Few people spend years learning how to save lives only to find themselves confronting the limits of their own. Paul Kalanithi did. At 36, when his long and demanding neurosurgical training was nearly complete, doctors discovered stage IV lung cancer in his body. The future he had worked towards suddenly became uncertain. This When Breath Read more…
Remarkably Bright Creatures Book Review: Grief, Belonging and One Very Clever Octopus An elderly cleaner and a captive octopus hardly sound like the likeliest pair around which to build a novel. Yet that unusual friendship is precisely what gives Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt its charm. What begins as a gently eccentric story Read more…
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store Review: Where Community Becomes an Act of Resistance Some novels introduce a community. Others invite you to live inside one, listening to its arguments, absorbing its secrets and gradually learning who will show up when someone needs help. James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store belongs firmly to Read more…
Broken Country Book Review: A Beautiful Story That Needed More Emotional Depth What happens when the person you once loved returns after you have built an entirely different life? Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall begins with that familiar question, then leads it somewhere darker. The Dorset countryside of the 1950s and 1960s provides the Read more…
A Man by Keiichiro Hirano: Can We Ever Escape Who We Were? What would you do if you discovered that the person you loved had died under someone else’s name? Would the life you shared become a lie, or would your memories remain untouched by the deception? That unsettling question opens A Man by Keiichiro Read more…
Shantaram Book Review: A Beautiful, Flawed Search for Freedom Some books tell you a story and quietly step away. Others move into your head, rearrange the furniture, and continue talking long after you have closed them. Shantaram belongs firmly to the second category. It is sprawling, dramatic, philosophical, tender, violent, and sometimes frustratingly pleased with Read more…
Yeonnam-dong’s Smiley Laundromat Review: Can Kindness Bring Strangers Together? Some books sweep us away from ordinary life. Others find something worth holding on to within it. Yeonnam-dong’s Smiley Laundromat belongs firmly to the latter category. Its world is built from washing machines, lukewarm coffee, unpaid bills, family disagreements, and conversations that almost never happen. None Read more…
The Bee Sting Review: A Family Falling Apart One Secret at a Time Some books keep you turning the pages because of the story. Others keep you turning them because you can’t stop thinking about the people inside it. The Bee Sting keeps you reading for a different reason. You want to understand why these Read more…
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats Book Review: A Story That Quietly Finds Its Way Into Your Heart I almost made the mistake of judging this book too early. The first few chapters didn’t completely pull me in, and for a while I wondered whether I’d built it up too much in my head. That can Read more…
Under Your Skin Book Review: A Slow-Burn Psychological Thriller That Prefers Questions to Answers Some thrillers grab you by the collar from the very first chapter. Others slip quietly under your skin, only revealing their impact long after you’ve turned the final page. As a book, Under Your Skin belongs to the second group. Sabine Durrant Read more…
