tahi Saihate|title= Astral Season, Beastly Season|rating= 3.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We long for our past even though it is a place to which we can never return. Tahi Saihate, in her debut novel ''Astral Season, Beastly Season'' illustrates how these rose-tinted glasses often lie. Her novel is a meditation on youth and how the things we do as a teenager can seem intensely important and often life-altering.|isbn= 1916277101}}

{{Frontpage|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingauthor="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->Laura Imai Messina<!-- Kan -->|title=The Phone Box at the End of the World|-rating=5| stylegenre="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Literary Fiction[[image:1911115847.jpg|linksummary=http://wwwIn the northeast of Japan, in Inwate Prefecture a man installed a telephone box in his garden.amazon ''Inside there is an old black, telephone, disconnected, that carries voices into the wind.co'' It is a real place, a necessary place, and I am pleased to see the IMPORTANT NOTE that the author attaches to her story, that the place is not a tourist destination, it is a sacred place, a place that must be left to those who really need it.uk/dp/1911115847/ref|isbn=178658039X}}{{Frontpage|author=nosim?tagAmin Maalouf|title=thebookbag-21]]The Disoriented|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction| stylesummary="verticalAdam has lived in Paris for years, speaks French more easily than his native Arabic. In fact he hasn't been back to his homeland for 25 years. An old friend is dying…or as Adam prefers to think of him a former-align: top; textfriend, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-align: left;"friend, or maybe. The falling out was a long time ago, and Adam's partner has no idea what it was about, even so she urges him to go knowing that he'll regret not doing so. Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants to, or simply because he was asked, he's on the next plane. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY}}{{Frontpage|author=Joanne M Harris|title=A Pocketful of Crows|rating=[[Nights 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= I have always been of the mind that once you're above picture-book level and before you get to graphic sex & violence, there is no difference between books for children and books for adults. There are good books and poor ones. And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones. ''A Pocketful of Crows'' is clearly aimed at the younger readers as witness the use of the middle initial in the author's name to differentiate from her adult offers. Ignore that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris is mistress of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan]]modern fairy tale. This is no different. It is an utter delight.|isbn=1473222184}}{{Frontpage|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)|title=A Life Without End|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction[[image:4star|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon. And then a few of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's the extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, and they end up with a child, which is at least a way of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep on going.jpg But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|linkisbn=Category:{1642860670}}{{Frontpage|author= Maryse Condé|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana|rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: = 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction| Literary Fiction]]summary= We live in a post- world: post-colonialism, post-modernism, post truth. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix post- in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novel, [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] ''Nights The Wondrous and Tragic Life of the Creaking BedIvan and Ivana'' , Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries to which it latched itself. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupe, a French overseas department. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up and move overseas, the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequences.|isbn=1642860697}}{{Frontpage|author= Ukamaka Olisakwe|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a collection look at the trauma and heartache of short stories by Toni Kanbeing a woman in 1980s Nigeria. The series title is ''Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right''. Ogadinma is the eponymous heroine of stories tell the story.. We are with her in every scene and it is her narrative voice that leads the story, although Olisakwe writes in third person. This provides a sense of detachment for the lives reader and lusts highlights the isolation of Ogadinma. She is exiled from her father's home and sent to Lagos where she is married to an assortment older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escape.|isbn=1911648160}}{{Frontpage|author=Elliot Reed|title=A Key to Treehouse Living|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=This is the story of a young boy, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the death of characters living his mother and his father's abandonment. However, it isn't told in the usual narrative way. Instead, the book is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way of describing certain events, situations and around Lagosemotions. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, Nigeriathen moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. Nigeria As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in this collection, is imbued William's story.|isbn=1911545418}}{{Frontpage|author= Karina Sainz Borgo and Elizabeth Bryer (translator)|title= It Would Be Night in Caracas|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''It Would Be Night in Caracas'' illuminates the everyday horrors of modern day Venezuela. It begins with its very own heart the death of darknessAdelaida Falcon's mother and chronicles Adelaida's coming to terms with her new solitude in this world and her attempts to escape it. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than , in a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories society where the establishment is crumbling, who can you turn to achieve a glimmer of hope. [[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan? |Full Review]]isbn=0062936867}}

{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15"<!-- Yancey Williams Caroline Scott -->

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===[[The Resurrection Photographer of Jesus the Lost by Yancey WilliamsCaroline Scott]]===

[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]

In March 1990 two police officers entered Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner MuseumMay 1921. They left Edie receives a photograph through the post. There is no letter or note with thirteen famous paintings by Rembrandt, Degas and Vermeerit. The frames remain empty to this day: whilst there might have been rumours about There is nothing written on the whereabouts back of the paintingsphotograph. It is a picture of her husband, even promises that the case was about to be solved, the paintings are still Francis. Francis has been missingfor four years. Yancey Williams Technically, he has been "missing, believed killed" but that is not something that a theory, which he delaborates young widow can believe. She hangs on in his novel ''The Resurrection of Jesusthe word 'missing', and whilst his suspects might seem unlikely, who's to say that he's wrong? Forget disbelieving the assertions that it was down to the Mafia and meet Jésus Ángel Escobar and Hiram Johnny Walker Quicksilverword killed. [[The Resurrection Photographer of Jesus the Lost by Yancey WilliamsCaroline Scott|Full Review]]

<!-- Clark Ann Patchett -->

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===[[In The Full Light of the Sun Dutch House by Clare ClarkAnn Patchett]]===

[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]

In 1930When we first meet Danny and his elder sister, Maeve Conroy, they's Berlin, three people obsessed re both living at The Dutch House with art find themselves swept up into a scandal. Emmeline, a wayward young student, Julius, an anxious middle-aged art expert, their parents and Rachmann, a mysterious art dealer, live in under the politically turbulent Weimar Berlin, and soon find themselves whipped up into excitement over gaze of the surprise discovery portraits of thirty-two previously unknown the former owners whose oil paintings by Vincent Van Goghstill hang on the walls. Based on It's a true story strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is distant and unfolding through the subsequent rise of Hitler and closest Danny seems to come to him is when he goes out with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the Nazisfamily owns. Elna Conroy is loving, but absent increasingly often until the discovery of point comes when the art allows these characters to explore authenticitychildren are told that she will not be returning. In other circumstances this might have affected Maeve and Danny deeply, vanity and self-delusionbut their primary relationship is with each other. It's a bond which only death will break. [[In The Full Light of the Sun Dutch House by Clare ClarkAnn Patchett|Full Review]]

<!-- Kazan Tove Jansson -->

[[image:07490248010954899520.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/07490221320954899520/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]

===[[The Phoenix of Florence A Winter Book by Philip KazanTove Jansson]]===

[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical FictionShort Stories|Historical FictionShort Stories]]

Deep Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the Tuscan countryside 1940s and later becoming television characters of fifteenth century Italythe simplicity, Onoria survives a massacre naivety and sheer 'goodness' that destroys her family and homewould later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Alone in the forestSimple drawings, simple stories, she meets a band simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of soldiers who, believing her to be native Finland is that she was a boy train and develop her – and the determined Onoria becomes serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a mercenary – desperate to avoid any situation in which she may feel vulnerable again. Along feeling for the way, she meets ex-soldier Celavini, whose journey to Florence sees him investigating two brutal murders. As he digs further natural world and uncovers links to his own family history, Celavini must revisit the past he shares with Onoria, in the hope simple life that they can lay not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the ghosts of their shared history to rest, before it's too late..world might be. [[The Phoenix of Florence A Winter Book by Philip KazanTove Jansson|Full Review]]

<!-- Kennedy Jansson -->

[[image:17863316910954221710.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/17863316910954221710/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]

===[[The Great Wide Open Summer Book by Douglas KennedyTove Jansson]]===

[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]

Douglas KennedyTove Jansson's ''The Great Wide Open'' has been described as epic by just short novel about everyone, and it often feels as though that was the intention. Though the novel often feels like a pastiche of Summer is several worlds away from the great American novel – epic in scope, preoccupied with matters of money and literature, fixated with New York – it often feels more like Kennedy Moomintrolls she is trying to reverse-engineer the concept altogethermost famous for outside her native Scandinavia. Initially, the novel presents itself as Book yourself an intimate study of family dramaafternoon this Summer, in the latter half of the novel it smoothly turns to examining the turn of American society since the 70sand take yourself and The Summer Book somewhere quiet, preferably within sight and the rapid rise of the hyper-capitalist neoliberal values that have dominated the west since the election sound of Ronald Reagan. Though it takes place over a twenty-year period between the 70s and the 90ssea, it notably always keeps one an eye on the present day (Trump, of course, makes an inevitable settle back and slightly incongruous cameo) such that what happens links subtly into current affairs without ever explicitly referencing themprepare to be transported. [[The Great Wide Open Summer Book by Douglas KennedyTove Jansson|Full Review]]

<!-- d'Eramo Sedgwick -->

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===[[Deviation Snowflake, AZ by Luce d'Eramo and Anne Milano Appel (translator)Marcus Sedgwick]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]

For those of you who have read books of life in the Nazi camps – and of course, for those of you who have not – this can be considered a next step[[image:3. It begins, after all, with someone escaping Dachau and fleeing her work assignment during a bombing raid, and you'd not blame her one minute, as her career was deemed to be cess-tank cleaner and sewage unblocker by the Germans. In Munich, she stumbles on help to get her to what seems to be a camp for non-native civilians to look for work, or company, or transport elsewhere, either official or otherwise. But then the next chapter sees her going back into the camp next to Dachau once more, and by then eyebrows are being raised5star. jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[Deviation by Luce d'Eramo and Anne Milano Appel (translator):Category:Literary Fiction|Full ReviewLiterary Fiction]]

<!-- Chamberlain Hewitt -->

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===[[The Hidden Nightjar by Mary ChamberlainDeborah Hewitt]]===

[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary FictionFantasy|Literary FictionFantasy]], [[:Category:Historical Literary Fiction|Historical Literary Fiction]]

When Barbara Hummel arrives, determined to identify the mysterious woman whose photograph she has found among her mother's possessions, Dora 'The Nightjar'' is an unusual and Joe find their worlds upended – and are swiftly forced to confront their pastsexciting story. Revisiting their time on the Channel Islands during World War II, Dora remembers Alice Wyndham lives a time when normal life in London until she concealed finds a box on her Jewish identity, doorstep one morning and Joeher life begins to unravel, a Catholic Priestfast. From that very moment, remembers a time when he hid something very different. In this story of loveher life is flooded with magic, loss , expectation and particularly, betrayal. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must change. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, it remains to be seen whether a speck of light can diffuse the darkest shadows of war… she even trust herself? [[The Hidden Nightjar by Mary ChamberlainDeborah Hewitt|Full Review]]

<!-- Clár Ní Chonghaile Mulligan -->

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===[[The Reckoning Train Man by Clar Ni ChonghaileAndrew Mulligan]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] As the blurb says, ''In a cottage in Normandy, Lina Rose is writing to the daughter she abandoned as a baby''…the whole of Chonghaile's second novel is a series of letters addressed to Diane. Lina is now in her seventies and Diane is a mother herself. They have met just once since Lina gave her up for adoption. It was not a good meeting. [[The Reckoning by Clar Ni Chonghaile|Full Review]]<!-- Abbs -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1473691206.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473691206/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]

I came to this book thinking I knew just what to expect, even though it is [[:Category:Andy Mulligan| style="verticalthe author's]] debut in the adult novel market (hence the more mature name – he used to be an Andy). I thought it simple to sum up, the tale of a middle-alignaged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in the most pleasant way. I hadn't opened it when I'd shelved it alongside [[: top; text-alignCategory: left;"Chris Cleave|===Chris Cleave]], and [[Frieda by Annabel Abbs:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]===. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness.

[[image:4starMore fool me.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary FictionTrain Man by Andrew Mulligan|Literary FictionFull Review]]

Married to English Professor Ernest Weekley, aristocrat Frieda Von Richtofen finds herself stifled by the confines of married life. Visiting family in Munich, she becomes captivated by the ideas of revolution and free love. Meeting the penniless writer D.H. Lawrence, she finds herself drawn into a passionate affair and a tempestuous relationship, changing the course of both their lives, and unleashing a creative outpouring that will change the course of literature forever. [[Frieda by Annabel Abbs|Full Review]] <!-- Susan Fletcher Anstruther -->

[[image:03490076401784631647.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/03490076401784631647/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]

===[[House of Glass A Perfect Explanation by Susan FletcherEleanor Anstruther]]===

Clara suffered from ''Osteogenesis imperfecta'': these days it would probably be called brittle bone disease and whilst there is still no cureEnid Campbell was a woman who, treatments have advanced. At on the beginning face of the twentieth century it meant that Clara was confined to her home, living had everything. Leading the life through a window of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and the tales her mother, Charlottesplendour, brought home. Both became far too knowledgeable about bones glamourous locales and the sounds they made on breaking. Charlotte would ''list bones like continents''high expectations. Clara would only escape the house after her motherOnly Enid's death - of a tumour at the age of thirty nine - life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosed, untreated and threatening both Enid and in those close to her wanderings discovered Kew Gardens. Her growing knowledge After losing custody of tropical plants led her children, Enid sells her son to her sister for £500 – but is this an act of greed, or an act of desperation? Exploring the offer true story of a job stocking a newly-built glass house at Shadowbrook in Gloucestershireher own grandmother, Eleanor Anstruther has found the perfect subject for an explosive, moving and beautifully well written debut. [[House of Glass A Perfect Explanation by Susan FletcherEleanor Anstruther|Full Review]]

<!-- Hajaj Laguna -->

[[image:1786073943191070962X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786073943191070962X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]

===[[The Water Thief Choke by Claire HajajSofie Laguna]]===

[[image:4star2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]

Nick is in the middle There's a dull, dispiriting pang of wedding preparations disappointment that comes when he decides to leave his fiancée behind in London you try something everyone else loves and take up a post in some un-named west African country providing engineering support for the building of a childrenfind out that you's hospitalre really not into it. Coffee. Ice skating. A new Netflix series. He has no idea what he is getting himself intoBooks are like that, but doubly so. [[The Water Thief Choke by Claire HajajSofie Laguna|Full Review]]

 <!-- Wilson Varenne -->

[[image:17864960380857058738.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/17864960380857058738/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]

===[[Aftershocks Equator by A N WilsonAntonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)]]===

[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]

In It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a country very much like New Zealandtheme park. Our agent to see how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, but who bristles at the same time most avowedly not, two women will find love. Strong love too, for our narrator will say that her first attraction for her partner was the only thing to make sense indignity of all those exaggerated songs shewhite man against Native 'Indian'd heard, who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and books who hates the way man – and poems she'd readwoman, and plays she'd acted in of course – works can turn against fellow man at the bat of art that had until then seemed sheer hyperbolean eyelid. It was entirely unrequited love for quite some time, but it does burgeon, or But this book is about so we're promised from much more than the off1870s USA, because of something quite drastic – a major earthquake very much like and the one that hit Christchurchattendant problems with gold rushes, but at the same time most avowedly notpioneer spirits and racial genocide. This He finds himself trying to find this book then 's version of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the combined exploration of ground to counter the lovers anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better. But that equator is a long way away – and the story there's a whole adventure full of the quake. Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[Aftershocks Equator by A N WilsonAntonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]]

<!-- Davies Kan -->

[[image:17860744431911115847.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/17860744431911115847/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]

===[[Tirzah and Nights of the Prince of Crows Creaking Bed by Deborah Kay DaviesToni Kan]]===

[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]]

This is a quiet but remarkable story, written in a style reminiscent of E. M. Forster, ''[Tirzah and Nights of the Prince of CrowsCreaking Bed'' has no great and stirring action but rather small ripples that make a huge impact. Tirzah is a young girl collection of sixteen raised in a small Welsh town in the 1970s short stories by highly religious parents as part of a strict religious communityToni Kan. The book follows Tirzah though a tumultuous year as she tries to decide who she wants to be, and what she wants to do with her life. [[Tirzah and the Prince series of stories tell of Crows by Deborah Kay Davies|Full Review]] <!-- Brooke Fieldhouse -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1789013992.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1789013992/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Gilded Ones by Brooke Fieldhouse]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] It was a hot day in 1984 and Pulse had two job interviews for the day, but the heat wasn't the only reason why he wasn't feeling on top form. He'd had a disturbing dream the night before. He'd been following a Porsche on a difficult route, probably somewhere in the Alps when the Porsche went off the road. The passenger, a man, was dead, but the woman was still alive. ''I'm Freia...'', she said. ''It's spelled the German way.'' Of the two job interviews, the first was with an up-lives and-coming design studio in Brighton and it would almost certainly be good for Pulse's career. The second was with a run-down practice based in lusts of an old London house and headed by Patrick Lloyd-Lewis, whose wife, Freia, had recently died in unexplained circumstances. The link with the dream assortment of the night before was too much for Pulse to refuse the offer of a job. He couldn't resist the lure of the mystery. [[The Gilded Ones by Brooke Fieldhouse|Full Review]]  <!-- Cullen -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0718189140.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0718189140/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Helen Cullen]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] William Woolf is a letter detective, working in the Dead Letters Depot characters living in East London. He spends his days deciphering smudged addresses, tracking down mysterious people and reading endless letters of love, guilt, death, hope, and everyday life. [[The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Helen Cullen|Full Review]] <!-- Dehnel -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1786073579.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786073579/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Lala by Jacek Dehnel and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''This is the mysterious nature of storytelling: the same start can also mean different endingsaround Lagos, and different starts can lead to the same finaleNigeria. It's all subordinate to the greater narrativeNigeria, which starts somewhere in Kiev''. This beautiful book this collection, is exactly that, the mysterious art imbued with its very own heart of storytellingdarkness. The wayward meanderings of memory, of tangents and digressions, of side notes and elaborations, but above all that of affection; for both Danger stalks the story shadows and the storyteller. What makes us who we people are if not our culture and heritage and in this book our narrator re-lives and re-tells the story of his heritage told to him by his grandmother. [[Lala by Jacek Dehnel and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Wise -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0857302183.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0857302183/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Emperor of Shoes by Spencer Wise]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''The Emperor of Shoes'' is the story of Alex Cohen, the heir to a lucrative shoe factory based in southern China. More idealistic killed for nothing more than his profit-obsessed father, and less motivated solely by the bottom line, he's unsure of himself: unsure whether he can continue his father's success. But complications arise when he starts to question how morally sound the business really is, and whether the workers are being given a fair dealwrong look. [[The Emperor of Shoes by Spencer Wise|Full Review]] <!-- Vodolazkin -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1786072718.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786072718/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Aviator by Eugene Vodolazkin and Lisa Hayden (Translator)]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Innokenty Petrovich Platonov wakes up in a hospital bed Kan writes with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. He is tended by a single doctor, Doctor Geiger, who gives him a pencil and notebook and encourages him to write down his observations and memories. The notebook is thick, like a novel. How can Innokenty fill it if he cannot remember anything? But slowly the memories start to return, memories of childhood holidays at the beach, of life in the dacha, of the airfield and the aviators...and the island...it seems like some memories may be better left buried. He remembers that he is the same age as the century, born in 1900. But if that is the case, how is he still a young man when the pills by his bedside are dated 1999? [[The Aviator by Eugene Vodolazkin and Lisa Hayden (Translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Houm -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1782273778.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782273778/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland by Nicolai Houm vitality and Anna Paterson (translator)]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Jane Ashland is dying. That's a description of a very early scene here – but also, of course, a platitude passion that can apply to all of us. Jane's life, if anything, is going up and down in levels of pleasure, energy – sobriety – in allows these pages, but we soon learn that it recently found a very deeply dark down place. Here then, scattered through a timeline-bending narrative, we have her days finding a Lincolnesque lover as a student in New York, glimpses of therapy, a drive to find her ancestors that takes her from rural America cynical stories to Norway – and a trip there with achieve a new-found friend to watch the musk oxen, glimmer of all thingshope. And nowhere in sight is anything like a platitude… [[The Gradual Disappearance Nights of Jane Ashland the Creaking Bed by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator)Toni Kan|Full Review]]