Nu Nu Yi's Smile as They Bow Translated from the Burmese by Alfred Birnbaum and Thi Thi Aye Hyperion Books, 2008 Reading this felt, for me, a little like reading a Katherine Mansfield short story. You know, the way that you slip in and out of the world she creates
Here is what I like about this year's Orange Prize list. Although I really don't need much convincing on this one: reading the OP backlist is an ongoing pet project of mine. First: Rebecca Gowers' The Twisted Heart Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs (Because I've already read them
Kristjana Gunnars' The Substance of Forgetting (1992) Taking on the work of Kristjana Gunnars could take you in a variety of directions. Off the shelf came a short story collection (Any Day But This, 2004), a poetry collection (Silence of the Country, 2002) and a collection of essays (which remains
Kristjana Gunnars' The Rose Garden (1996) When I bought my copy of The Rose Garden, it was shelved in Fiction at The Bookshelf in Guelph, which is such a good bookstore that eventually I had to move to the town so that I could visit there more often than once
Pat Barker's Regeneration (1991) Come on, admit it: you've avoided reading this because it's a war novel. It's okay: you're not alone. And how can a book about the horrors of war compete, when reading time is limited and it would be so much more fun to re-read Miss Pettigrew
