Readers familiar with Haruki Murakami will know that music is often a central theme in his work. The author once owned a jazz club, and his website even offers a collection of playlists featuring songs mentioned in his books. This theme is on full display in First Person Singular, as is Murakami's ...
Read ReviewIn the short story 'With the Beatles' from his collection First Person Singular, Haruki Murakami refers to the writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Akutagawa was born in 1892 in Tokyo's Kyōbashi district. His mother was mentally ill, and his father was unable to take care of him, so he was sent...
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Mary H.K. Choi's young adult offering Yolk deftly maintains several plotlines running through the life of main character Jayne, a Korean American college student in New York City. Jayne's older sister, June, learns she has uterine cancer, and the question of whether she will recover lingers over the...
Read ReviewGilmore Girls, Lane Kim and Asian Americans on Television
In Mary H.K. Choi's Yolk, June is particularly fond of the Warner Brothers (WB) Network television series Gilmore Girls. At first glance, the show seems like a somewhat anachronistic and unlikely pop culture presence in the novel. Set in Connecticut, it first aired in 2000; Choi's characters June ...
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It is 1978 and the place is New York City. A massive bacchanalian party is taking place at an Upper West Side apartment suite inside the Apelles complex, a beehive of well-to-do and elite New Yorkers. Hazel Saltwater is six years old and inexplicably dropped into the middle of this vortex of drugs, ...
Read ReviewImpact of the Blizzard of 1978 on the Northeastern U.S.
Jack Livings' debut novel The Blizzard Party revolves around an incident that occurs during the historic 'Blizzard of '78,' a massive storm that hit the northeastern United States February 5-7, 1978, burying New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the New York metropolitan area under feet of snow....
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Renia, Sarah, Zivia, Frumka, Hantze, Tosia, Vladka, Chajka, Gusta, Hela, Bela, Lonka, Tema, Chasia, Chaika, Ruzka, Vitka, Zelda, Faye, and Anna.
These are the names of the women who populate Judy Batalion's nonfiction narrative, The Light of Days. It is, to be sure, a dizzying cast of characters...
Holocaust Refugees and the British White Papers
'To fight or flee?' This is a question the Polish resistance fighters must ask themselves in Judy Batalion's The Light of Days. As the German army advanced across Europe and persecution of the Jews intensified, those who chose to flee had to decide where to go. As their own countries were invaded, ...
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In Hummingbird Salamander, Jeff VanderMeer weaves cybersecurity, bioterrorism, wildlife trafficking and climate change into a cryptic story. While the book includes hallmarks of dystopian fiction, its bizarre events unfold in a world that is eerily relatable to our current moment, sitting in a ...
Read ReviewWildlife Trafficking in Latin America
In Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer, the main character is left a taxidermied hummingbird as a clue. Early on in the book, it is revealed that this hummingbird belongs to a now-extinct species; wildlife trafficking and environmental degradation both become themes of the novel. ...
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The Women of Chateau Lafayette
The Women of Chateau Lafayette, Stephanie Dray's latest work of historical fiction, revolves around three courageous individuals who navigate the dangers of warfare during different time periods: Adrienne Lafayette (1759-1807), a politically astute woman who helped her husband usher in the French ...
Read ReviewIn The Women of Chateau Lafayette, New York socialite and war supporter Beatrice Ashley Chanler is often at odds with the Woman's Peace Party (WPP), an organization that opposed war in general and the United States' entry into World War I in particular. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia ...
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The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman
by Julietta Henderson
A charming, uplifting debut about a mother and her 12-year-old son, an aspiring comedian.
The Widow Queen
by Elzbieta Cherezinska
The epic story of an 11th century Polish queen whose life and name were all but forgotten until now.
Miss Austen
by Gill Hornby
For fans of Jo Baker's Longbourn, a witty, poignant novel about Cassandra Austen and her famous sister, Jane.
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