There is no great mystery at the heart of Jennifer LoveGrove's debut novel. No simple explanation for the way its pages turn, relentlessly. Emily's story is a quiet story, the ground beneath her feet shifting subtly, though inexorably. In relaying her story to readers, Jennifer LoveGrove makes a series of
Everything I know about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which precipitated WWI, I learned from fiction. First, Aleksandar Hemon's short story, "The Accordian", which explores the very moment of the shots' impact, inspired by the presence of a bystander. This man seems to be the author's grandfather, standing in the
Perhaps Michael Hingston, like Alex, "wanted to find a way to make the culture sit still, even for a minute, so he could find a way to enjoy it for a little while longer". Freehand Books, 2013 The Dilettantes presses campus life between its pages. It makes it
A blindfolded woman in labour, in the back of a van that has left Evin Prison in Tehran. It's an un-put-down-able scene. Atria Books - Simon & Schuster, 2013 It's 1983, in the third year of the war with Iraq, but the fierce immediacy of the story pulls
Before I began reading Bone and Bread, I read Mother Superior, Saleema Nawaz's debut, a collection of stories. House of Anansi, 2013 About "Bloodlines", I noted: "S keeps Khalsa (pure, according to Sikh law) and B does not, so B grows larger and S grows smaller, above a Montreal bagel
