Literary

We Do Not Part by Han Kang Read More »

Devastating, gorgeously written and translated. I will be thinking about this book, about Kyungha and Inseon, the snow and the trees, the birds Ama and Ami, and the generations of spirits brought to life in these painful, breathtaking pages. Reading Han Kang’s work feels like a precious honor, and in the incredible wake of her Nobel win, We Do Not Part is an astounding introduction for many new readers.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang, (List Price: $28, Hogarth, 9780593595459, January 2025)

Reviewed by Emily Tarr, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama

Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey

Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey Read More »

Birdie is a single mother, barely making ends meet by waitressing in a small Alaskan town. Arthur is a shy, mysterious loner who lives in a remote region of the area. When she becomes involved with Arthur, Birdie thinks this is her chance to get closer to nature and finally change her life for the better. But when she and her daughter move in with Arthur they begin to uncover dangerous secrets. An ominous novel that highlights the beauty and dangers of the Alaskan wilderness and begs the question, What chances will you take to change your life?

Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey, (List Price: $29, Random House, 9780593231029, February 2025)

Reviewed by Kathy Clemmons, Sundog Books in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida

Go Tell It by Quartez Harris

Biography & Autobiography, Children, Juvenile Nonfiction, Literary

Go Tell It by Quartez Harris Read More »

Stunning, poetic, honest, and celebratory – what an incredible picture book for school-age kids and their families and classrooms. Gordon James captures Baldwin’s dynamic passion for books and words in beautiful, high-energy paintings. Quartez Harris writes about Baldwin’s life with care, lyricism, and honesty.

Go Tell It by Quartez Harris, (List Price: $18.99, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 9780316483933, January 2025)

Reviewed by Adah Fitzgerald, Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina

Sunday by Olivier Schrauwen

Comics & Graphic Novels, Literary

Buy from your local indie.

Olivier Schrauwen’s Sunday is an epic of interiority, emerging like a psychological hologram out of one fragile, mundane, ridiculous, precious human mind to commune with a world of love, sex, art, work, time, and experience at the nexus of the goofy and the transcendent: imagine James Joyce’s Ulysses as a comic book.

Sunday by Olivier Schrauwen, (List Price: $39.99, Fantagraphics, 9781683969679, October 2024)

Reviewed by Jonathan Hawpe, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky

Sunday by Olivier Schrauwen Read More »

Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantas Lobato

Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantas Lobato Read More »

A sparse novel about the desire to be independent and the struggle to remain connected that we all experience when we leave home. The switch in narration in the second and third sections pulled me out of the story a bit but served to highlight the growing distance between mother and daughter.

Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantas Lobato, (List Price: $17, Grove Press, Black Cat, 9780802163776, October 2024)

Reviewed by Melissa Taylor, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, Literary, Magical Realism

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami Read More »

This novel is uber-Murakami, the author back to the magical best of his earlier novels such as Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World (note: this makes sense, as the author writes in an afterword that this novel was a second attempt at reworking a novella, the first attempt being Hardboiled Wonderland). You don’t read a Murakami novel; you live it, holding on for dear life until it lets you off at the end, slightly confused but highly entertained. A magical world slowly unravels through an unnamed girl, while everyday life interweaves with it, featuring all the traditional Murakami Bingo tropes (loneliness, high school, jazz, pasta recipes, The Beatles, wells, libraries, cats…all the greatest hits!) There were a few minor logical bugbears, but plot logic was never Murakami’s strong suit. The simplicity of his language has long been a feature, but lately has felt more like a bug at times, with the repetition of banal thoughts (‘it was just my conjecture, but I was sure of it’; I nodded vaguely’ etc.) – perhaps as one of my all-time favourite authors I have come to expect more, but it was still great to be back in Murakami world.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami, (List Price: $35, Knopf, 9780593801970, November 2024)

Reviewed by Doron Klemer, Octavia Books in New Orleans, Louisiana

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Adult Fiction, Banned Books, Fiction, Literary

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood Read More »

Atwood is the queen of dystopian fiction. Be prepared to read the full trilogy if you start Oryx and Crake. Alone, this was a great read, but completing the circle ties it all together nicely. Fans of Station Eleven who haven’t read the MaddAddam trilogy from Atwood definitely need to add this to their list!

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, (List Price: $16.95, Anchor, 9780385721677, March 2004)

Reviewed by Krista Roach, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

Spotlight on: Time of the Child by Niall Williams

Adult Fiction, Family Life, Literary, Small Town & Rural

It seems to me that all novelists are explorers of unknown worlds. They map them as they go, the white pages showing the tracks of their discoveries, making actual the imagined or unknown. Sometime during the writing of the early pages of This is Happiness, I knew that I had found a world in the west Clare village of Faha. For some time, I had subscribed to the belief in the enormity of small places, the idea that wherever human beings are living the possibilities of story are not bound by the limits of space or number but are in fact endless.

With that novel, something occurred to me that hadn’t happened before. The longer I continued writing about Faha, the more I wanted to stay inside those pages.

― Niall Williams, Dubray Book Blog

What booksellers are saying about Time of the Child

Such a decadent delicious tale set in Ireland. I devoured it in a day. Could not put this book down. Left me with a raw hangover in a world I didn’t want to leave. Many people will put their nose up at small-town life, but this book shows the power of belonging, accepting, and loving. A doctor who has been serving the community for years and his steady daughter Ronnie were brought a baby during Advent and they hide her without the townspeople suspecting. What rolls out is remarkable and so heartfelt. I can’t wait for others to chat about it. Going back to reading more of this genius’s books.
― Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina | BUY
With a return to Faha, Niall Williams writes a charming Christmas story in a town turned upside down by an abandoned baby–which brings out the best in humanity.
― Cheryl Lindstrom, Fonts Books in McLeann, Virginia | BUY
I so loved the small Irish town of Faha in Williams This is Happiness — all the characters and their messy, honest humanness and humor! It was great returning to this town full of heart and a perfect read for the holidays. You’ll laugh a lot; you’ll feel a lot of love.
― Morgan DePerno, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina | BUY
Absolutely fabulous story! William’s writing is a literary art form that is astounding! Loved it! A must read!
― Stephanie Crowe, Page & Palette in Fairhope, Alabama | BUY
Like Niall Williams’ earlier novel This is Happiness, Time of the Child is populated with real people we feel we know—fully developed characters for whom Williams’ empathy never wavers. There’s an animated plot that’s equal parts strange, warm, funny, and poignant, played out with sentences that beg to be underlined for their elegance, their humor, and their profound honesty. The story is set during Christmas, and I expect that I’ll be giving this jewel of a novel as a gift to everyone I know this year, as I did Small Things Like These, by Williams’ compatriot Claire Keegan in 2023.
― Clara Boza, Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in Asheville, North Carolina | BUY

About Niall Williams

Niall Williams was born in Dublin. He is the author of nine novels, including History of the Rain, which was long listed for the Booker Prize and Four Letters of Love, which will soon be a major motion picture starring Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter, and Gabriel Byrne. His most recent novel, This Is Happiness was nominated for The Irish Books Award, The Walter Scott Prize, and was one of the Washington Post’s Books of the Year. He lives in Kiltumper in County Clare, Ireland.

Spotlight on: Time of the Child by Niall Williams Read More »

Havoc by Christopher Bollen

Havoc by Christopher Bollen Read More »

Oh, my! I have no idea what I have just read. Definitely dark, often crazy, sometimes funny, and impossible to put down. A psychological thriller unlike anything I have ever read. A meddlesome 81-year-old woman who has an unstoppable urge to “help” people she thinks are troubled meets her match with an eight-year-old little boy who could be compared to Patty McCormick in The Bad Seed. Together, they wreak havoc upon each other and the guests and staff at the once opulent hotel in Luxor Egypt where they have gathered to escape Covid lockdowns in their home countries. You will not soon forget Maggie Burkhardt, or the ending!

Havoc by Christopher Bollen, (List Price: $30, Harper, 9780063378896, December 2024)

Reviewed by Nancy McFarlane, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, South Carolina

Brightly Shining by Ingvild Rishøi

Adult Fiction, Fiction, Holidays, Literary

Brightly Shining by Ingvild Rishøi Read More »

This is a winter novel for those of us who name Hans Christian Anderson’s stories among our favorite fairy tales. Ronja’s voice is perfect – poignant and descriptive but still true to a ten-year-old. I felt for her and for Melissa, her older sister, dealing with a parent whose good intentions were never going to see the family through to the happy Christmas Ronja envisioned. The moment I finished the book, I immediately flipped back to the first page to reassess the beginning in light of how it ends… and nearly got sucked back into re-reading the entire novel.

Brightly Shining by Ingvild Rishøi, (List Price: $20, Grove Press, 9780802163493, November 2024)

Reviewed by Ginger Kautz, Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, North Carolina

The Heartbeat Library by Laura Imai Messina

Adult Fiction, BIPOC, Fiction, Literary

The Heartbeat Library by Laura Imai Messina Read More »

“Preserving our memory….because people come back to life only in the memory of others.” The Heartbeat Library is about those we have lost but remember with grief and healing and good memories. It is a book that will never be forgotten but remembered as all readers live their lives with hopes and dreams and pain and grief and loves and sorrows. This book will touch the soul of all who turn its pages. Shuichi, a 40-year-old illustrator, returns to his hometown to ready the house of his recently deceased mother for sale. He meets Kenta, an 8-year-old boy who wanders his mother’s house like a shadow. The two help each other through difficult days of their lives. Hearing the heartbeat of his mother and deceased son, Shingo will forever impress these beats on all readers and have all thinking about happiness and memories and loss and hopes.

The Heartbeat Library by Laura Imai Messina, (List Price: $27, The Overlook Press, 9781419772498, October 2024)

Reviewed by Nancy Pierce, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia

The Burrow by Melanie Cheng

Buy from your local indie.

Melanie Cheng’s novel The Burrow is a compact, moving story of a family tragedy. Beautifully written words show all believable family members as they deal with the death of the infant Ruby in a tragic accident. Each member of the family becomes intimately known to the reader as each relates their private feelings about each other and the trauma and grief. Relief is brought by the rabbit, Fiver, as Grandma Pauline and ten-year-old daughter Lucie bond with the new pet. The father Jin and mother Amy show their weaknesses, guilt, and imperfections in this realistic telling of a family’s pain and love, and hope.

The Burrow by Melanie Cheng, (List Price: $16.95, Tin House Books, 9781959030867, November 2024)

Reviewed by Nancy Pierce, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia

The Burrow by Melanie Cheng Read More »

Hard Copy by Fien Veldman